Randy Brown

Brown, as MnIndy first reported, posted a video that compares how “hot” women from the Democratic and Republican parties are. The Democrats — represented by Janet Reno (with photoshopped chest hair), a grimacing Hillary Clinton and Rosie O’Donnell’s head fused onto the body of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, among others — are shown atop a soundbed of Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Of the video, Olbermann said: “Just remember it anytime you hear Sarah Palin or anybody else in the GOP complain about sexism or misogyny on the part of the mainstream media or the Democrats. Randy Brown of the Minnesota GOP — plus, I understand the group Baha Men is pissed — America’s worst person in the world.”

In another development, Republican Party of Minnesota communications director Mark Drake demanded a change to our story — one that puts distance between the state party and the local SD 56 party unit. Drake called to say he wanted the headline on our initial report on the video changed to reflect that it wasn’t the statewide GOP, but merely a local district group, that chose to embed a video that one of its endorsed women candidates, Andrea Kieffer, dubbed “juvenile.” (The headline now refers to the “SD56 GOP” rather than the “Minn. GOP.”) The video itself, he said, is “wrong and inappropriate.”

(For the record, Olbermann incorrectly called Brown the “webmaster of the Minnesota state Republican Party.” He’s the webmaster of the SD56 site only — or he was: his byline hasn’t appeared since this story broke and since district GOP-endorsed candidate Kathy Lohmer called for his resignation.)

Apparently, we’re not alone in fielding Drake’s complaints. Mother Jones’ copy editor Adam Weinstein tells the Minnesota Independent that Drake called his publication after it ran a story on the SD56 web video and “berated” the magazine’s receptionist. Drake later emailed Weinstein to declare the story to be “completely false” and demanded a retraction. (Gawker contributing editor Jeff Neumann confirms that he was “hit with the ALL CAPS Drake email assault” too for his story.)

The Mother Jones story now has this addendum:

After he placed several abusive phone calls to our receptionist and a frantic email demanding a “retraction” to this “completely false” story, Minnesota GOP communications director Mark Drake berated me on the phone for a good ten minutes. Besides being unclear on the differences between “retraction,” ”correction,” ”clarification,” ”conversation,” “irate braying,” and “pointless screaming,” he made the point that the video was on a district GOP site, not the state GOP’s site, and that he’d never heard of the webmaster before. While expressing regret over the video’s content, he said the 56th district was one of more than 100 autonomous Republican parties in the state, and his umbrella organization wasn’t responsible. He then refused to answer follow-up questions regarding what action, if any, had been taken by the state GOP to make the local group accountable for its actions. Based on the one or two facts he could assert between loud declamations, I changed the ID of webmaster Randy Brown above. Mark, if you’re reading this and want to explain what steps the state GOP is taking besides abusing reporters by phone, give us a call—and try being nice to the receptionist this time.

Watch the section from Olbermann, who undoubtedly will be receiving a Drake call of his own today.

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Screengrab from the video currently on the GOP's SD56 website

Here’s the kind of discourse that Republicans in state Senate District 56 are interested in: The party website is now running a video about how “hot” Republican women are compared to “Democrat [sic] women.” To the strains of Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady,” the video runs through a series of photos of GOP women in bikinis, evening gowns and, in Sarah Palin’s case, Spandex. Then the Dems: women like Rosie O’Donnell, Janet Reno (pictured), Nancy Pelosi and Madeleine Albright — set to the song, “Who Let The Dogs Out?”

Update: I’ve emailed the two women endorsed by the SD56 Republicans, state House candidates Kathy Lohmer (56A) and Andrea Kieffer (56B). I’ll publish any comments I receive. I’ve also contacted webmaster Randy Brown for his comment (the post in question was bylined “Randy”).

Update: Candidate Andrea Kieffer, calling the video “juvenile,” says she’s requesting the video be removed. Brown, the site’s webmaster, says he published the video. Why? “[I]ts only intention was to bring a smile to a few peoples faces, and possibly irritate a few others. Is it fair? Does that matter? It wasn’t intended to be fair. It was intended to be funny.”

Update: The video has been removed. Here’s a screengrab of it in place.

Update: GOP’s Lohmer calls for resignation of SD56 webmaster over video.

Update: Mark Drake, communications director for the Republican Party of Minnesota, took issue with this story’s headline, which originally began with the phrase, “Minn. GOP on Dem women.” He said the state party had nothing to do with the video, which was posted independently on the district site. “It’s wrong and inappropriate,” he said of the video. I’ve amended the headline to be more accurate.

(WDCpix)

When Al Franken started putting “Sen.-elect,” before his name, former Sen. Norm Coleman’s spokesman Mark Drake responded by calling it a “joke,” and staffer Luke Friedrich followed it up by claiming Franken was merely “pretending to be a Senator before we know who really won.” I’m curious, then, what the pair have to say about the fact that Coleman — no longer a senator — is still attending Senate Republican Conference meetings, including a party lunch meeting today. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told TPM that Coleman, whose term expired seven weeks ago, is “always welcome,” and that “we still think he has a very good opportunity” to win.

