Ron Carey

Lt. Col. Joe Repya is leaving the Minnesota GOP — and he’s exiting with rhetorical guns blazing. The 30-year U.S. Army veteran — who fought in Vietnam and both Iraq wars — delivers a withering op-ed piece in today’s Pioneer Press:

U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen’s campaign paid his wife more than $10,000 in the last five months of 2008, according to Federal Election Commission records. (No such revelations about his DFL opponent, a bachelor.)

Minnesota GOP chair Ron Carey calls Rep. Keith Ellison’s arrest during a Darfur protest Monday “unbecoming” of the office. But Ellison and his fellow protesters weren’t alone: Their action comes almost exactly three years after a similar set of arrests by Democratic legislators over the same issue – and nearly five years after a unanimous House vote declared the killing in Darfur “genocide.” Given the lack of change in Darfur, who can blame him for waiting around for more “becoming” methods?

When it comes to rejection and Norm Coleman’s campaign, Noah Kunin knows a thing or two. As senior political correspondent for The UpTake, he’s seen his questions ignored at Coleman press conferences; his colleagues have been refused access to campaign “media availabilities”; and the state GOP chair called The UpTake a “partisan, liberal blog” as a way of attacking Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who referenced The UpTake’s video feeds in an email.

But what Kunin wasn’t prepared for was the rejection of his absentee ballot.

After state GOP chair Ron Carey aped party blogger Michael Brodkorb’s terminology for The UpTake as a “partisan, liberal” blog, the citizen journalism outfit issued a press release correcting an error Carey made — and thanked him for tuning into the same video feeds of Minnesota recount proceedings that media outlets like Fox News and [...]

Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect for the Third District, Republican Erik Paulsen, ran one of the best five House campaigns in the country, according to the Washington Post blog The Fix. Paulsen “beat back the anti-Republican trend,” writes Chris Cillizza, “by focusing on his own accomplishments in the state legislature.” The Fix tracked the Third District contest closely throughout the campaign season as one of the nation’s most competitive congressional contests. But in several ways Cillizza’s summary this morning doesn’t exactly square with how home-state observers might recall the race.

What should we make of Minnesota Democrats Exposed blogger Michael Brodkorb’s attack on Secretary of State Mark Ritchie for including a benign mention of The UpTake’s live video feeds of the Canvassing Board’s recent meetings? A tempest in a teapot? An insider media squabble? Try this on for size: Maybe it’s part of a GOP plan to smear the recount process that seems increasingly likely to result in Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s defeat.

Minnesota Monthly’s Tim Gihring gives GOP chair Ron Carey an “Uncommon Loon” award for his go-get-’em speech to Republicans at the Mayo Civic Center in May. Decrying Democrats’ “left-wing values,” he predicted — incorrectly — that “the joke’s gonna be on” pundits who suggested an electoral “slaughter” would befall Republicans in November. But here’s the [...]

Is the term “progressive Republican” an oxymoron? With religious hardliners and anti-tax crusaders dominating the party in recent years, that would certainly seem to be the case. But a documentary airing this Saturday on Twin Cities Public Television makes the case that GOP politicians in Minnesota have a long tradition of advocating policies aimed at alleviating poverty and reducing inequality.

With the Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman possibly going into “double overtime,” we may not be put out of our recount-overload misery anytime soon. Here’s a rundown of recent goings-on, including a deadline for the search for missing ballots in a Minneapolis precinct, the prospect of the Senate deciding the race, hue and cry over Franken’s so-called “church invasion” and — gulp — the possible pricetag.