MATTHEWS, TO CLINTON CAMPAIGN ADVISER LISA CAPUTO: Well, we’re having a little bit of fun here tonight with the opportunity of Republican conventioneers to arrive at the airport out there and immediately go to the Larry Craig Memorial Bathroom and check in and let everybody know they know some history. Then go to the bridge that fell down in St. Paul. There’s a lot to celebrate for the Republican conventioneers as they get together.

While Matthews’ knowledge of geography is laughable — the section of 35W fell in Minneapolis not St. Paul — it’s hard to see humor in a tragedy that killed 13.

–John McCain in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, via AP.

Really? So even though the state ignored a consultant’s recommendation that the bridge needed a couple of million dollars’ worth of structural reinforcement, and even though Pawlenty/Molnau’s MnDOT  had a track record of leaving available federal transportation dollars on the table, a few simple reforms to Congressional earmarking would have caused the requisite dollars to flow to Minnesota to solve a problem whose existence the Minnesota Department of Transportation denied in the first place?

As Libby Quaid of AP demonstrates, this is pretty much what McCain does believe. Confronted later in the day with a health care earmark that has proven beneficial, a flustered McCain prated for a bit about the Mafia before concluding, “Look, if we reform the process, then the money will take care of itself. It’s a corrupt process.”

So there’s McCain’s good-government plan in a nutshell: anti-pork, pro-magic. 

“I’ve been a little skeptical of the polls that have come out in the last couple of months showing that Coleman and Franken are in a dead heat,” says Schultz. “The reason why is exactly what this poll is pointing out. The weakness that Franken has had all along, I thought, was among female suburban voters. As I’ve mentioned on this report in the past, that’s a key swing vote that you need to pick up to win statewide office in Minnesota. It’s the key vote that Franken and Coleman are fighting for in this election. This is the vote that Amy Klobuchar nailed hands down two years ago. She got 63 percent of the female vote in the state of Minnesota.

“This poll suggests that whatever inroads [Franken] was starting to make among that constituency, he still hasn’t closed the deal. As I’ve talked to different groups in places like Plymouth, Minnetonka, Maple Grove–places that I think are going to be the battleground–Democratic party leaders out there are very, very antsy about Franken for that very reason. They’re saying that what they’re hearing on the ground, despite what the polls were saying until a few days ago, is that Franken is not playing well with that constituency. Whether or not the gap is 10 points, I don’t know. But I think it does point to the fact that this is a soft spot of support for Franken in one key constituency.”

Also: Obama’s speech on race, Florida/Michigan follies, and NTSB/35W bridge politics. 

The Schultz Report audiocast (12:11)

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Two weeks ago, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed, killing 13 and injuring dozens.  And this past weekend, at least six died in flooding in southeastern Minnesota.

The worst part? There are still 11 days left to go.

The twin calamities this month couldn’t be more different.  The 35W bridge disaster was man-made, but one that had an element of luck to it.  We now know that MnDOT was so concerned about the bridge they feared it may need to be condemned but held back from repairing it in an effort to seek out a cost-effective solution.

But luck spared us a worse disaster than we endured.  The unlucky 13 killed in the collapse of the bridge could have been many dozen more, had the school bus trapped on the bridge been just 20 or 30 feet further along in its travels.  Less than a second’s breadth separated us from something more horrific than even the horror we’ve had to endure.

The disaster in the southeast of the state was not man-made, but it had an element of luck, too.  Had the deluge that hit our state been spread out in two or three storms, there would have been no flood to speak of.  But the rains came too quickly for the ground to absorb them.

The damage in dollar value to our state is in the hundreds of millions of dollars — possibly more than a billion, when you factor the economic costs in.  But the psychic damage to our state is greater.

Read more…Minnesotans think of ourselves as a special lot.  We’re not like those folks down in Iowa, or over in the Dakotas.  And don’t get us started on the cheeseheads.  No, we’re a different sort of group, the kind who pull together and help out the neighbors when their crops fail and Tbuild strong roads and strong communities because that’s what you do.

But we’ve abandoned that in the last decade.  And now we are at the point where our state’s infrastructure is literally falling apart, and the best some of us can do is despair that taxes may have to be raised to pay for roads that don’t collapse on a sunny summer’s day.

Minnesota is not the state it once was.

That point was driven home to me this weekend.  Nobody and nothing can prevent tragedy; we may find that the disaster in the southeast had no easy prevention, that it was, as the insurance agents will put it, an “act of God.”  Perhaps there was no levee that could have protected against the flooding, no police that could have secured the area to prevent a car from chancing a water crossing it was not designed to make.  We may find this was just the sort of senseless, random tragedy our species has had to deal with for the past 200 millennia.  And before 35W collapsed, I would have felt sure of that.

But now I wonder: did we cut corners somewhere?  Could we have had state troopers out, but for the cost-effectiveness of it?  Could we have built levees, if the money had been there?  Could we have done something to prevent this, if only we’d been willing to make the sacrifices needed to do so?

