Acknowledging the role of Christ in his own faith life and in Islam, Ellison told the biblical story of Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fish — how a small amount of food somehow managed to feed an enormous crowd. “As the scripture goes, there was enough… I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened… Maybe the disciples’ perception of scarcity was misinformed, and actually there was more than they understood there to be. Maybe there was radical abundance, though they saw scarcity.”

Then he drew a parallel with today: “There’s enough for the straight and the gay. There’s enough for the people who were born in America and the new immigrants. There’s enough for the blacks, there’s enough for the whites, there’s enough for the Latinos, there’s enough for the Asians, there’s enough for the Muslims, the Christians, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Hindus! There’s enough, everybody! …We don’t have to throw anybody under the bus. We don’t have to chase anybody out the door!”

But there’s a big “if.”

There may not be enough, he said, if we continue our rate of military spending or if we horde our wealth or “take the bountiful oceans… and pollute them with fossil fuels that spill into our oceans.”

Concluding the welcome, he offered a subtle critique of the president, by suggesting that he’s struggling — but falling short — in doing the “right thing.”

“Of course President Obama hasn’t brought forth heaven on earth,” he said. “Did you think that he was going to? He needs a strong movement based on the movement of love to propel him forward to do the right thing. I think he wants to do the right thing, but when he’s got the war-mongers pulling on him, it’s not easy to do the right thing.”

“I consider myself a political revolutionary, and therefore, I am one of you! I created the Independence Party in MN, and I have a plan,” Barkley wrote. “If enough tea partiers join the Independence Party, it becomes you! Think of it. YOU run the Independence Party, not the other way around! With all of the legal and political infrastructure elements it has. This will save lots of time and trouble.”

In a shift from the party’s more progressive background, the Independence Party has already garnered the support of a number of former Republicans running for governor, including Tom Horner and, until recently, Col. Joe Repya.

Barkley was a founder of the Reform Party, which later became the Independence Party. He was appointed by Ventura to fill the seat of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone in 2002.

Here’s Barkley’s full statement:

Dear Fellow Patriots!

Do you want the conservative movement to create real change? Then it must take the next step. Only by electing decent people who believe as you do, can our nation transform itself.

Hello, my name is Dean Barkley. I have spent the last twenty years trying to change the ways things are done by our corrupt two party system. I began by forming the Reform Party in Minnesota. Later, we changed the name to the Independence Party, ran candidates, and eventually elected Jesse Ventura as the most widely known governor in America. Like you, the traditional political parties hated us. I just ran for the US Senate, and received 15% of the vote – with no money! The point it: change can happen!

People nationwide understand how bankrupt the two party system is (and has bankrupted America, too!). To be effective, this movement must transform into being a real political force and fast. To do so, it must create the legal, financial, and staffing infrastructure that a real political party has. The Republican Party is trying to lure some of you into its folds with pretty promises. But don’t be fooled. They just want your time, money, and votes. And they will continue business as usual – and run things their way!

I consider myself a political revolutionary, and therefore, I am one of you! I created the Independence Party in MN, and I have a plan. If enough tea partiers join the Independence Party, it becomes you! Think of it. YOU run the Independence Party, not the other way around! With all of the legal and political infrastructure elements it has. This will save lots of time and trouble. The scattered tea party people become The Tea Party – in name as well as fact. A real party – that can change things. You can do this in two weeks. Register online at MNIP.org. If three hundred do, and become delegates, they will own the Independence Party. They can change its name to Tea Party – and inherit all the party structure you need! Register to be a delegate. You can do it online. But hurry, the online caucus closes on 2/28/2010.

Let’s get back to the future and back to the United States Constitution, limited government, and the fiscal common sense of living within our means.

Sincerely,

Dean Barkley

An error message now marks a post pulled from Hagedorn's blog

As the Minnesota Independent first reported earlier this month, 1st Congressional District candidate Jim Hagedorn removed blog posts disparaging of gays, fellow Republicans and Native Americans from his “Mr. Conservative” blog within days of announcing his candidacy. Now, as new deleted posts are discovered, the state’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy group has called for Hagedorn to retract his statements.

While Hagedorn hasn’t responded to the Minnesota Independent’s request for comment, he did tell the Rochester Post Bulletin that he removed the posts prior to 2004 for space concerns. But contradicting that is a July 13, 2004, post that Hagedorn scrubbed — and it’s a post OutFront Minnesota is responding to.

