The Minnesota GOP is charging the DFL with Catholic bashing over a campaign postcard showing a religious leader wearing a clerical collar and a button that reads “Ignore the poor.” While the GOP is calling the piece “anti-Catholic,” it’s targeting Dan Hall, an evangelical pastor and Republican candidate for the state Senate in Bloomington and Burnsville.

The Republican Party of Minnesota started flogging the mailer on Twitter on Monday evening, and soon Catholic news services were condemning the mailer.

GOP deputy chair Michael Brodkorb tweeted:

“@MNGOP flooded w/calls from outraged people upset at @MinnesotaDFL anti-Catholic mailing funded by @Mark_Dayton’s kids”

And:

“I’m at @MNGOP HQ for 11am press event on @MinnesotaDFL anti-Catholic mailing bankrolled by @Mark_Dayton’s kids…”

Soon, a National Catholic Register blogger called it “THE most anti-Catholic political advertisement I’ve ever seen.” Commonweal magazine blasted the mailer, but later corrected its story after viewing the full ad, which makes it clear that it targets candidate Hall, who is not Catholic. So did American Magazine, a national Catholic weekly, which apologized for using the term “anti-Catholic” to describe the mailer.

Hall is an evangelical and founded the Midwest Chaplains, a group that prays with legislators at the Legislature.

Clerical collars are common among Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Apostolic and Pentecostal traditions, in addition to Catholic and Orthodox traditions for which it is best known. Hall told Commonweal that he doesn’t wear a clerical collar.

It’s also not the first mailer by the DFL to use religious imagery against Hall.

The Minnesota DFL, which paid for the mailer, said that the GOP and bloggers were falsely characterizing the mailer.

“I understand that some Republican bloggers have taken one image from the first piece, and claimed that the mail is somehow anti-Catholic,” said DFL chair Brian Melendez in a statement. “But the text explicitly criticizes Preacher Hall for distancing himself from policy views that have been taken by the Catholic Archdiocese, by the Lutheran Synod, and other leaders in Minnesota’s faith community. Dan Hall is willing to enlist God and religion in his campaign when it helps him — but in fact, his views hurt the poorest and sickest among us, and this mailing holds him accountable for those views.”

danhall

The Minnesota GOP, however, held a press conference on Wednesday continuing to condemn the mailing as anti-Catholic.

“These deeply offensive anti-Catholic mailings from the DFL Party have absolutely no place in our state,” wrote Republican Sen. Amy Koch of Buffalo in a press release. “As the standard bear [sic] of his party and DFL nominee for governor, Mark Dayton must denounce these unconscionable smears and tell his Party that they have gone too far. For Dayton’s Party to suggest that the Catholic Church has been ignoring the poor is the most irresponsible and deplorable attack I have ever seen during my time in public service.”

But, by the time the press conference had wrapped up, Dayton had already called it “inappropriate” in a statement to reporters.

“I believe the brochure’s picture showing a Man of the Cloth is inappropriate. I believe that it is inappropriate to bring religion into a campaign as this image and others do,” said Dayton. “I believe the brochure’s referencing Leaders of the Faith Community criticizing the damage to GAMC is appropriate. The facts are that members of Minnesota’s Faith Community have been leaders in the fight to stop Governor Pawlenty from denying health care to the poorest and sickest Minnesotans.”

It’s not the first time this week that a candidate’s faith has become a campaign issue. A day earlier, Republican candidate Teresa Collett questioned Rep. Betty McCollum’s faith after an 8-year-old video allegedly showed McCollum omitting the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. McCollum is Catholic.

DFL chair Brian Melendez questioned the finances of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer at a press conference on Thursday. According to public documents, Emmer has taken out seven separate mortgages on his Delano home for a total value of $1.6 million. Melendez said the DFL is raising the issue because Emmer frequently uses the phrase “live within your means” on the campaign trail.

“We are all aware of Tom Emmer’s favorite campaign slogan, ‘live within your means,’” said Melendez, “but Emmer’s slogans and the public record don’t match up.”

Melendez said that information from the Wright County Auditors Office and Hennepin County show that Emmer has taken out seven short-term mortgages since 2002 on his house in Delano and six additional mortgages on a home he previously owned in Independence.