Maybe not.  Probably not.  But I wouldn’t have even entertained the possibility a month ago.  Back then I believed that Minnesota was a state that did what it could to protect its residents, even if that wasn’t always cheap or easy.  I don’t believe that state exists anymore.  It’s gone — it turned out that kind of wishy-washy, liberal thinking was interfering with tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.  And why should we ask the best off among us to look out for the least among us?  Let the poor build their own bridges.

We owe each other something.  We owe our children something.  We owe our neighbors something.  No, the government can’t solve every problem, nor should it, but it can solve some problems better than private enterprise can — or “government” as an institution wouldn’t have survived Adam Smith.  There is every good reason to ask that government do things efficiently and carefully.  But it can’t do its job well if it lacks the resources to do it at all.  We, the people of Minnesota, have to ask ourselves if we hope for our state in 2025 to resemble Minnesota — or Alabama.  I know which one I’d choose, and why.  Do you?

A statement issued by Laura Baenen, communications director for Central Corridor LRT, said that “quick assessment of the LRT issue was needed because of the desire to move forward with the I-35W bridge replacement as expeditiously as possible”

But in a statement given to the Pioneer Press’ City Hall Scoop blog, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy said, Even if the bridge were just made transit-compatible, the line itself could afford to put the tracks across the bridge and save $200 million.”

And writing on the St. Paul Issues Forum, David Greene wrote, “We’re talking about the potential to save hundreds of millions of dollars on the Central Corridor project. We’re talking about the opportunity to put more stations in the Midway area as one west side station would be eliminated in the new alignment. Of course, this is all subject to a study that shows it’s the right thing to do but we should demand due diligence on this bridge. The governor wants to cut corners.”

The Metropolitan Council and the Central Corridor Management Committee will hold a joint meeting at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in the Met Council’s chambers, 390 N. Robert Street, St. Paul.

*  *  *

Do you have an opinion about the new I-35W bridge?  Are there features you would like to see included?  Do you have concerns about the cost of the project or the timeline involved in getting it completed?  And are you planning to attend the open meetings?  Minnesota Monitor would like to hear from you.  Please respond in the comments or, if you prefer, contact us directly at tipsATMinnesotamonitorDOTcom. 

That’s the theory of Sorcha Faal, a conspiracy theorist that even the conspiracy theorists think might be a bit nutty, who said that, “Russia’s Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics detected an ultra-low-frequency blast emitted from Augsburg College, located only a mile from the bridge.”

Of course, the Institute denied that, but they would, wouldn’t they?

(UPDATE: A reader of Minnesota Monitor writes to say that Faal’s story may be a spoof.  Maybe.  Or maybe that’s just what they want you to believe.)

If you don’t believe that the U.S. government, the illuminati, and the trilateral commission are aiming secret weapons at our nation’s bridges, you could instead cling to the more reasonable idea that this is just further evidence that the Mothman Prophecies are true. 

And if that’s not bizarre enough for you, you could simply blame it on NAFTA.  That’s what Jerome Corsi (of Swift Boat fame) has done, saying that I-35W’s status as a “NAFTA Superhighway” caused the collapse.  Of course, as Luis Miranda reports that it’s all just part of the eventual plan to merge America, Mexico, and Canada into a big supercountry. 

*  *  *

As Eric Black reported yesterday, Fred Phelps is coming to town.  The question on everyone’s mind is whether Phelps will lead his flock in a rousing rendition of “God Hates the World,” which includes beautiful lyrics like:

You’ll eat your kids
(yeah you’ll eat `em)
You hateful people
(the seige is coming)
You every one face a fiery day
For your proud sinning

It’s not quite “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but it’ll do in a pinch.

*  *  *

A deputy commissioner of transportation is saying that the 35W repair may force the state to delay other projects, drawing an attack from the House speaker, who said now is not the time to put off other repairs.

In an report from Minnesota Public Radio, Lisa Freese said, “Until we know the true cost of building the replacement structure, it will be difficult for us to determine the effect that it will have on our highway program. However, it is safe to say that there will be some impact and that we may need to defer some things in order to get the new bridge in place.”

That statement was echoed by House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, who was quoted as saying, “The bridge that collapsed is the busiest bridge in the state of Minnesota, so we have to keep that all in mind.”

But House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, disagreed.  MPR quoted her as saying, “This is a wake-up call and a call to action for all Minnesota legislators to take action and be able to do something that will begin to address the backlog of projects that are out there.”

*  *  *

Taxpayer’s League President and former Republican state representative Phil Krinkie has issued a statement on the 35W bridge collapse, saying, “We mourn the loss of life and the injuries. Now is a time for all Minnesotans to join together to comfort the victims and their families.”

Krinkie added, “Over the coming months there will be an investigation and a proper, informed debate about the causes and appropriate response to the bridge collapse. Until all the facts are known, it is not the time to assign blame or engage in political gamesmanship…It would be disappointing indeed to see any irresponsible people attempt to use this tragedy for political or partisan purposes.”