Removed sometime after Oct. 23, 2009, the post likened two men who’d had consensual sex to “barnyard” animals and said that in overturning Texas’ sodomy law, the Supreme Court “injudiciously fisted two hundred and twenty-seven years of the Republic’s mores into the bowels of cultural debauchery.”

To that, OutFront’s public policy director, Monica Meyer, says, “He focused on what feels like bathroom humor, although he probably thought it was more clever than that. It’s not OK.”

“I feel like he was trying to figure out a way to try to make it funny but still pointing out that gay people aren’t the same as everyone else and we can make fun of them,” she told the Minnesota Independent, adding that often candidates will use GLBT people as a “wedge issue” to draw supporters.

hagedornforcongress.com

“You know there’s still fear out there about gay people, and sometimes that leads to violence,” she said, citing a new FBI report that found an 11-percent increase in hate crimes against people perceived as GLBT. “We really should have elected officials and candidates who really call out for fairness for everyone… [Hagedorn] should say that he doesn’t stand by those words.”

Indeed, Hagedorn writes that his blog is all about “cutting humor” mixed with “reflective analysis and hard charging commonsense to promote the brand of conservatism established by America’s Founding Fathers, reintroduced by Senator Barry Goldwater and perfected in modern times by President Ronald Reagan, the author’s hero.”

But some of that humor didn’t make the grade. Posts that were visible on the site as recently as mid-October 2009 were removed, including: a joke, days after Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death, about the “treehuggers” and pedophiles Hagedorn says attended the late senator’s memorial service; a post critical of fellow GOPer, then-Sen. Rod Grams; and his commentary on voter registration problems at South Dakota reservations: “Leave it to liberals to ruin John Wayne’s wisdom of the only good Indian being a dead Indian.”

That last one was dubbed racist by the state Democratic Party on Dec. 5. “If I had racist posts out there, and I was running for office, I would want to hide them, too,” DFL chair Brian Melendez told the Rochester paper.

Two more deleted posts have recently been recovered: a Mar. 13, 2003 piece entitled, “Liberal Reassurances and the Vision Thing,” and a post of June 12 of the same year (prompted by the publication of Hillary Clinton’s book “Living History”) which goes heavy on the double entendre in conjuring Bill Clinton’s sexual proclivities. A sample:

Hillary Clinton’s latest quest to prostitute history nauseates all with a pulse…

Were Hillary to “gulp for air” every time some adulterous hussy gulped good old Bill, she’d be in a perpetual state of vapor lock….

… During the most pitiful of the pitiful segments, it was “revealed” that the Heroine relied on faith (not God, mind you) to endure after the splotched blue dress exposed the depth of Monica and Bill’s Macanudo and Domino’s parties. “My faith was so instrumental,” the Heroine shamelessly acknowledged, “I got down on my knees.” Amazing how Bill cajoles his gals to head below the human equator one way or the other…

But OutFront’s Meyer sees some hope in the fact that Hagedorn removed some of these posts, perhaps after realizing they’re offensive to some Minnesotans.

“Perhaps that shows we’re slowly changing the culture of politics,” she said. “Maybe he realized that viable candidates don’t succeed by putting down a group of people. He’s hopefully thinking that doesn’t play well for his political future.”

According to the blog’s “about” page, Hagedorn’s “unique style of commentary mixes cutting humor, reflective analysis and hard charging commonsense to promote the brand of conservatism established by America’s Founding Fathers, reintroduced by Senator Barry Goldwater and perfected in modern times by President Ronald Reagan, the author’s hero.”

But some of that cutting humor was cut, sometime after Oct. 16, 2009, according to Google’s cache of the site.

On Nov. 5, 2002, Hagedorn’s nationwide election analysis included a note of optimism for Minnesota, which he assessed was “actually showing signs of rejoining the Republic.” He wrote [Google cache; pdf]:

Until Paul Wellstone’s plane crash, DFL Trotskyites were confident the Senator would soar [emphasis his] to victory over Norm Coleman…

Then he joked about fumigating the arena that hosted Wellstone’s memorial service, after mourners — which he surmised included pedophiles and “tree huggers” — left:

About the memorial service. Was it just me or did it not seem as if someone bailed out the union thugs; tree huggers; abortion rights feminists; peaceniks; citizens for gay animal rights; NAMBLA members and the other Marxist sympathizers who protested at last month’s IMF meetings, and transported them to Wellstone’s memorial in a slew of green busses? Talk about lefties all in one convenient location. Hopefully after the ceremony they fumigated the arena.

