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.

The GOP is alleging Independence Party candidate for governor Tom Horner illegally accepted a campaign contribution in the form of a poll released by Decision Resources, Ltd. The CFB said the law the GOP is complaining about is not one that the board can enforce.

The GOP will refile their complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings.

“I don’t think you can call yourself a freedom-loving American and be a Democrat,” he told the Marshall Independent. “I don’t think that’s a grassroots Democrat who says now ‘That’s not what I voted for, this isn’t the America I want.’ It’s the leaders of the Democrat party.”

Emmer is likely posturing in advance of the GOP state convention in St. Paul on Saturday, where party activists will hold a straw poll to gauge support for the party’s pick for governor in 2010.

Hat tip: MN Progressive Project

Paulsen: Running from his party as fast as he can.

Rep. Erik Paulsen, who is running to replace the retiring Jim Ramstad in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District, is a Republican–but don’t tell anybody.

Throughout his 14-year tenure in the Minnesota Legislature, Paulsen has been one of the most consistent and avid Republican right voices on behalf of government-slashing and “family values” assaults on abortion rights, gay rights and education standards. Yet when Paulsen spoke at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul early this month, his campaign billed the site of the appearance as simply the “National Convention.” In fact, a glance of Paulsen’s campaign materials would leave a casual observer wondering what party the candidate is affiliated with.

That scrubbing of party identification betrays his position as a leader in Minnesota’s Republican Party and his conservative legislative record, a record that appears more conservative than the voters of Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District.

Paulsen has earned high marks from some of Minnesota’s most extreme conservative groups. He has earned a lifetime score of 89 percent from the arch-right Minnesota Taxpayers’ League, reaching a high of 91 percent in 2007. Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, a group dedicated to making abortion illegal in all circumstances, gave Paulsen his lowest rating ever in 2008: a mere 90 percent. Paulsen had garnered a perfect 100 percent from 2002 to 2007. The Minnesota Family Council, a group that opposes equal rights based on sexual orientation, noted that Paulsen has voted their way on every issue except for gambling from 2003 to 2005. He scored a 100 percent in 2007 from the group.

Which issues has Paulsen supported to gain such impressive conservative ratings?

On issues of reproductive health, Paulsen has stood firmly with the religious right in opposing any form of abortion or any sex education curriculum that doesn’t include abstinence. In 2007, for instance, he voted against ensuring medically accurate and age-appropriate sex education for public schools and voted for an abstinence-until-marriage school curriculum.

He voted to eliminate any state funding for organizations that include abortion in the reproductive health spectrum. The bill read that funds could not be granted to “an organization that has adopted or maintains a policy in writing or through oral public statements that abortion is considered part of a continuum of family planning services, reproductive health services, or both.” He voted to completely de-fund the Minnesota AIDS Project. In 2005, he voted against a bill that would have required hospitals to carry emergency contraceptives for victims of sexual assault.

He repeatedly voted to create a 24-hour waiting period for abortion, and he cosponsored a ballot initiative that would have outlawed abortion in Minnesota in the event that the federal Roe v. Wade standard was ever overturned.

Paulsen made friends with the religious right by opposing any pro-LGBT legislation and actively working to enshrine religious right issues into the constitution, voting twice for the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, a bill that would amend the Minnesota Constitution to permanently outlaw domestic partnership, civil unions or marriage for same-sex couples. In 2005, he voted against allowing domestic partner benefits for state employees.

On one issue, Paulsen has flipped his position away from the religious right. In 2005, Paulsen voted to allow creationism, the theory that God created the Earth in seven days and that the planet’s history began 10,000 years ago, to be taught in Minnesota schools alongside evolution. In 2008, he voted against such a measure.

In the legislature, Paulsen was a leading voice on behalf of transforming Minnesota’s health care system to a conservative, free market model. In 1996, he attempted to remove caps on deductibles for MinnesotaCare enrollees (poor and uninsured Minnesotans) and to insert language promoting ‘free market solutions’ to Minnesota’s goal of universal health care. He sponsored a tort-restriction bill that would have placed a $250,000 cap on awards to patients injured by medical malpractice.

While not quite wanting to drown Minnesota’s government in a bathtub, he did make moves to shrink it dramatically. He cosponsored bills to reduce the size and scope of the legislature: one to make the legislature meet once every other year and another to reduce the number of legislators by almost a third.

On the drug war front, he cosponsored a bill to increase the penalties for selling, advertising or possessing drug paraphernalia and opposed allowing permits for Minnesota farmers to grow hemp.

Paulsen voted against increasing the minimum wage and voted for a bill that reduced benefits paid to injured workers “in order to lower costs for employers” [Star Tribune, May 23 1995].

On voting rights, he cosponsored a bill to tighten Minnesota’s tradition of allowing neighbors to vouch for each other by requiring oaths from three different residents of the precinct in every case. He worked to ensure that Roseville’s bid to institute instant runoff voting failed in 2004. “Just philosophically, there’s no need for the state to be involved with this,” Paulsen said. “People vote for the one person they think should hold office, and you live with the results. That’s democracy” [Pioneer Press, 2004].

He met with President Bush twice, once in 2003 and again in 2004, and gave the Bush a glowing review on CNN: “I think Minnesotans really do appreciate the firm and steady leadership. You know, the reality is, given 9/11′s situation, I think Minnesotans especially want leadership that was going to be on the offensive against terrorism. And that’s what we’ve seen with our president. And I think that’s why Minnesota is — and there’s a strong possibility of going to President Bush.”

The MN GOP and their operative, Michael Brodkorb, are desperately trying to turn Ellison’s defeat into a victory.  Why?  They’re scared, really, really scared.  Look below the fold to see why.

See, the GOP knows that most of their candidates can’t win on the issues so they’re turning to dirt-digging, to personal attacks.  Hell, the RNC even admitted that it’s their stated plan of attack:

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads. [WashPo, 9/10/06]

Yeah, disgusting, I know, but you’re probably still asking how that relates to Keith.  Well, the GOP put all they could into personal attacks on Keith Ellison (as groundless as they all turned out to be) and these attacks actually got a lot of traction in the MSM.  Yet despite all this, Keith still won yesterday and that scared the MN GOP because if they can’t count on the effectiveness of personal attacks, they can’t count on much this cycle.

Moreover, the GOP is actually going to try to recycle their debunked personal attacks on Ellison against every other DFLer this cycle.  How does that work?  Just watch, they’ll try to associate Keith with anyone else that’s a Democrat even though Keith is a candidate in a race that only 1/8 of Minnesotans can vote in. Laughable, desperate, misleading, distracting, disgusting?  It’s all of those things, but most of all it’s foolish.

See, Minnesotans aren’t that stupid.  They’ll see these lame attacks as just another attempt to skirt the issues and while their devoting all their time and resources to attacking, we’ll be talking about solutions. 

The people of Minnesota are ready for a change.  A change from blind, rhetorical allegiance to thought-out and reasoned issue stances.  A change from fear mongering to actual security policy.  A change from mis-guided exclusion to respectful inclusion.  And a change from hatred and attacks to cooperation and collaboration.  We’ll be more than happy to provide Minnesotans with an option for change while the GOP devotes itself to groundless attacks.