McFadden for Senate at Edina Parade

Photo: Mike McFadden for U.S. Senate campaign

One of my favorite campaign activities is walking in a parade to support a candidate, so it was a great pleasure to join the large group of energetic campaign volunteers of Mike McFadden for U.S. Senate at the Edina Parade last Friday, July 4.

It was perfect weather for a parade, which attracted thousands of spectators along 50th Street. Outfitted in our McFadden for Senate shirts, all we had to do was wave McFadden campaign signs and hand out campaign stickers to mostly eager tots ten years or more before they will cast their first votes for public office. It was a fun walk and great exercise to boot. We also got lots of smiles and verbal encouragement from the voting-age adults in the crowd.

The candidate himself was appearing in the parade in Delano, scheduled at the same time as the Edina Parade. The two campaign teams were to reunite later that day in Brainerd to walk in that town's Independence Day parade.

In front of us in line was Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, waving from a Hennepin County Water Patrol boat in tow.

It was also fun to greet Jeff Johnson and his family, and various members of team Johnson, on their way to the Johnson for Governor spot in the parade lineup.

Part of the problem

Republicans have been having a field day over the proposed $90 million Senate Legislative Office Building (or SLOB, even better than the acronym for the current State Office Building, SOB). The edifice was, apparently legally, slipped into a tax bill at the very end of the 2013 session without a single hearing in the House. The SLOB was not funded in the tax bill just signed by Gov. Dayton, but that funding could still come with a vote by the House Rules Committee. Meanwhile, HF 2800 and SF 2808 have been introduced to repeal the construction authority for the building.

With some DFL legislators and even Gov. Dayton expressing concerns over the price tag and some of the proposed building's amenities, the building and the way it was rushed through the process has been red meat for partisan Republicans. 

All six Republican gubernatorial endorsement candidates publicly expressed their opposition to the building, instead advocating for the Capitol Preservation Commission proposal for temporary facilities during the restoration and then moving the senators back into the Capitol. 

The House GOP Caucus has focused attention on Gov. Dayton, pointing out that the Governor's office would receive a 62% more office space than their current Capitol digs. (Seriously??)

Yet the Legislature is pressed for enough office and hearing room space to conduct business and enable citizen participation, even before renovations soon require some senators to vacate their Capitol offices. According to former state Rep. Jim Knoblach in a StarTribune op ed, sensible solutions could exist in unused or rearranged spaces in the SOB. So why buy new when slightly used will do?

The "extravagant" amenities and architecture of the current SLOB proposal are only part of the problem. Let's hope that the building's critics will be part of the solution.

DFL running scared?

By David Faith, sd44gop.com

Over the last three days, I've received no fewer than three expensive glossy mailers paid for by the DFL attacking David Gaither. These mailers are the worst sort of political trash. They feature an unflattering screenshot of David apparently laughing and juxtapose it with a series of slanders, including (I'm not making this up) that he wants old people to starve. They are premised on the sad, tired DFL argument that only the central government can accomplish anything and that if, like Gaither, you believe government should live within its means then you must not care about the needy. They are premised on belief that only central government can help people, and that local governments, communities and private organizations don't exist. They are premised on the belief that rather than empowering people to help themselves we should treat Minnesotans as helpless sheep, powerless without the DFL shepherd.

Yet in a way, I was actually glad to receive these mailers because they told me something very important. David Gaither has the DFL running scared. There are a lot of tight races in Minnesota and the DFL would not be spending massively in Senate District 44 unless they thought there was a very good chance that David Gaither can defeat DFL incumbent Terri Bonoff. Gaither could be the key vote to defeating Gov. Mark Dayton's plan to make Minnesota the highest-taxed state in the nation, and the DFL is willing to to dig deep into their coffers to keep him out of the Senate. I think you measure a man by his enemies. David Gaither has made an enemy of the DFL money machine. That should tell you everything you need to know about his candidacy.

Let's get out there and elect David Gaither to the State Senate!

David Faith is Vice Chair at Large of the SD44 Republicans. This article originally appeared on sd44gop.com.

Terri Bonoff: Lifelong Democrat