Photo: WDCpix.com

In a matchup between President Barack Obama and Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Obama would win by ten points, according to a new St. Cloud State University poll (pdf) released Tuesday. When asked who they would vote for in 2012, 49 percent of Minnesotans surveyed said they’d support Obama, while 39.7 percent said they’d back Pawlenty.

The poll of 550 Minnesotans also found that among independents, when pushed, many are more likely to identify with the DFL (40.5 percent) than the Republican party (23.7 percent).

Just over half of Minnesotans (50.5 percent) gave President Obama a favorable rating in the poll. Gov. Tim Pawlenty didn’t fare as well, with only 48.5 percent rating his job performance as excellent or pretty good. Almost as many, 48.4 percent, rated Pawlenty’s performance as fair or poor.

The poll found that 50.3 percent of those surveyed say Obama is doing an excellent or pretty good job, but 47.4 percent rated the president’s performance as fair or poor.

Topping the list of the main issues facing the state are health care insurance at 19.6 percent, the budget deficit at 13.8 percent, education at 13.3 percent and unemployment at 12.8 percent.

Wedge issues barely registered with poll respondents with abortion at 0.8 percent, “family issues” at 0.2 percent, immigration at 0.8 percent and religious moral issues at 0.1 percent.

Overall, respondents said the state was heading in the wrong direction; 42.5 percent said the state is moving in the right direction and 43.8 said it was moving in the wrong direction. Nine percent said the state’s situation is neutral.

The poll doesn’t reveal its margin of error or polling methodology.

Ben Smith of the Politico reports that the DNC won’t be paying for media to carry that message — yet — but will begin by sending messages to constituents who are on the Obama campaign email list.

Paulsen may have had in mind preempting such an attack when he released a statement via YouTube about his “no” vote within minutes of having cast it Saturday night.

Paulsen was one of seven GOP lawmakers targeted by a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad campaign over health care last summer. (Another of those seven, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, cast the sole Republican vote in favor of the pending bill.)

The National Republican Congressional Committee earlier put Paulsen on its own list of vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

Paulsen’s latest campaign-finance reports show he raised nearly $1 million this year. Democratic challengers to the first-term Republican are only beginning to emerge.

Bradlee Dean. Image: YouTube

The two leaders of evangelical ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide (YCR) have chastised President Obama twice in the past two weeks for appearing at public school assemblies in Chicago while he was a U.S. senator. Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillian complain that Obama used high schools to campaign. But they praise their own ministry’s efforts to bring evangelical Christianity to assemblies at schools — many public — in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest.

On his Oct. 24 radio show, Bradlee Dean talked about his new employee — Dean refers to him only as “Pig Squeal” — who says he attended a public school assembly with Obama when he was a junior in high school four years ago.

“The fact of the matter is, he was in public school in Chicago, folks, and guess who shows up. … Remember what Roosevelt says: ‘Nothing happens in politics that wasn’t first planned’?”

“Isn’t that interesting? [Obama] was doing an assembly for 400 kids in this kid’s school. … I asked [Pig Squeal] so what was he teaching people? He goes, ‘I didn’t really feel right about it.’”

Dean continued: “The point is this guy was doing high school assemblies in public schools in Chicago and why did they specifically target the juniors? Because they are going to be the voters and people didn’t do the math.”

McMillian chimed in, “Just imagine if the church was going into high schools and doing assemblies.”

Dean responded, “Well, that’s what they should be doing and that’s what we have been doing.”

In the same broadcast, Dean offered a challenge to Obama: “And by the way we have a phone on our desk waiting for the president to respond because I think he doesn’t like what is coming out of our hearts.”

On a Saturday show with radio host Mitch Berg, YCR touted their upcoming fundraiser featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann and explained their ministry to listeners. McMillian said, “Basically, we have been doing high school assemblies since 1998 and where a lot of folks say ’separation of church and state’ or ‘you can’t go there,’ that’s where we have made our careers, going to those that need the knowledge between good and evil.”

“Obama, when he was a senator in Illinois, he was campaigning in high schools before he ran for the presidency. He was going to the right target audience, that gave him the victory again that he embraced in this last election.”

“We’ve been doing the same, screaming from the rooftops, ‘Hey, we are down here. We are reaching the youth.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann will be raising funds for the ministry on Nov. 12.

Related:
‘You Can Run’ may be running afoul of the Constitution
Bachmann’s punk-rock benefactor says Obama ‘unpatriotic to the max’

CCHC’s fundraiser will feature Maria Anne Hirschmann. Hirschmann compared President Obama’s administration to the rise of Hilter’s Nazi Germany. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Hirschmann has said, “Obama, like Hitler, is ‘a charismatic leader who promises full pocketbooks.’ Obama’s pro-choice stands, she writes, resembles those of Hitler, who ‘brought abortion to a systematic level and declared the killing of unborn babies a national duty.’”

