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Why are Republican donors, including a Bush Pioneer, contributing to Ember Reichgott Junge’s campaign for Congress?

For some of Ember’s Republican supporters, including Bush Pioneer J.C. Huizenga , the answer may lie with Junge’s position as a nationally recognized proponent of charter schools.

In 1991, Junge made history by authoring and passing the nation’s first charter school legislation.

J.C. Huizenga is founder and chairman of National Heritage Academies (NHA), a for-profit educational management company based in Grand Rapids, MI. NHA was sued by the Michigan ACLU who accused NHA for evangelizing in the classroom and teaching creationism as science.

John Sackler, a Republican donor who has given considerable funds to George W. Bush, the RNC, Ted Stevens, Joe Lieberman and Ember Reichgott Junge can be seen here testifying for Connecticut’s General Assembly in support of charter schools.

In the “Education” section of Junge’s campaign website charter schools are never mentioned. Under the section labeled “The Gift of Public Service”, charter schools are mentioned once in item 6.

However, the section used to link to this page which featured charter schools prominently.

Why is Junge actively downplaying her support of charter schools?

UPDATE: MN Publius has their take here.

An in-depth analysis of Ember Reichgott Junge’s July 15 FEC disclosure reveals that Junge is funded by twenty-five donors who have no or little history giving to Democratic candidates. These donors have collectively contributed $233,400 since 2000 to Republican candidates, committees and PACs.

The recipients of these funds range from Mark Kennedy ($29,600) to George W. Bush ($13,500). Even the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the committee “devoted to increasing the number of Republicans in Congress” has benefited ($18,600) from the same donors who are backing Junge.

Other candidates who received contributions are Tom Delay, Rick Santorum, Norm Coleman, John Kline, Ted Stevens and Roy Blunt.

Other committees and PACs who were given donations are the MNGOP, Minnesotans for a Republican Congress Committee, the Rally for Leadership Fund (John Kline), Club for Growth, Every Republican is Crucial PAC and the Majority Initiative to Keep Electing Republicans.

This analysis raises important questions regarding Junge’s campaign:

• Why are these donors who have supported Republicans nationwide for years suddenly supporting Junge?
• How were these donors contacted?
• What did Junge or her campaign say to convince these Republican donors to become Junge’s cash constituents?

An Excel spreadsheet summarizing the contributions can be found here.

A Word document that includes important additional commentary on the data can be found here.

Please read both documents before contacting me or commenting on the post.

UPDATE: MNCR weighs in with his analysis.

Evil Bobby has the first rundown of the Walz-Gutknecht debate in Owatonna. A choice excerpt: (sic)

Even [Gil’s] supporters in the crowd burst out laughing when Gil suggested (More then once) that our Energy problems were due to “Radical Environmentalists”

Seems like Gutknecht has finally joined that group that blames all agricultural, economic and energy problems on radical activists. Gutknecht knows better - the critical problems of the day are caused by the food, financial and gas markets. Activists on either side of the partisan divide can do little to affect these macroeconomic issues.

These problems face all of us and Gutknecht fails to adquetely serve his constitutents by reducing his “solution” into a trite talking point.

Early word is that Walz’s performance was superb. But don’t trust me: go here for Evil Bobby’s video of Walz’s concluding remarks.

UPDATE: Ollie Ox will soon have up her run-down of the debate. Watch Bluestem Prairie for the post.

Ollie’s remarks are here. They are a must read.

The Friday Refreshment is a listing of blogs in MN that contribute unique voices or unique news to the blogosphere. If you have a suggestion for a blog that didn’t make this list, please add it in the comments!

Media Law Minnesota
http://www.medialawminnesota.blogspot.com/

Ag suggested this blog in last week’s refreshment. It’s good - very good. Mr. Aggergaard has covers a wide range of media and law issues and has knows a great deal of MN history. Go here to read about the interesting case of “Shelvie Prolife Rettmann”.

Loyal Opposition
http://loyalopposition.wordpress.com/

Described as “a tolerated heretic in the Minnesota DFL.” The author is not mincing words with the label heretic: the current top post contains references to “Replacement Theology” and refers to Jess McIntosh as the “Mistress of Communications”. This would probably be a good time to issue a disclaimer that I can’t be held responsible nor do I necessarily agree with any content to which I link.