News of Emmer’s series of mortgages was first reported a month ago by Sally Jo Sorensen at the Hutchinson-based website Bluestem Prairie, but — despite that site framing the issue in terms of Emmer’s “live within your means” slogan — Melendez denied that that’s where the party got the information. Bluestem also noted that in November 2005, foreclosure proceedings were started against Emmer. They were later dropped.

Melendez said that Emmer should release his tax returns as his opponent Mark Dayton has done.

“I’m not faulting Emmer for using his house as an ATM; many Minnesotans have done the same thing,” said Melendez. “I’m asking Mr. Emmer to be more forthright about his personal finances and his plans for the state’s finances.”

“Emmer needs to answer questions about his own finances before anybody lets him run the state’s,” he said.

Emmer’s campaign told the Star Tribune simply, “He’s paid his bills.”

GOP deputy chair Michael Brodkorb called the line of attack a mistake in a tweet. “Big mistake by the Minnesota DFL today — attacking someone for having a mortgage on their home — contrast with Dayton’s taxfree trusts in SD

Photo: house.gov

Rep. Michele Bachmann is taking heat from her opponents over a statement saying she would like to end two major social programs. “But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off” Social Security and Medicare, Bachmann said at the Constitutional Coalition meeting in St. Louis this weekend.

That statement raised the ire of Dr. Maureen Reed, Sen. Tarryl Clark and the Minnesota DFL.

“What Congresswoman Bachmann is talking about, plain and simple, is bringing an end to Social Security and Medicare,” Clark said in a statement. “Michele Bachmann has decided to yank the proverbial retirement rug out from under her constituents – just when it’s needed the most.”

“Michele Bachmann has long been the enemy of retiring Americans,” said Clark.

Clark’s campaign created a petition called, “Stop the Bachmann agenda to end Social Security and Medicare.”

Reed’s campaign manager Jason Isaacson released a statement on Tuesday with a similar sentiment.

“Michele Bachmann’s statements Monday are indicative of the way she conducts herself as a Congresswoman,” he said. “She purposely injects fear into public policy debates, attempting to paralyze the dialogue and prevent common-sense solutions.”

Isaacson said paying down the national debt while at the same time protecting seniors’ retirement is the right thing to do.

“Michele Bachmann’s prognosticating that there is one particular thing to do, without taking into consideration the other factors in play, or even addressing the specifics of exactly what her proposal would entail, is nothing more than another political ploy aimed at making headlines instead of caring for the needs of her constituents,” he said.

Meanwhile, the DFL piled on Bachmann.

DFL head Brian Melendez said, “Representative Bachmann would like to kick senior citizens off of programs that they depend upon — ironically, the same programs for which Representative Bachmann has obstructed reform.”

Here’s Bachmann’s full statement to the Constitutional Coalition:

BACHMANN: Is the country too big to fail? No, the country can fail. We can, we’re not invincible. And we’re so close now to being at that point because the thing is, as Glenn Beck said last night, it is true. The $107 trillion that he put on the board. We’re $14 trillion in debt, but that doesn’t include the unfunded massive liabilities. That’s $107 trillion, and that’s for Social Security and Medicare and all the rest. You add up all those unfunded net liabilities, and all the traps that could go wrong we’re on the hook for, and what it means is what we have to do is a reorganization of all of that, Social Security and all. We have to do it simply because we can’t let the contract remain as they are because the older people are going to lose. So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don’t have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off. And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can’t do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is.

“She does not share Mr. Robertson’s views on Haiti,” Dziok said, “And it’s absolutely pathetic and despicable for the Democrats to politicize this awful tragedy.”

The DFL released a statement late last week questioning Bachmann’s recent associations with Robertson.

“Pat Robertson’s comments are inappropriate and embarrassing, especially when so many Americans are uniting in spirit and service to help the people of Haiti,” said DFL chair Brian Melendez. “Minnesotans deserve to know whether Michele Bachman agrees with Mr. Robertson’s hurtful statements, given that she is such a frequent guest on his show. I call on Representative Bachmann to denounce Robertson’s divisive comments at the earliest opportunity.”

Rep. Tim Walz and Allen Quist

The state Democratic party called on Republican candidate Allen Quist to apologize on Tuesday for statements he made at a Wabasha Republicans Christmas party that called the battle against Democrats bigger than the battle against terrorism. Quist told the Minnesota Independent over the weekend that his comments were taken out of context by liberal bloggers.

“Mr. Quist is backtracking and saying that his comments were taken out of context,” said DFL chairman Brian Melendez in a statement. “Well, then what did he mean when he called Representative Walz and our country’s leaders a bigger threat than terrorists?”