You’d think by now they’d learn to plan ahead.  But no, they’re just taking, taking, taking, expecting the American taxpayer to bail them out, to pay for their mistakes, to reward them for their lackadaisical attitudes.

I looked around for local reaction.  It’s strange that the Taxpayer’s League hasn’t started complaining.  Usually they’re all over government decisions like this.  Also strangely silent have been members of Minnesota’s conservative blogosphere.  But conservatives have been relatively silent about the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars that the federal government is handing over to those people.

more insideOf course, there’s a good reason for that.  This time, “those people” are us.  It was our own lack of foresight that led to disaster.  It is our own poor planning that has led the federal government to funnel a quarter-billion dollars to us, to help us rebuild a bridge that, had we had a better process in place, may never have fallen in the first place.

Oh, I can already hear the conservatives howling in protest that this is “different.”  When a poor family’s sole breadwinner gets cancer and can’t afford health care, that’s his own lack of planning and saving, but when one of the most affluent states in the union has a bridge inspection process that misses a bridge literally so damaged that it falls into the Mississippi, not because of weather or earthquake, but gravity, that’s a disaster that we couldn’t foresee.  When New Orleans is all but destroyed in a hurricane, it’s the city’s fault that they only got 95 percent of the people out, and who are those people to expect the federal government to get aid there quickly?  When it’s our bridge that falls, we hope for government action within three days, to allow us to rebuild as quickly as possible.  When a middle-class family loses its home due to a predatory mortgage, or a factory worker loses his job because it’s been shipped overseas, or an average family can’t afford to send a child to college because of skyrocketing tuition, these people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. 

When our bridge falls, we’ve got our hand out.  Immediately.

Now, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the federal government decided to help us rebuild the 35W Mississippi River Bridge.  Indeed, that’s part of what the federal government is there for — to help when states need help, when they deal with emergencies, even with ones that with more state spending and focus might have been prevented.  And I’d say the same thing if a bridge collapsed in Birmingham or Los Angeles or Salt Lake City or Providence. 

But if it was another state facing disaster, or worse, just a family, those on the right side of the aisle here would be singing quite a different tune then they are now.  They’d be explaining why we’re just encouraging risk, why we’re rewarding bad behavior, why we’re having to support those people again and again and again, and why we shouldn’t anymore.

It’s the difference in attitude.  My fellow liberals and I believe that there are times when the government should help people who can’t help themselves, whether that aid is to help dig out from a disaster on the scale of New Orleans or a disaster on the scale of a woman losing her job and wondering how she and her husband are going to feed their three kids.  We believe that those people are us, and that we need to help each other.

Conservatives, contra wise, believe that people should be able to do for themselves, and if those people fail, that’s just their tough luck.  Unless those people happen to be us.  Then, we’re owed help.  After all, we’re different than they are.  The conservatives believe that we deserve it, even when those people don’t.

“We don’t believe the southern portion of the bridge is where the accident began,” said National Transportation Safety Board Chair Mark Rosenker, MPR reported.

* * *

Police have identified the eight people still missing in the bridge collapse.  They are Richard Chit, Peter Hausmann, Greg Jolstad, Vera Peck, Christina Sacorafas, Sadiya Adam Sahal, Hannah Sahal and Scott Sathers. 

* * *

CNN is reporting that construction on a replacement bridge over the Mississippi River could open as soon as late 2008, with a contract for the bridge reconstruction to be signed within the next six weeks.

The measure will authorize $250 million in federal funds to help Minnesota recover and rebuild after the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River.

The measure was authored in the house by Rep. James Oberstar, DFL-Minn., who chairs the House Transportation Committee.  It was co-sponsored by the other seven members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation.  In the Senate, the measure was backed by both of Minnesota’s senators, Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar.

“The state of Minnesota has 13,000 bridges; 1,135 are structurally deficient, and 451 are functionally obsolescent.  That is 12.2 percent; it is one of the lowest percentages in the country, but it underscores a serious problem with the state of Minnesota’s and with the nation’s bridges,” said Oberstar in a statement.

The measure passed unanimously in the House, and was agreed to without objection in the Senate.

“This Senate vote is good news for Minnesota at the close of a week that has brought so much heartbreak to our state,” said Klobuchar in a statement.  “Senator Coleman and I were able to impress upon our colleagues the importance and urgency of this funding.  This was the most-heavily traveled bridge in the state and our people and businesses absolutely depend on it.”

Coleman agreed, saying in a statement, “We must take immediate steps to rebuild this important artery in the heart of the Mill City. By authorizing the reconstruction of the bridge, authorizing the project for emergency relief funding, and providing transit assistance to ease congestion in the interim, we can begin this long but necessary process.  We are going to rebuild this bridge as a community and we are going to rebuild it quickly.”

The measures passed by the House and Senate were slightly different; the House is expected to approve the changes today, and send the bill to President Bush for approval.