Midtopia
http://midtopia.blogspot.com/

“A vision of how the world would be if the moderate middle prevailed.” Sean Aqui’s writing at Midtopia is crisp and clear. He also has one of the best pen names I’ve seen in the blogosphere. (Sean Aqui is derived from “seanachie” - Irish for “storyteller”).

Sly Civilian
http://slycivilian.com/

“An undercover agent deep in the heart of academia.” I debated linking to Sly Civilian. Sly is a Minnesotan currently attending Yale Divinity School. Sly still posts on Minnesota issues, but primarily covers academia, religion, racism and queer issues. Sly was able to seal the deal with this post entitled: “The Kantian Nihilists Strike Again”

No, I’m not referring to all the legislative pork Gil’s been rubber stamping in Congress - I’m referring to the Other White Meat.

All hog producers have to pay a fee (or checkoff) every time they sell a hog - the vast majority of the funds go to the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). In 2000 family farmers realized that the NPPC had moved away from supporting independent producers and was instead lobbying for the concerns of large factory farms. They decided to call a referendum to end the checkoff (scroll down to “Farmers vote to end pork checkoff”): (emphasis added)

The NPPC tried everything to stop this vote, including getting its allies in Congress to authorize an investigation into how the decision to hold the referendum was made. They were hoping the investigation would cast doubt on how the signatures were collected and whether Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman has the authority to call for a vote. U.S. Representative Gil Gutknecht was the only member of the Minnesota Congressional delegation to sign a letter requesting the investigation.

The result?

The investigation, which was conducted by the General Accounting Office (GAO), backfired on the NPPC and its allies. The GAO found that USDA grossly mishandled the petition process, that Glickman did indeed have the authority to call for a vote, and that checkoff funds (not taxpayer dollars) must be used to pay for the checkoff referendum. In other words, we were right and the NPPC was wrong.

Why did Gutknecht side against family farmers and indepdenent producers?

The PAC of the NPPC has contributed $3,500 to Gutknecht’s campaign in this election cycle alone and $7,500 since 1999. Gutknecht’s connections to other large agri-business lobbies are well documented.

Recently, controversy regarding agricultural checkoffs have resurfaced:

Do you know where your thousands — and on a national scale, hundreds of millions — of federally-mandated, non-refundable checkoff dollars go?

It’s a question Bobby King, policy director of Minnesota’s Land Stewardship Project, asked when he viewed advertisements that attacked “anti-livestock activist groups” in the state on Minneapolis’ powerhouse WCCO TV station earlier this year.

The 30-second ads, says King, had an unmistakably political message. “To build the case that there’s a crisis in livestock production here,” he explains from his Twin Cities office, “because Minnesota law gives counties and townships authority over livestock facility siting.”

Since Gutknecht’s agriculture section on his campaign web site does not provide any substance, only Gutknecht himself can explain why he sided with big business over the family farm and independent producers.

UPDATE: WCCO’s Pat Kessler just released a thorough “Reality Check” on the upcoming checkoff controversy:

“Have you ever wondered what challenges Minnesota farmers face from anti-livestock activist groups?” the TV ad asks. “These groups operate by spreading misinformation and fear. They talk about local control, but it’s really a self serving, selective and arbitrary denial of business growth they’re after.”
This is MISLEADING. The ad, produced by WCCO-TV’s sales department, mixes phony newspaper headlines, a fake petition and protest photo, with one real image of a dead rat on a county commissioner’s door.

It targets unspecified “anti-livestock” and “environmental activist groups” that the ad sponsor refused to identify for Reality Check.

The video is top notch and the article is full of additional references. The groups funding these ads want to frame the debate in their favor by stealing the cloak of rural populism. Don’t let them do it - get the facts for yourself.

In the September issue of Minnesota Monthly there is a feature on the Center for the American Experiment (CAE). The CAE broke ground as Minnesota’s first conservative think tank and is widely credited as creating the intellectual infrastructure that would back Minnesota’s new generation of conservative leaders: Pawlenty, Coleman, Kline, etc. The CAE is over $300,000 in debt. Not even an appearance by Gen. Tommy Franks in May could rally the troops: (emphasis added)

…[it] drew less than half the attendees, and brought in less money, than previous CAE dinners featuring such speakers ads Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.

