In the midst of that skewered expectation comes along Ostermeir. He naively has the guts to make a reasoned, fact based observation and is excoriated for what some other people, such a Ellison, may conclude concerning such observations. It is beyond the pale.

“It’s the economy, stupid.”

What crap. Ostermeier’s “descriptive account of the demographics” is what connected the dots, not Ellison. That was the whole point of Ellison’s legitimate complaint. Yet Ostermeier seems to want to brush it off by saying it’s not true? Ostermeier seems to have a hard time accepting criticism, choosing instead to just throw more statistics at the issue to have the last word. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of misfired analysis from this guy. Perhaps he should stick to number crunching and leave the analysis to someone else.

“Ellison’s core constituencies in his district are extremely unenthusiastic about his representation”

Uh, no. There’s an alternative explanation: Everyone in the district KNOWS he will have no trouble getting reelected, so why contribute? His approval is sky-high, despite the unethical and racist Humphrey Institute and the Star Tribune implying that he is some kind of Muslim plant.

Here is my theory – Ellison’s core constituencies in his district are extremely unenthusiastic about his representation. He won by a huge margin because he is a DFLer in one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic districts in the country and he had no credible opposition. It was not because Ellison’s constituents are enamored with him, like Bachman’s constituents obviously are real enthused about her. That is where the comes in. Whatever one thinks of Bachman’s or Ellison’s politics, Bachman has remained true to her core constituencies and Ellison has not. Ellison portrayed himself as a peace and justice candidate, and an advocate for the economically oppressed. Since election, he has compromised his principles and catered to the established power-structure in DC at every opportunity. Even his Muslim supporters who contributed who accounted for a very large amount of donations in the past have backed off – at least those in his district and are presumably most familiar with him. So it is only people who are less familiar with Ellison, and his family, that are still motivated to contribute.

I addressed this issue in my article:

“Itemized individual contributions (which are normally those totaling more than $200), account for approximately three-fourths of Ellison’s total individual contributions (73.0 percent), or nearly $1.3 million since 2006. Twenty-seven percent of such funds have come in the form of smaller (unitemized) donations during that span, or about $479K.”

Unitemized contributions cannot be broken down by in-state/out-of-state.

In Q1 2009, Michele Bachmann led the way with 31.8 percent of her contributions coming from such small donors. Ellison came in at 21.2 percent.

True – but the median income of Ellison’s CD ($48,287) is basically the same as that of fellow DFLer Tim Walz ($49,274) (data source: 2007 American Community Survey). Walz’s Q1 2009 out-of-state itemized individual contribution rate: 7.2 percent.

Also, the median income of the 5th is also higher than Collin Peterson’s 7th CD ($44,311), which is the lowest in the state. Peterson’s Q1 2009 out-of-state itemized individual contribution rate: still 30 points less than Ellison, 53.5 percent.