Sunday, November 25, 2007

Spotty, what's a yird-swine?

Mark Ritchie is the object of the hatred of the Republican Party in Minnesota. They've got their best yird-swine, Michael Brodkorb, after him. You see, Mark Ritchie beat Little Miss Mary Kiffmeyer in the Minnesota Secretary of State contest last November. Secretary of State can be a very important office, especially for Republicans. Just ask Kathleen Harris or Ken Blackwell. The Republicans took the loss of the office very badly. You could tell when Mikey sat in on the passing of the baton meeting between Kiffy and Ritchie. Mikey wasn't legal counsel to Kiffy, oh no! He was odious smear counsel! And Mikey has been on the case ever since:

But Ritchie, who has given no indication he is taking the Republican request [to resign over the latest non-flap] seriously, has been in the cross-hairs before. When Kiffmeyer and Ritchie met before he took office, conservative blogger Michael Brodkorb tagged along with Kiffmeyer and posted an anti-Ritchie item on the meeting within hours.

Here's what Mikey is complaining about:

Mark Ritchie ran an unusually energetic and hard-edged campaign for secretary of state in 2006, unseating Republican Mary Kiffmeyer after charging her with improper partisanship in supervising elections.

Last week, Ritchie saw the tables turned, as Republican complaints forced him to admit he had mixed official and campaign business.

The flap reflects at least two things. The first is the zest with which the GOP targeted Ritchie for payback. Partly, some say, that's because Republicans think Ritchie has higher political ambitions. The second is the lightning rod nature the office has acquired.

The sin? Apparently Ritchie signed up some people who had signed up for a civic engagement program—a matter of public record—for his campaign newsletter. Now, if the Republicans had done this—and what do you bet that the Republicans have copied public record names for political purposes at some time in the past?—there would have been no problem!

Mikey Brodkorb, as most of you know, boys and girls, is, between his own skin-shedding sessions, the proprietor of the Reptile Gardens known as Minnesota Democrats Exposed. Mikey, you can go over there, no link from Spot, but you can find it if you're determined, thinks that Ritchie is somehow too partisan for the office.

Oh yeah? Prior to her defeat, Little Miss Mary delivered an address to the Senate 41 (Spot's home turf) GOP that was described by a gushing correspondent as Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer talks about Election Reform, Voter Fraud and the 1-2-3’s to beating DFLers. Charming. In the same homily, Little Miss Mary said:

Same-day registration: Voter fraud would be significantly reduced in the state if we switched to a 30-day pre-election registration period like most states. A number of cases of vote fraud from 2002 are still in the legal system and have yet to go to court.

This is but a single example from many of Little Miss Mary, Secretary of State.

Spot has a little research project for you Mikey: identify all of the voter fraud convictions in Minnesota that grew out of the 2002 elections. If you find any, then tell Spot how many grew out of the same-day registration process, and of those cases—again, if any—how many were the result of nefarious activity by the DFL?

Spot wants know. He'll be waiting.

Minnesota is always a leader in voter turnout, much to the chagrin of the likes of Little Miss Mary and Mikey. Same-day registration is one of the reasons why.

Meanwhile, Mark Ritchie gets good marks from others:

"I found him to be very supportive of nonpartisan stuff. I just feel like he's done a very good job of reaching out to all the parties," said Craig Swaggert, head of the Independence Party of Minnesota.

Spotty, you still haven't told us what a yird-swine is.

Look it up, grasshopper.

A thump of the tail to Ollie Ox.

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