At least it gave Gen. Franks the opportunity to again put Saddam Hussein and bin Laden in the same sentence. It’s unfortunate that more people don’t realize that the transitive property of equality only holds true in mathematics. “If Saddam was doing the same thing as bin Laden, and bin Laden planned 9/11, then Saddam also planned 9/11!” Eh, not quite.

CAE’s problems are not just financial: (emphasis added)

This past spring, the CAE board of directors stunned Minnesota political observers when it abruptly fired most of he center’s staff, including president and CEO Annette Meeks. Her ouster prompted the resignation of a key longtime supporter and board member, former Minnesota congressman vin Weber; in the wake of his departure, several high-profile conservatives who had been poised to sign on as directors begged off to avoid the chaos.

As CAE struggles to maintain its base of donors in the midst of mounting long-term debt, its very mission, which had lurched rightward during Meeks’s tenure, is now in question. Many observers wonder if the Experiment can even continue.

Part of CAE’s current troubles might be connected to Meeks herself. While CAE always put forth assertive arguments for its vision and policies, the debate was always civil under their founder Mitch Pearlstein. Not so with Meeks:

…the fact that to survive, liberals have to tell us, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ And this hypocrisy will ultimately doom liberals to what the great president Ronald Reagan called the ‘great ash heap of history’.”

Again, the refrain of “liberals = communists”. First off, while Reagan used that line to great effect, the phrase “ash heap of history” was actually coined by Leo Trotsky during the 1917 walkout from the Second Congress of Soviets. To be precise, you would have to say “doom liberals to what the great president Ronald Reagan referenced”. I know it doesn’t have as much zing, but such are the restrictions of living in a reality based-community.

Perhaps it is time for former CAE staffer Katherine Kersten to rejoin her conservative brigade? Your ideas on what policy positions or fundraising plans might save this venerable Minnesota institution are welcome in the comments.

NOTE: I will ad hyperlinks to the original article as soon as it’s online.  Hyperlink is up.

Amy Klobuchar has redesigned and re-launched her campaign website. It looks great and is even W3C compliant now! Congratulations go to web designer David Krewinghaus and the campaign staff at Klobuchar HQ.

The RNC is back in in the metro area today.  They will be reviewing Minneapolis/St. Paul as a possible site for the 2008 Republican National Convention.  The Strib outlines their schedule: (emphasis added)

Today’s itinerary includes breakfast at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a ride on the light-rail line, and tours of Target Center and the Metrodome in Minneapolis and the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. The group will be in town through Tuesday.

I’ll be swinging by the Guthrie this morning to see if I can spot any RNC members of note.  If anyone is on the light-rail today and finds themselves sitting next to this gentleman, ask him just what “adapting to win” in Iraq really means.

BLOG NOTICE: Currently, my comment policy is that you must have one approved comment before you can comment freely in the future.  This is purely a spam fighting procedure.  Thanks for understanding!

MNCR has a live blog going. I will post others as they come online, if they do so in the next 20 minutes. MN Publius is now live blogging as well.  The MYDFL blog has great coverage.

After that, I’m going to the Pizza Luce Block Party: Black-Eyed Snakes, Cloud Cult, Root City Band, Charlie Parr, Cardinal Sin, Unknown Prophets, Spittin Cobras, Solid Gold, Kill The Vultures, Belles of Skin City, Koalas, Thunder in the Valley.

And yes good readers, I have already door knocked for a DFL-endorsed candidate today.

In 2004, several first-time candidates won seats in the Minnesota Legislature by running positive grassroots-driven campaigns. One of the closest victories of the ‘04 freshman class was Maria Ruud - she beat a Republican incumbent in a GOP district by a mere 239 votes.

The GOP knows they can’t run a smear campaign against Ruud’s character - too many residents in 42A know her personally as a result of her excellent field work in 2004 (courtesy of Camp Wellstone). Instead, they have decided to blank out key facts regarding the 2003 cut to Local Government Aid (LGA) to smear Ruud’s record.

More under the fold.

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