“Retain?”
July 29th, 2010Here’s the Trib’s Editorial endorsement of Roger Reinert.
I’m mostly pleased with the Trib’s editorial endorsement of Roger Reinert. I was but an afterthought but the Trib didn’t go out of its way to disparage me other than to say it appears my desire to have the state pay for part of the Red Plan is illegal. That changing the law is part and parcel of what legislators do seems not to occur to them. Perhaps this should not surrpise me because the Trib seems not to understand that journalism and the news often go together.
Quibble Two: The headline uses the wrong word, “retain” when taking about electing Roger to the Senate. But Roger is not in the Senate. This is analagous to saying Roger should be reelected. Clumsy word choice.
Quibble Three: Roger is given credit for seeing that LGA (Local Governmental Aid) will probably die off in the next ten years. I told the Trib almost the same thing so Roger’s brilliant analysis seems to apply to me as well.
Quibble Four: This gushing compliment ” For two years, he’s been trying to engage Minnesotans — via Facebook, e-mailed updates, letters to the editor and other avenues — to partner with him and the Legislature to find solutions. The teacher in him has worked tirelessly to educate constituents about tough decisions that must be made.”
I’m sorry but for three years the teacher in me has created websites, a blog, emailed extensively, organized a grass roots organization, and kept the public up to date about an issue of surpassing importance that the Trib dismisses (Quibble five) as “hardly a statewide issue.”
Quibble Five continued: Just because the Trib finds the Red Plan tiresome and reporting about it likely to cause subscriptions to be canceled doesn’t mean that the theft of a vote is not a state wide issue or that the cost of the biggest ever school building project does not have state wide significance. If every other school district in the state did what Duluth is doing the State would see something like 20 billion in construction without local approval. That’s almost four times larger than the current state budget crisis.
Quibble Six: In the four sentences devoted to me in the Reinert endorsement the Trib published one good quote of mine: “I’m not afraid to say what needs to be said for fear of compromising my political future.” Considering how Roger and most other local pols hid under rocks rather than deal with the Red Plan I think what the Trib said about Roger: “He’s the DFL’s best option for representing our city on a larger stage’” would be better said of me.
Since this is now the public record I’m posting the editorial in its entirety here: Read the rest of this entry »