Hirschmann also told the Gazette, “He could pave the way for a future Antichrist. Obama scares me because he has no record and people flock to him. Hitler also had no record, people flocked to him and both wrote a book. Christians laid flat and Hitler came to power, just like with Obama.”

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

ST. PAUL: T-Paw references Goethe on Fox. Pawlenty called health care reform a shiny fishing lure and a Faustian bargain (hmm, is he familiar with those?). [Fox News via YouTube]

METRO AREA: Jets scrambled too late, says general. Military planes should have been in the air to protect the Twin Cities when an errant jet with preoccupied pilots passed by this month. [MPR News Cut]

MINNEAPOLIS: Fake folk? A local donor gave the Weisman Art Museum five paintings by folk artist Clementine Hunter that the FBI suspects are forgeries. [Associated Press]

WOODBURY: Dog bites man, hard. A retired cop lost an ear and much of his face. [Associated Press]

ST. CLOUD: Bridge open. The Granite City Crossing replaces the old DeSoto bridge found unsafe in post-I-35W collapse inspections. [St. Cloud Times]

STATEWIDE: Schools go begging. The 57 districts asking voters to approve new tax levies next week are among the 90 percent in Minnesota now levy-dependent to cover operating costs. [ECM Publishers]

In a special edition of their newsletter (DOC), the group goes after President Obama, saying his facts are incorrect.

“Despite public statements by Pres. Barack Obama that ‘no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,’ all of the major bills under consideration would put the federal government into the business of subsidizing elective abortion on a massive scale,” wrote MCCL, then going on to quote Factcheck.org. “‘Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans,’ reported the independent FactCheck.org.”

But what FactCheck.org actually said was that it’s a grey area in between. “The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new ‘public’ insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them.”

The rest of the groups claims have also been debunked by Factcheck.org.

Health Rationing

MCCL says that all of the health reform proposals would dole out care based on age and disability. “In addition to the expansion of abortion, all major bills under consideration — as currently written — would likely lead to the rationing of care,” the group writes. “The bills addressing health care ‘reform’ all require the rationing of health care.”

Paul Stark, Student Outreach Coordinator, wrote, “The health care legislation pending in Congress would likely lead to the rationing of care for elderly, disabled and other vulnerable persons.”

When RNC chair Michael Steele used a similar line in an ad attacking health care reform, Factcheck.org corrected him. “It’s … false for Steele to imply that Democratic health care legislation proposes to ‘ration health care based on age.’”

While none of the bills specifically spells out a rationing of health care, Politifact took time to explore the issue. “Everyone hates the word rationing,” Katherine Baicker, a health economics professor at Harvard University, told the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site. “From an economics perspective, there’s no way around rationing. Some care is being rationed now. Everyone isn’t getting everything.”

But MCCL does not acknowledge — let alone condemn — the fact that health care is currently rationed.

Medicare cuts

Stark wrote, “[A] substantial part of the cost under the proposals would be paid for by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ − reducing Medicare funding for older people in order to cover the uninsured.”

MCCL president Leo Lalonde wrote about seniors’ reactions when MCCL told them at a fall meeting that Medicare would be deeply cut. “This information and much more was shared with Fall Tour attendees, who reacted with anger, fear and disbelief. Some people already understood this threat. But many more did not, and were deeply disturbed to learn that Medicare — the only source of medical care for many senior citizens— could be severely restricted under Obama’s plan.”

Factcheck.org found that claim to be false:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the House bill would result in “savings” [to Medicare] of $219 billion after all increases and decreases are netted out. The House bill would trim projected increases in payments for hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, including home health care providers and suppliers of motor-driven wheelchairs. But it also proposes what CBO estimates is a $245 billion increase in spending for doctors, by canceling a scheduled 21 percent cut in physician payments. None of the “savings” or “cuts” (whichever you prefer) come from reducing current or future benefit levels for seniors.

Photo: WDCPix

President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act into law on Wednesday ending a decade of efforts by LGBT and human rights groups to get sexual orientation and gender identity included in federal hate crime laws.

The bill was named for Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming college student, who was murdered because of his sexual orientation in 1998.

“After more than a decade, we have passed inclusive hate crimes legislation,” said President Obama. “I promised Judy and Dennis Shepard that this day would come and I’m glad they could join us for this event.”

Obama also praised the late-Sen. Ted Kennedy who was a fierce advocate for the bill.

LGBT rights groups immediately hailed the signing of the bill.

“We applaud President Obama for signing this bill into law and thank the leadership and our allies in the House and Senate. We also will always remember the tireless efforts of Senator Edward Kennedy on this issue,” said Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign. “This marks the first time that we as a nation have explicitly protected the LGBT community in the law. And this law sends a loud message that perpetrators of hate violence against anyone will be brought to justice.”

Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, said, “I applaud the President and all of Congress for passing this historic bill into law. I also thank Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s mother, for her courageous battle and her work towards passing this Act. Her commitment and passion are a true testament to the love of a parent.” She continued, “This bill will provide the resources and protections needed to ensure greater safety to our children, parents and all members of LGBT families.”

Pawlenty told the conservative website Newsmax that Obama has

a philosophy that government knows best, a nanny-state mentality on domestic issues that will ultimately be corrosive to the other pillars of our country — to markets, private enterprise, individual responsibility, freedom and liberty.

And T-Paw has what it takes to stop nannies from corroding pillars. On health care, Pawlenty pitches his plan to let companies sell coverage across state lines, adding

we need to make it more affordable for individuals and families, businesses, and governmental entities. But instead they are now focused substantially on expanding access.

If Obama is the object of scorn, Pawlenty’s home state doesn’t fare much better in his speeches. He has made Minnesota a punchline in past talks, but last week managed to draw boos at the launch of his new Freedom First PAC by introducing himself as “coming from a state that is the home of Humphrey and Mondale and Wellstone and now U.S. Senator Al Franken.”

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

SAVAGE: The Powers that might be. DFLer Dan Powers is set to run against U.S. Rep. John Kline with ready road metaphors, saying Kline likes our “endless road of overseas combat” and is “a roadblock” to President Obama. [Polinaut; Facebook]

MOOSE LAKE: TVs tip of iceberg. Gov. Pawlenty overspends millions of dollars confining sex offenders beyond their jail terms, writes State Sen. Linda Berglin; meanwhile, the TVs didn’t make the latest state auction of used items. [Star Tribune; Associated Press]

MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: Feds question pilots who overshot Twin Cities. Their straying plane may even have been tracked by Obama, if his Minnesota retinue of schedulers determined it vaunted influence. [KEYC-TV; Associated Press; Star Tribune]

HUGO: Flying wheelchair arrives on time. Thanks to gravity and a $2,500 trebuchet. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

SIXTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: PACs starving Bachmann. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann gets dwindling amounts of campaign cash from political action committees each quarter, but she’s doing well with a certain bespectacled, bow-tied pundit. [Smart Politics; Washington Post]

MOUNTAIN IRON: Tour aimed at stimulus cash for schools. Education Commissioner Alice Seagren earns her own performance pay by leading a four-day tour of the state for ideas to get Minnesota a share of $4 billion in federal funds. [Associated Press]

Citizen’s Council on Health Care, a conservative outfit that lobbies against government involvement in the health care industry, is bringing Maria Anne Hirschmann, a former Hitler Youth turned evangelical Christian (complete with her own ministry), to Minnesota for its $100 a plate “Freedom Celebration Dinner” on Nov. 9.

Hirschmann stirred controversy this spring when she was tapped to speak at the Air Force Academy, a government institution, in Colorado Springs. Her previous public statements led to outcry from a variety of groups and the subsequent cancellation of her speech.

Hirschmann compared President Obama to the rise of Hilter’s Nazi Germany. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Hirshmann has said, “Obama, like Hitler, is ‘a charismatic leader who promises full pocketbooks.’ Obama’s pro-choice stands, she writes, resembles those of Hitler, who ‘brought abortion to a systematic level and declared the killing of unborn babies a national duty.’”

The Gazette continued:

In her April 2009 newsletter, Hirschmann states she is not comparing Obama to Hitler, rather she sees “trends in America that led Germany into disaster…” She goes on to ask, “Is this unlimited new spending and reckless printing of paper money similar to the economic recovery of Nazi Germany? Yes, it is and it made the German people jubilant because Hitler turned the economy around within four years. Nobody saw that the next four years prepared for World War II, and within 12 years most of Germany was in ashes and Europe nearly destroyed.

Following the cancellation of Hirschmann’s speech at the Air Force Academy, the Gazette interviewed her:

BARNA: You’ve been a critic of President Barack Obama

HIRSCHMANN: Obama is the result of a trend in America that is going away from the Judeo-Christian ethic. Obama is a socialist, one step from communism.

He could pave the way for a future Antichrist. Obama scares me because he has no record and people flock to him. Hitler also had no record, people flocked to him and both wrote a book. Christians laid flat and Hitler came to power, just like with Obama.

Obama is the result of the secular news media brain washing America. The media put Obama into power. He is so inexperienced …

Other statements by Hirschmann have raised eyebrows, as well. For instance, she sees the global war on terror as a Christians-versus-Muslims conflict. “Islam is a religion that believes it has a calling to make the world Muslim and do it violently and nonviolently — whatever way to spread Islam will be done,” Hirschmann told the Colorado Springs paper. “If the U.S. military does what God tells them, he will bless America,” she said.

Hirschmann’s speech at the Citizen’s Council on Health Care fundraiser will be titled “What Does it Mean to Be Free?”