He concluded the section with a prediction — a Walter Mondale win in the Senate race that Norm Coleman eventually won: “Goofdale will win, something like 50 – 46 with the independent parties taking the remainder.”

As mentioned earlier, the post also includes an analysis of the 2002 race in South Dakota, in which Hagedorn wrote of voter registration irregularities on Native American reservations:

Voter backlash against the Democrat’s (typical) election-stealing maneuvers will be the margin of victory for Thune. Leave it to liberals to ruin John Wayne’s wisdom of the only good Indian being a dead Indian.

A Nov. 7, 2000 post, also scrubbed, accurately predicted a win by Democratic Senate candidate Mark Dayton, while jabbing fellow Republican Rod Grams: [Google cache; pdf]:

Now, you arrive for work at the Senate and in the first days you do which of the following to solidify your long-term political viability (please choose one):

1. Divorce your wife of 25 years
2. Make a public statement that you are banging your chief-of-staff
3. Remind the Republican establishment and the voters that you are really an arrogant SOB
4. Clean up your act.

If you chose D you are definitely not Republican Senator Rod Grams and could have maybe figured out a way to win reelection. Senator Grams, on the other hand, tried his best to achieve A, B, and C before casting his first vote. Thus, liberal self-financed Mark Dayton, not an attractive candidate, is going to the Senate.

(Ironically, Hagedorn’s own father, former 2nd Congressional District Rep. Tom Hagedorn, was implicated in a sex scandal himself: According to a United Press International story of Dec. 10, 1988, available on Lexis-Nexis, former Washington lobbyist Paula Parkinson told CNN’s Larry King that she’d had sexual relations with six Republicans who’d served in Congress, including the elder Hagedorn. )

The site erasures — first noted by Bluestem Prairie — bring to mind the case of another First District Republican, Gil Gutknecht, whose office tried twice in 2006 to remove references in his Wikipedia bio to a 1995 pledge he’d made to only serve 12 years. He broke that pledge in 2005, but lost the race to Rep. Tim Walz.

Hagedorn has not responded to the Minnesota Independent’s request for comment.

Related:

Walz challenger Hagedorn says Dems are ‘driving us toward European socialism’

CD1 challenger Hagedorn deletes anti-gay blog post

“Lou Dobbs, I think, would be a perfect candidate for us,” said Barkley, the onetime senator who founded the Reform Party (now known as the Independence Party). “We were hoping he would have run last time.”

Anything could happen, as Barkley’s experience managing Jesse Ventura’s 1998 campaign attests. Also interviewed for the Politico piece: Ad guy Bill Hillsman, who lead communications efforts behind successful outsider campaigns by Ventura and the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. But Politico says neither Hillsman nor other “leading third-party operatives” have been contacted by Dobbs’ people — yet.

(Hat tip: David Brauer on Twitter.)

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.”

Coleman was showered with criticism after his self-assessment appeared on the cover of the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. In his responses, first unapologetic then remorseful, the freshman senator insisted he’d only meant the comparison in terms of support for President Bush.
That sort of direct contrast isn’t possible for Coleman and Franken because their Senate terms coincide with different administrations: Coleman served only under President George W. Bush and Franken only under President Barack Obama.

But Coleman was in the Senate with Obama for a couple of years, so that’s a basis for comparison. In 2007, when both voted, Coleman and Obama voted differently 119 times. In 2008, Coleman and Obama cast opposing votes 43 times, for a total over their two years together of 162 votes at odds.

Franken on the other hand has voted with his party (and Obama, presumably) 95.5 percent of the time in 88 votes so far, according to the Washington Post — meaning he has voted against the Democrats (and Obama) about four times.

At that rate, over a two-year span equal to Coleman’s overlap with Obama, Franken will vote out of step with Obama only about 32 times — an 80 percent improvement over Coleman, by Coleman’s standard of measurement.

One thing almost everyone can agree on: As his 100th day in office approaches on Thursday, Franken (whose staff didn’t respond to a request for comment) is surely a 100 percent improvement over the vacancy in Wellstone’s seat that persisted for six months while Coleman challenged his election in court.