Trista Matascastillo, chair of the DFL Veterans Caucus, said that Quist’s comments about his opponent, Rep. Tim Walz, were “inexcusable.”

“I can’t imagine a context in which Allen Quist’s comments about Representative Walz would be appropriate, acceptable or in any way defendable — the video doesn’t lie,” said Matascastillo in the same press release. “Representative Walz has steadfastly served our country; he rose to the highest enlisted rank of Command Sergeant Major over his 24-years of service in the National Guard and now is a leader in Congress. Allen Quist needs to apologize for his inexcusable comments rather than trying to explain away his views.”

Clockwise from upper left: Allen Quist, Lynne Torgerson, Jim Hagedorn, Mike Parry

Over the last few weeks, several candidates for public office in Minnesota have made (or had revealed) statements extreme enough to garner terms of rebuke like “intolerant,” “appalling,” and “poisonous.” From state Senate candidate Mike Parry’s tweet linking Democrats and pedophiles, to Congressional hopeful Jim Hagedorn’s punningly homophobic “Mr. Conservative” blog posts, recent candidate communiques prompt a few questions: What’s going on? Has the flu jumped to the state’s body politic?

“It’s an especially virulent strain of hatred and intolerance that we see,” says DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez about recent comments by three Republicans and an independent. “I’ve never seen people so openly racist and homophobic.”

Melendez blames “the Teabagger movement” and conservative agenda-setters like U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh. But he also recognizes changing conditions imposed by a new media environment that affects everyone in public life.

“Our lives are much more on the record than 10 years ago or even two years ago,” he tells the Minnesota Independent.

Prof. Ronald W. Greene, who researches political communication at the University of Minnesota, sees the same shifting ground for partisan rhetoric, but he puts the recent rash of outrageous comments in the context of “in-group” speech that has been studied as a commonplace phenomenon for 50 years.

“It’s a well-known process that seems to have been intensified in the new media,” and it’s heightening the fragmentation and polarization of politics, Greene says.

“Speakers think they’re rewarded for this kind of behavior. They have to be more representative of the group than anyone else. You would only be able to differentiate yourself by being more extreme.”

Four on the edge

Addressed to in-groups to varying degrees, the recent crop of statements were made or revealed — and in a few instances, recanted — by four candidates on four online platforms: a campaign website, a blog, Twitter and YouTube.

First was Torgerson, a Fifth Congressional District independent who tacks conservative on cultural issues, is seeking to unseat DFLer Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. At her campaign website and in comments to MnIndy and other media, Torgerson espoused a no-holds-barred critique of Islam as antithetical to American values of free speech and equal rights, and called Ellison as “not a proper person to have in our federal government” for his ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Next came Jim Hagedorn, a Republican running for Congress in the state’s First District. His blogging as “Mr. Conservative” was riddled with homophobic and harshly partisan wordplay. “Until Paul Wellstone’s plane crash, DFL Trotskyites were confident the Senator would soar [emphasis his] to victory over Norm Coleman” is one example. Another: Judges striking down Texas’ sodomy law “injudiciously fisted two hundred and twenty-seven years of the Republic’s mores into the bowels of cultural debauchery.” Hagedorn scrubbed those comments from his site.

President Obama is “a Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man,” wrote Mike Parry, the endorsed Republican in this month’s special-election campaign to replace retiring state Sen. Dick Day in District 26, on Twitter. Like another tweet that asked “what’s with Dems and Pedophiles?” in apparent reference to hate-crimes legislation, that message was scrubbed, and Parry issued a partial apology and explanation.

Most recent is Allen Quist, like Hagedorn a Republican running for the state’s First District seat in Congress, seen in a GOP YouTube video saying: “Our country is being destroyed. Every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom… Terrorism? Yes. That’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C. with the radicals. They aren’t liberals. They are radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz: They’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country.”

Not quite what they intended

None of the four — with the possible exception of Torgerson, writing at her campaign site – seems to have meant for their statements to reach a wider audience. Bloggers acted almost as the candidates’ literary agents, pushing sample quotes into the online political marketplace — sometimes, as with Parry and Quist, all the way into the mainstream media.

Greene sees the resulting whipped-up ferment as a kind of challenge to political polarization and fragmentation by appealing to voters not yet committed to a party. In the competitive dynamics of the new-media environment, such exposures “get the public to look at how extreme these people really are, and erode [candidates'] ability to speak to that voting middle.”

