Douglas M. Head was the last Republican Attorney General of Minnesota, serving from 1967 to 1972. The DFL captured, and has continuously held, that important constitutional office ever since, a testament to the sheer political incompetence, the ongoing talent famine, of the Minnesota Republican establishment. For the first time in 46 years, Republican Doug Wardlow not only has the best chance to win that office but must be declared at this point to be the front runner.
This has the liberal base, local media and some of the usual suspects in the Republican Party unhappy. It has me delighted.
Wardlow is running against far left Congressman Keith Ellison and that fact is his single greatest strength. It’s no slight to Wardlow to admit this, either. An election is a choice and voters necessarily must make a binary one. That said, Wardlow has run a race that until recently has been more or less flawless. Polling of the contest is said to have it tied but no serious person takes Minnesota polling seriously. We have to take it into account, surely, but more often than not polls are designed to sway and influence elections, not give that laughable, proverbial “snapshot in time.” The internal polling of campaigns is another matter.
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Ellison’s history of domestic abuse is widely known, despite the continuous downplaying of it by our august local media. In no other race is their hypocrisy and clear political preferences made clearer. But the news is out and is part of the fabric of the race. This has a variety of ramifications on a number of levels.
Ellison, for the most part, has tried to ignore it after furiously denying the merits of the claims. He was unconvincing at best, something pro forma. His so called interview with Esme Murphy is a masterclass in media sycophancy when the media party’s candidate is in trouble. He’s running as “the people’s lawyer,” which is Soros-speak for a far left agenda that weaponizes attorneys general across the nation against your rights.
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This week Wardlow did something few Minnesota Republicans do: he ran an ad that will likely get him elected because it is unstinting in telling the truth about Ellison and his abusive past, while deftly pivoting to positive reasons to vote for Wardlow. When I first saw it, I could hardly believe that it was one from the party for which I vote: who flew in a shipment of Rocky Mountain oysters?
I understand that some advised the campaign not to go with this ad in its first big statewide media buy but fortunately they were ignored. Being liked by liberals who hate them and currying favor with a media that wants fewer of them in office is part of the reason why we haven’t had a Republican Attorney General for 46 years. Those who give such advice are lousy at politics but they’ve made it their life’s work, energized by ephemera like Sunday liquor sales while state spending grows by ten percent and the DVS imposes an option of “X” for gender to pander to the mentally unwell, trans forming and degrading our culture & human dignity in the process.
This approach to beating the Democrats is overdue. It’s refreshing to encounter a Republican campaign that knows what it takes to win and is unafraid to do it. Their rules.
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The ad prompted a variety of media stories, a sure sign of it’s effectiveness. The Hill ran a story headlined “Election Countdown: Minnesota Dems worry Ellison allegations could cost them key race.” It included the usual hand wringing quotes from Democrats, including DFL chair Ken Martin, who fretted “It shouldn’t be a close race” but without explaining why it shouldn’t be. A 46 year history of beating Republicans maybe?
What caught my gimlet eye, though, was this: “The best thing Democrats have going for them, strategists in both parties agree, is the Republican nominee, former state Rep. Doug Wardlow (R). Wardlow is running far to the right, and even Republican strategists say they wish they had fielded a stronger candidate.”
This quote embodies the untalented Minnesota Republican swamp in ways few other things could. They’re still mad about Pawlenty losing, mind you.
Wardlow is a strong candidate, with strong fundraising numbers. He doesn’t lack for money. And he’s not far right although he was for Right to Work while in the legislature, something at which the girly men in the MNGOPe faint dead away at the mere mention.
And who would be a stronger candidate? Perpetual Boy Scout and Never Trumper Harry Niska, who left the AG race in order to glom onto a lifetime federal job as the permanent clerk to now Eighth Circuit Judge David Stras, elevated by the President he didn’t vote for? Niska* would be crushed by the Bolshevik Ellison machine, all the while bleating that he was a nice guy. Enough of these kinds of candidates.
Or maybe those “strategists,” who haven’t strategized a way to win the AG’s office for 46 years, were Kurt Daudt and Ben Golnik? Or were they from the Tom Emmer camp? If you said possibly both you’re catching on to the undertow of Minnesota state Republican politics. You won’t read about it in the newspapers or watch it on “Almanac” or “At Issue,” believe me. But you’ll read it here: welcome hate readers.
If Wardlow wins there’s a threeway power center in the state: him, the House eunuchs and their attendant horrors, and Congressman Emmer, likely already eyeing a run against Tina Smith. Yes, the man who, in between gigs of elected office, was paid to shill for National Popular Vote, which would have given us President Hillary, doesn’t think Housley will win. This, in turn, has several representatives and state senators from CD 6 thinking that they, too, could become a member of Congress. After all, someone has to be and likely it will be a Republican.
This new proto-power arrangement exists because, sadly, Norm Coleman is fighting for his life, which is to say time, not a different outcome. Vin Weber is, happily, paralyzed wondering whether he’s going to be the recipient of an indictment out of the Southern District of New York, a hand off from the pointless Mueller investigation. The Minnesota Republican power table is being reset and I’m your sherpa.
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Minnesota Republican politics consists mostly of getting and keeping a living. There’s actually no core to what these Republicans believe because continued survival in whatever spider hole they’ve managed to occupy at taxpayer expense is their highest priority. How else do used car salesmen from Crown get free trips to Istanbul?
Doug Wardlow never sat at the Taco Tuesday lunch table with the cool kids, the venal ones, the Eddie Haskells, the greasy pole climbers, the glad handers and back slappers, the former elected officials and staffers who became lobbyists.
In a word, the frauds, the politically successful in this mediocre state.
But fate has placed him in a position to become our next Attorney General, something both overdue from a balance of power perspective between the two parties, as well as the right candidate against Keith Ellison. The only conscionable choice is to support Doug Wardlow.
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In addition to Alpha News, John Gilmore is also a contributor to The Hill. He is the founder and executive director of Minnesota Media Monitor.™ He blogs at MinnesotaConservatives.org and is on Twitter under @Shabbosgoy. He can be reached at Wbua@nycunarjfza.pbz
Photo credit: bringmethenews.com
*Niska has returned to private practice.
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter
