An actual Democrat represents the Minnesota 4th Congressional District.
Crickets
A staple defense of the Longrie years was that the streets were still getting plowed. Those same defenders predicted collapse of of the social fabric should Longrie, Hjelle, Cave, and Copeland be removed.
Now that the city has settled in to having them all gone, we can report that the streets are still getting plowed, as are the trails.
You could try to hear all about it on cable. What you will hear instead is crickets.
Playbook patterns: you should fear the government bogeyman
Here is resident Longrie from the voice clip highlighted in a recent post
[ at 1:25] Why are they [(unidentified) Maplewood business owners who have talked to me about the sign ordinance] not here tonight? they told me very clearly why they are not here tonight. Because they are fearful that if they identify themselves, that identifying their shops, that Maplewood will indeed drive by their shops, see how much signage they have on their windows and will tag them. They are fearful of retaliation.
Here is Michele Bachmann
BACHMANN: He said that in Japan, to wait and get health care is almost impossible. You get on a list and you wait and you wait and you wait. But he said this is something people don’t know: in Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people are afraid of voicing. ‘Well why is that,’ I asked. [He said], ‘Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn’t get health care. They wouldn’t get in. They wouldn’t get seen. And so people are afraid. They’re afraid to speak back to government. They’re afraid to say anything.’ Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point!
[emphasis mine throughout]
Stephan
Playbook: The insinuated non-accusation accusation - Final update
See if you can spot one or more insinuated non-accusation accusations in this audio clip:
[Resident Longrie addresses the council during the second reading of the proposed sign ordinance, January 25, 2010]
Update:
Some readers report trouble with the embedded Google audio player I used for this audio clip. While we figure that out, here is a youTube version.
Update 2: As long as we are testing, here is a different embedded player:
And still another:
Final update (technote):
For future reference, and readers who care about blogger technology, the issue with the Google audio player has been resolved. Internet Explorer cannot correctly parse the mp3 file URL from the player's URL query string unless a (meaningless) additional parameter is added to the query string. Better browsers, like Firefox, handle it correctly. Other players like the two used above pass the mp3 URL as a flash variable rather than within the player query string, so the issue does not arise.
So now you know!
Playbook: Manufacture a controversy
Alert reader BZ suggests that the example from yesterday also illustrates the tactic of manufacturing a controversy. This tactic, when conducted well, has several potential outcomes. Among them are diverting attention away from governing to the agenda of the inciters, and smearing those in charge with blame for supposed scandals. Those using the tactic often could care less about the subject of their supposed controversy. It is the simple existence of a controversy they find valuable.
I agree.
This tactic is often known as creating a tempest in a teapot.
Playbook: Threat display
Watching the early moves in the 2010 special election campaign will provide examples and illustrations of the Political Football playbook being used.
Today's illustration is the threat display created by pumping up your size to look as big as possible.
From WebEcoist
Inflating their bodies by gulping air and standing high on all fours helps toads who feel threatened create the illusion of larger size.
Of course, if you actually are big there is little reason to do this.
Now, that's apathy
City forgot to hold 2009 election
No one in the city realized they were supposed to hold an election last year.
...
"We just forgot it, that's the only thing that happened we just forgot it," said Addie Cutts, City of DeSoto Councilwoman.
...
"The mayor said he was going to let someone who handles elections do it for us every year so we won't forget it," said Cutts.
[h/t LC]
Welcome Julie Wasiluk
The four elected members of the Maplewood City Council have decided to appoint former Maplewood councilperson Julie Wasiluk to the open council position, serving until a new councilperson is elected in the 2010 special election. The appointment will presumably become official at the next council meeting.
Here is a link to the newly available stream of the workshop meeting.
Congratulations Ms. Wasiluk, and Maplewood!
Commentary - winning
Tonight the Maplewood City Council will likely take an action that I think is wrong. It will be so wrong that I will view it as a betrayal of any sense of justice there may be in the world. Those members of the council for whom I and many others did volunteer campaign work (all of them) know how I feel about this action. Shouldn't they just do what we want? After all, because of us, they (we) won! If they won't do what we want, then maybe we should just quit - just stop paying attention, or stop being supportive, or threaten not to be helpful the next time around.
And it's not just a local phenomenon. Thousands of posts have appeared on the national blog-scene attacking the Obama administration for not doing what the base wants, and making just that argument to quit.
But that is selfish thinking, not principled thinking.
Elected officials in a representative democracy must govern. They must use their collective judgment to do what they determine to be best for every person affected by their decisions, not just their supporters. We work to elect those candidates that we think will do the better job of making those decisions for us as if we were personally charged with representing everyone, not just our narrow point of view.
So, when the council makes the terrible decision they are likely to make tonight, it will be the right decision, since they are doing what they think is best for the city - all of the residents, businesses, and neighbors - not what is best for me.
To think otherwise is to become what we have worked so hard to reject.
Stephan
Followup on our good start - another viewpoint
Alert reader FB sends along a graphic illustration of the good start signaled by last Monday's special council meeting.