The message, says Greene: Candidates who make extreme statements are “not really ‘of’ these people.”

For his part, Melendez contends outrageous rhetoric isn’t really “of” the rank-and-file Republicans he knows.”They’re not haters like this.”

Pawlenty unveiled the proposal at a state Capitol press conference Thursday morning.

Under his plan, the state’s general fund budget would be limited to the amount of revenue collected in the previous two-year cycle. The two-term Republican governor argued that such a stringent cap on spending is necessary because legislators have proven unable to contain spending. Since 1960, he pointed out, general fund budgets have increased by an average of 21 percent every two years.

“That is an amazing, startling, frightening number,” Pawlenty said. “It is unsustainable going forward.”

Such an amendment would need to be passed by the legislature and then approved by voters. Pawlenty wants the proposal to be on the ballot next year.

But it is unlikely to get a favorable reception from Democrats, who control both legislative bodies with substantial majorities. Pawlenty acknowledged that.

“I suspect they won’t like it,” he said of his DFL counterparts. “Anything that limits spending growth they won’t like.”

Democratic leaders insisted that they will give the proposal serious consideration. “I’m intrigued at learning more about it,” said Tom Bakk, chair of the Senate Taxes Committee and a candidate to take over Pawlenty’s job in 2011. “This will require some very thoughtful consideration.”

But Democrats also pointed out that Pawlenty has never proposed a budget that would have fit within the fiscal strictures he hopes to set for future administrations. In the current biennium, for instance, Pawlenty initially proposed a $34.4 billion general fund budget — more than $2 billion over revenue collections for the prior two years. In addition, the state is currently facing a $5–7 billion budget deficit.

“We’ve got a $5–7 billion iceberg in front of us and I think it would have been better if he would have proposed something of this significance earlier in his term,” said Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller. “But let’s give it some thought now, on his way out the door.”

Indeed, Pawlenty is not running for re-election next year and is clearly eyeing a 2012 presidential bid. Burnishing his credentials as a fiscal conservative could help with that cause — even if it does nothing to solve Minnesota’s budget problems.

Many conservative commentators, from the Wall Street Journal editorial board to Americans for Tax Reform, hailed Pawlenty in June for unilaterally slashing $2.7 billion from Minnesota’s budget over Democratic protests.

The DFL party was quick to characterize Pawlenty’s proposed amendment as another ploy to bolster his political ambitions.

“If a budget cap is such a good idea, why did Gov. Pawlenty wait until he was nearly out the door before proposing it?” asked Brian Melendez, chairman of the DFL party, in a press release. “The answer is simple: so that he wouldn’t actually have to govern under it, because he has no plans to follow through with what is really just a political stunt aimed at boosting his national notoriety.”

Who is Floyd Brown? He’s best known for creating the infamous, race-baiting Willie Horton television ad targeting Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign.

But the Republican political operative has a long, sordid history of engaging in political dirty tricks to slime Democratic candidates. During the 1992 presidential campaign, he headed up an organization called the Presidential Victory Committee. The group’s relentless hounding of the family of Susan Coleman — a former law student of Bill Clinton who committed suicide — was the subject of an exposé by CBS News. Coleman was seven months pregnant at the time of her death and had been rumored to have had an affair with Clinton. The Bush campaign denounced Brown and his associates at the time as “the lowest forms of life.”

During the 2008 presidential primary contest, Brown released an ad targeting North Carolina voters that blamed Barack Obama for gang murders in Chicago. Salon columnist Joe Conason noted at the time that the political operative “has given conservatism a rank smell for two decades.” Brown created another ad suggesting that Obama was a Muslim.

Since then Brown has gone on to run a web site called ExposeObama.com. The site is currently promoting a campaign to impeach Obama for purported “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Brian Melendez, chairman of the DFL Party, issued a statement today attacking Pawlenty for associating with Brown. “Governor Pawlenty has aligned himself with the dirtiest parts of the Republican political machine as he campaigns around the country,” Melendez said. “And meanwhile, who is in charge at the statehouse?”

He was joined by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison and DFL Party chair Brian Melendez, among others.

Ellison hobnobbed with fellow Democrats after the rally.

Photographers swarmed his vehicle as Franken left the event.

Related: Franken: ‘I get to be senator’