Here is an excerpt from the the April 7, 2003 Roll Call story, “Coleman Becomes Big Draw“:

Still, Coleman is loyal to Bush, perhaps because the president stood by his side in the last days of the campaign. And the Minnesota Republican is not shy about comparing his legislative accomplishments to those of his predecessor.

“To be very blunt and God watch over Paul’s soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone,” Coleman said. “Just about on every issue.”

When pressed about the remaining 1 percent, Coleman sidestepped the issue and instead talked about his desire to support Bush.

“In other words, Wellstone was never with the president,” Coleman said of the first two years of the Bush administration. “I could be with the president most of the time. If I disagree on affirmative action. If I disagree on ANWR. If I disagree on something else down the road, so what. The differences are so profound.”

Two days later, Roll Call reported on the fallout, under the headline “Coleman Under Fire“:

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) spent most of Tuesday dodging criticism over the freshman’s claim in Monday’s edition of Roll Call that he is a “99 percent improvement” over the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D).
Former Wellstone aides demanded an apology from Coleman, while Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) chastised his new colleague.

“I think it was an unfortunate comment,” Daschle told reporters. “I was one of those fortunate enough to consider Paul Wellstone a very, very dear and special friend. And I disagree with Senator Coleman 100 percent of it.”

Protesters also showed up at Coleman’s St. Paul office demanding that he “change the tone in Washington,” a pointed reference to one of the themes of his campaign last year.

For his part, Coleman initially released a statement that did not challenge the quotes that were attributed to him in the front-page story. He also did not specifically apologize in that statement.

“Mark Twain said the problem with talking to the media is they’re likely to print what you say,” Coleman said in a prepared statement. “It was my responsibility to be more clear in my remarks to Roll Call. It was my understanding we were comparing my relationship to this White House to the relationship Senator Wellstone had with this White House. I would never want to diminish the legacy or memory of Senator Paul Wellstone, and I will accept full responsibility for not having been more accurate in my comments.”

But late Tuesday, Coleman phoned HOH and said that he did want to apologize for any hurt that he caused.

“I fully apologize,” he said. “I accept the fact that there is a higher degree of sensitivity when talking about Senator Wellstone.”

Coleman stressed that he did not want to hedge anything about the context of his comments. “I apologize and it won’t happen again. I’ll choose words more carefully in the future. It’s not the reporter’s mistake. It’s my mistake.”

Here’s Pawlenty at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 18 (three years before the 2012 election):

I’m here to tell you as the governor of, to put it charitably, a left-leaning state [laughter] …

Here’s Romney in South Carolina, as quoted in a Washington Post article titled “Massachusetts Governor Makes His State the Butt of His Jokes,” from Sept. 26, 2005 (three years before the 2008 election):

Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention. … There are more Republicans in this room tonight than I have in my state!

Pawlenty also sounds a lot like Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has brought up the topic of the presidency herself. In Colorado earlier this month, she made a similar gag: “Hey, I got elected in Franken country!” Like Pawlenty at the Value Voters Summit, she followed it up by namechecking Minnesota liberals Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone.

Photo: spps.org

Students at a St. Paul school recently renamed for President and First Lady Obama did not see the president’s address to the nation’s school children today. The plan is to show it later in the week.

Like other schools in the St. Paul district, Tuesday was the first day back for students at what used to be Webster Magnet Elementary. New pencils, new clothes, new teachers … and a new school name: Barack and Michele Obama Service Learning Elementary.

At the end of last school year, the St. Paul school board voted to rename Webster after the Obamas, not quite four months into the president’s term. (The one vote against the name change came from Tom Conlon, the board’s lone Republican member, who has since resigned.)

So last week when ire began to be heard from some quarters in Minnesota and across the country over the president’s plan to speak to students, the Minnesota Independent was curious about plans for the speech at Barack and Michele Obama Service Learning Elementary.

Principal Lori Simon didn’t return messages, but today district spokesman Howie Padilla called with news that although some schools showed Obama’s speech live this morning or replayed it on tape this afternoon, Barack and Michele Obama Service Learning Elementary was not one of those schools.

As at Minneapolis Public Schools, the decision of whether and when to show the speech was left to principals and teachers in St. Paul schools, Padilla said. (A typical example may be Paul and Sheila Wellstone Elementary, where a receptionist told MnIndy that people in the school office weren’t sure which teachers had opted to use the speech in class.)

And also as in Minneapolis, viewing via the internet was discouraged for fear of swamping the St. Paul district’s servers, Padilla said.