Specifically, the Coleman campaign takes issue with a pair of ads stating that the Republican has been labeled the fourth most corrupt Senator in the country and pays almost nothing in rent on his Capitol Hill apartment.

As MNPublius has pointed out, Coleman has a long history of filing similar lawsuits in the waning days of campaigns. In 1998 he filed a complaint against Skip Humphrey arguing that the Democrat had deliberately distorted Coleman’s stance on farm issues during the gubernatorial campaign. Then in 2002 he lodged similar charges against Paul Wellstone, arguing that the Senator should be criminally prosecuted for misstating the Republican’s stance on Social Security. In both instances the complaints were dropped after election day.

Drake denied, however, that the lawsuit is simply a campaign tactic. “We’re going to file it today and see where it goes,” he said. “Our plan is to see that this is dealt with.”

The claim that Coleman is the fourth-most corrupt Senator in the country is based on a list released last month by the watchdog organization Citizen’s for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Coleman is indeed one of just four Senators to make the cut. “It’s a non-partisan organization in Washington that looks out for ethics,” noted John Stiles, communications director for the DFL party, after the press conference. “And if you look on their web site you’ll see a lot of Democrats that they’ve gone after.”

In June the National Journal reported that Coleman rents a Capitol Hill apartment owned by Republican fundraising guru and longtime Coleman confidant Jeff Larson for $600 a month. Only after the National Journal began asking questions about the deal did Coleman actually make all of the monthly payments. CREW has filed an ethics complaint against the Republican charging that the arrangement is a sweetheart deal and violates the Senate’s gift ban policy.

A few additional issues that have dogged the Coleman campaign were also raised by reporters at the press conference. Yesterday it was revealed that a lawsuit was recently filed in Texas charging that the Senator’s wife, Laurie, inappropriately received $75,000 from longtime Coleman supporter Nasser Kazeminy. The money was allegedly channeled through the insurance company where she works. Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan stated that the lawsuit has been withdrawn, but it remains unclear if a settlement was reached in the matter. “I don’t know about the details of a settlement or not,” Sheehan said.

Drake also ducked a question about Coleman’s utility bills for his Washington apartment. The campaign previously promised to provide a copy of the bills to reporters in order to clear up questions about who pays for the Senator’s utilities, but has failed to follow through.

Watch the press conference here.

Al Franken stated today that he would have voted against the $700 billion bailout package passed by the Senate last night and harshly criticized the legislation. “I hope nobody in Washington felt any pride or sense of accomplishment,” the Democratic Senate candidate said at a press conference at the Capitol. “Because this bill didn’t fix an economy that isn’t working for middle-class families. … It is in fact the exclamation point on eight years of the worst stewardship of our economy since Herbert Hoover, a terrible end to a terrible presidency.”

The bailout package passed by an overwhelming 74-25 margin, garnering support from both Minnesota Sens. Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar. The House voted a similar proposal down earlier this week, with the eight-member Minnesota delegation split evenly, but is expected to take it up again tomorrow. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley initially voiced opposition to the bailout proposal, but has subsequently stated that he would have “reluctantly” voted in favor of it.

Franken called for a series of alternative steps to strengthen the economy: a moratorium on home foreclosures, a bolstered regulatory framework for the financial sector and an economic stimulus package directed at spending on infrastructure. He also criticized Congress for adding $110 billion in additional proposals to the bill in order to pick up votes from wavering legislators. “This bill should have been either passed on its own merits or not,” Franken said. “I think that what you’re seeing is everything that’s wrong with Washington in one bill.”

Franken took Coleman to task for a comment the incumbent made last week in the Morris Sun Tribune, referring to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as the “quarterbacks” of our economy. “We’re all there, the folks in the huddle and we’re working with them on the play,” Coleman said. “But we have to run the play.”

Franken characterized the comment as emblematic of a lack of oversight being provided by Congress. “That play was a three-page proposal to hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money with no oversight, no accountability, no restrictions on executive compensation,” he said. “Even the Vikings would bench a quarterback who called a play like that.”

Mark Drake, a spokesman for the Coleman campaign, denied that the incumbent’s comments indicated support for Paulson’s initial three-page plan. “You don’t have to agree with every play that’s called if you’re on a team trying to get things done,” he said. “He opposed the initial plan.”

Drake also criticized Franken for failing to take a stand on the bailout package until after it passed the Senate. “After all the heavy lifting, after all the work is done, Al comes in and says, ‘Hey, wait, listen to me, I’ve got something to say,’” Drake said. “Too late Al. You blew it. You had your chance for leadership. You wouldn’t take a stand.”