Does He Represent YOU?

Jay from Golden Valley offers his services to help put together a flyer for Rock Rice. Here's what it could look like.

LOOKING OUT FOR WHOM?

RYAN WINKLER

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, GOLDEN VALLEY/ ST LOUIS PARK

"DEFENDER OF BIG GOVERNMENT AND THE STATUS QUO"

1. NO TEACHER/TEACHER UNION LEFT BEHIND: Ryan appears to be brave enough to stand against teacher reform, defend the teachers unions, and turn down over $330 million in NEW education grant funding from the Obama Education Administration's Race To The Top grants. By standing with only the most liberal of house membership against: reforms to help reform tenure modestly, link extra pay bumps to performance, and to allow experienced private sector professionals into the teaching profession, Ryan let us know he stands squarely behind the teachers, and unfortunately against funding for school districts and kids. Why? Because the union said so.

2.SNOW TUBING TO RECOVERY: The 2010 BILLION dollar bonding bill was supposed to put Minnesota jobs on the front burner. Ryan decided that allocating $1 million for new snow making gear for a new snow tube run at Theo Wirth Park would put Minnesota back to work. No highway improvements for Hwy 55, no Hwy 100 upgrades, no state grants for local police, no fire equipment made in Minnesota, yep...snow machines. Where are they made? I don't know either.

3. HOW ABOUT GOVT BORROWING FOR MY PRODUCT?: Ryan sponsored House Bill 2993 last session that asked for a Constitutional Amendment vote to allow state bonding/borrowing..."to pay capital costs of design, acquisition, installation, construction, equipping, and servicing public information technology systems, licenses, and infrastructure; and..." HF 2993 Guess where Ryan works? Ryan is the CFO at Nazca Solutions, a Ted Mondale run company that provides information technology systems to units of government. If we are going to spend a BILLION dollars on each bonding bill shouldn't Ryan's company get a chance to make some money too?

4. SAVE MONEY, OVER THE LABOR UNIONS DEAD BODY!: An amendment was offered in the 2010 session to allow cities and counties to hire non-union contractors to complete normal construction and renovation tasks, and if any savings were realized half of the savings were deposited right back into the state's general fund. Yep, saving you and me money. Any guess on how Ryan voted? (Gottwald amendment vote to HF1671, 3/22/10)

Starting to see a pattern?

How is Rick Rice different?

Find out at Rick Rice for Minnesota House of Representatives.

Rick Rice on the Radio

Rick Rice will join Mitch Berg and Ed Morrisey on the Northern Alliance Radio Network today on AM1280 The Patriot. The show airs from 1pm-3pm. Tune in if you can.

CD5 Golden Valley Phone Bank Now Open

A message from Carleton Crawford:

I'm very pleased to announce that the 5th CD Golden Valley Office and Phone Bank are now open on a regular schedule.

5th CD Republican Golden Valley Office and Phone Bank
1405 North Lilac Dr., Door #1 (Suite 108)
Golden Valley, MN 55422

Regular Phone Bank Hours:

Mondays: 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Tuesdays: 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Wednesdays: 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Thursdays: 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Fridays: closed
Saturdays: 10:00 AM-2:00 PM
Sundays: closed

The environment surrounding this election is looking very promising, and we have a chance to not only keep the governorship in Republican hands, but elect candidates to offices not held by Republicans in many years. But good things are much more likely to happen if we lay the groundwork for our candidates to succeed. A lot of people have made a lot of phone calls, and knocked on a lot of doors for the party and its candidates, but even more of us need to do so if this is to be the election the pundits think its going to be.

Any time at all, all you gotta do is call.

Gentlemen, Start Your Campaigns

On Monday night, Republican delegates in SD44 endorsed three candidates who will seek to break the DFL stranglehold on our district (cue the Nugent).

In the 44A House race, we have Stephen Manderfeld.

In the 44B House race, we have Rick Rice.

And for the SD44 Senate seat, we have Paul Scofield.

They all will face uphill battles against entrenched DFL opponents and they will all need our support both in time and money. But they will all work hard and if there's ever been a year for us to bring some real change to SD44, it's this year.

Middle Road

There seems to be a glorious opportunity for conservative politicians to reverse President Obama's attempts to play both ends against the middle, by aligning their message with the mood of those in the middle. Especially those running for Congress. While Democrats seem more and more willing to spend money (your money) on those at the bottom while also bailing out those on the top, what have they done to make things better for you or your children? Whether it's health care, the economy, or education it's pretty hard to point to much that your average middle class American believes has gotten better since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006.

While there's always a danger of playing too much to populist passions, an effort to identify and align with middle class concerns would seem to be smart politics for conservative candidates. Especially those in districts that traditionally have not been receptive to the standard conservative approach.

One of my frustrations with the Republican Party over the years has been that too often we have fielded candidates who are unwilling or unable to articulate the right message for their particular district. If you're running for Congress as a Republican in Minnesota's Fourth, Fifth, and to a certain extent Eighth Districts, you already are facing long odds. While rousing red meat conservative speeches may win you applause and accolades at the party conventions, they are not going to win over many voters in your dark blue districts. Michele Bachmann can talk about limited government, personal responsibility, and strict adherence to the Constitution all the time and still win election after election. Republican long shots in traditionally Democratic districts can't.

So if you're running in one of those districts and you want to have any hope of winning this year, you need a message suited to your voters. It can still be a conservative message, but it's got to be a conservative message that resonates with the people in your district. And this "playing the middle against both ends" strategy appears to be one that would. Especially this year.

Teresa Collett, Joel Demos, and Chip Cravaack take heed. Your best hopes of pulling off the improbable are to play to middle. Not from an ideological perspective, but an economic one.