WØrd of the day: Political football
Instead of the traditional meaning, political football can also be used as an exercise in reasoning by analogy about effective political organizations. Some adopt strategies that respond to current circumstances. Others just keep doing the same thing over and over.
| flexible |  |
| dogmatic |  |
Place your bets!
Commentary: what we can look forward to
After Monday night's festivities, the new council members took their first official actions forecasting the tone for the coming era. Without much fuss, they
- - created a process to fill the council vacancy with an experienced person who could immediately set to work on city issues,
- - initiated a process to arrive at a common set of goals,
- - scheduled the required special election to fit in with the rhythm of 2010 state elections.
We can look forward to a proactive, civil council that will provide stable municipal governance in a continuing environment of financial turbulence.
We are off to a good start.
Stephan
Be there, or....
From the city's website:
AGENDA
(Amended)
SPECIAL MEETING
MAPLEWOOD CITY COUNCIL
6:30 P.M. Monday, January 4, 2010
City Hall, Council Chambers
Meeting No. 01-10
A. CALL TO ORDER
B. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
1. Acknowledgement of Maplewood Residents Serving the Country.
C. ROLL CALL
Councilmember Juenemann will preside over the meeting as Acting Mayor until Will Rossbach is sworn in as Mayor.
D. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
E. APPOINTMENTS AND PRESENTATIONS
F. NEW BUSINESS
1. Oath of Office - Kathleen “Kathy” Juenemann and James Llanas for the Office of Councilmember
2. Approval of Resolution Accepting Resignation and Declaring a Vacancy on the City Council
3. Oath of Office - Will Rossbach for the Office of Mayor
4. Council Seat Arrangements
5. Resolution Calling for a Special Election
6. Consideration of Appointment Process to Fill Temporary City Council Vacancy
7. Set Council and Management Team Retreat Date
O. ADJOURNMENT
Plan to attend - be a part of this milestone event in our city!
The problem with TV news
Broadcast news, needing to fill a time slot, always has the same amount to say whether it is a slow day or all hell is breaking loose. the weather is always about five minutes long, even when it's clear and sunny.
Not so on the web. Sometimes there just isn't anything that needs saying.
Political scienciness
Adding to yesterday's comment on Ms. Longrie's so called survey, here is the audio of the relevant portions of her alternative budget presentation introduction.
Notice how campaigning is morphed into a science project, so that Ms. Longrie can (inappropriately) generalize the opinions of her core supporters into the views of all citizens.
Stephan
Commentary - Citizens are 4' 8" tall with red hair (or, Ms. Longrie - all skewed up). [Updated]
At last night's special budget hearing (formerly known as Truth in Taxation) Ms. Longrie presented her "alternative budget". She prefaced her remarks with a description of the survey she has been touting. She then used the results to declare what it is that citizens see as priorities.
What survey is that? During her failed campaign, Ms. Longrie mailed some questions to some residents, and asked those questions of others as she door knocked. Taking her word for it, she mailed or doorknocked 2500 copies, and received 250 responses. She then used her summary of those 250 responses to make her declarations about citizen priorities.
Let's look at how an actual survey works. Having decided on a research objective, defined questions to meet that objective, and tested the questions for non-bias, we put those questions to use. First, we define a population - say, Maplewood citizens. We then devise a mechanism to contact a random sample drawn from that population, a sample sufficiently large to produce enough respondents to meet our research requirements. Then we send out the survey and gather responses, keeping track of who from the sample responded and who did not. After allowing time to respond, we contact enough non-respondents to gather information to determine whether the non-respondents are different from the respondents, along any variables we care about (for example: did more men respond than women?).
If we determine that our respondents are representative of the sample, and the sample was randomly drawn, we can then discuss the results as if they represented the population, within some range of probabilities (a confidence interval) that the sample was actually representative of the population. (Purely by chance you might draw two red marbles from a bag containing an equal number of blue and red ones - a random but not representative sample. A confidence interval defines how likely it is that your sample is not one of these unrepresentative ones).
It is only through the randomness of the respondents that we gain any confidence at all that the responses we get are somehow representative of the population we wish to describe.
Now, ask yourself these questions:
- If, during the campaign, you received a set of questions from candidate Longrie and another set from candidate Rossbach, what would you have done with either set?
- Is a candidate likely to contact known supporters in general agreement of his or her policies, or those who support the opponent?
Armed with your answers, do you think the responses Ms. Longrie touts as representative of citizen priorities are remotely representative of the citizens of Maplewood? Or, are they just representative of those fans willing to tell Ms. Longrie what they thought.
By her logic and use of language, if Ms. Longrie met a 4'8" redheaded citizen, she would claim all citizens are so endowed.
Stephan
[See this earlier post for a related argument, with graphics].
Update:
Lest you think some information is always better than none, consider how well off you are if all you know about grizzly bears is from one encounter with a comatose bear. Unbeknownst to you it got that way by gorging on the last backpacker that happened by.
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