Conservatives like me must now concede that Emmer is a horrible candidate with loads of personal baggage. The remaining question to be answered is, Can he govern better the Dayton? My hunch is yes. I will hold my nose if I am forced to vote for Emmer.
P.S. Marty Seifert should be taken to task for allowing this info to seep out post-primary.
Newt, I assume you are referring to this exchange during the caucus fight (from MPR)?
Last night, Seifert’s Campaign Chair Jim Knoblach issued an e-mail saying Emmer is one of “very few Republicans who has consistently sided with the trial lawyer lobby and DFL against lawsuit reform that would lower health care costs.” The campaign highlighted three floor amendments Emmer voted against. They were instituting medical malpractice liability limits on Ob/gyn doctors, lawsuit protections on ambulance providers and a cap on awards for non-economic, “pain and suffering” losses…”
Wasn’t Siefert simply trying to do the party a favor by pointing out a lack of fealty to the platform?
No Joe – those examples you gave are bad enough for real conservatives. I’m thinking of the example where he went for the throat of his landscaper for seeking payment for services. It reveals a very dark side to his psyche.
Seifert and the GOP should have dealt with these revelations pre-primary.
Newt, I agree with you on your assessment of the landscaper story. Some of the other litigation war stories weren’t that bad. But in the lengthy landscaper battle, Emmer looked like a bully of small business people, not a champion of small business people.
I was talking to a GOPer friend of mine (and, i think, a Siefert supporter) who says he thinks that siefert was kind of blind sided by Emmer’s support–and that by the time Siefert realized how much support Emmer had, it was already too late to come forward with all of the “dirty laundry” (his assumption was that Siefert knew all of this–he felt that Siefert was too good at oppo research not to have found this stuff)
Siefert could have used Tony the Landscaper at the state endorsing convention, a la Joe the Plumber!
Minnesota Publius makes a good point about the Strib article. Though it was the type of good investigative journalism we don’t see enough of, the characterization of Emmer as “Feisty” was a gift to Emmer from the headline writer:
That’s a pretty positive summation of a very negative story. Reporter=bad cop. Headline writer=good cop.
I wonder what the definition of frivolous for those “frivolous lawsuits” that are ubiquitous in Republican mythology. A lawsuit that succeeds is by definition not frivolous. As long as the subject is contingency fee lawyering, the problem is limited by the market. The lawyer who sues and wins gets a cut of the award, usually a third, but if he or she loses, the lawyer eats the costs. A lawyer who habitually files frivolous suits is soon out of business. It’s so entrepreneural Republicans ought to admire it.
Furthermore, if there really is a problem, there is a solution. Some years ago, a division of the forest products industry sued the DNR, or maybe the federal equivalent, seeking to keep it from enforcing logging regulations on the the grounds that they were based on an ideology of “deep environmentalism” which was, they claimed, a religion and therefore constituted an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The judge blistered the lawyer for bringing such a dumb-ass argument to the court and then fined him. If there is a problem, the judge has the power to punish it.
There is the larger question: a corporation or other powerful institution injures a person, whether as worker, customer or bystander, what should be done about it? The obvious solutions are government regulation or tort law, but Republicans can’t stand either, so what’s left? Telling the injured they just have to take a bullet for free enterprise, wait for the invisible hand of the market to smack the evil doer down, or what?
Breaking news: Tort reform champion Sarah Palin has bestowed her endorsement on Torter Tom.
[…] gubernatorial candidate, a lawyer and serial suer,Tom Emmer should look that law […]
The Same Rowdy Crowd 
Conservatives like me must now concede that Emmer is a horrible candidate with loads of personal baggage. The remaining question to be answered is, Can he govern better the Dayton? My hunch is yes. I will hold my nose if I am forced to vote for Emmer.
P.S. Marty Seifert should be taken to task for allowing this info to seep out post-primary.
Newt, I assume you are referring to this exchange during the caucus fight (from MPR)?
Wasn’t Siefert simply trying to do the party a favor by pointing out a lack of fealty to the platform?
No Joe – those examples you gave are bad enough for real conservatives. I’m thinking of the example where he went for the throat of his landscaper for seeking payment for services. It reveals a very dark side to his psyche.
Seifert and the GOP should have dealt with these revelations pre-primary.
Newt, I agree with you on your assessment of the landscaper story. Some of the other litigation war stories weren’t that bad. But in the lengthy landscaper battle, Emmer looked like a bully of small business people, not a champion of small business people.
I was talking to a GOPer friend of mine (and, i think, a Siefert supporter) who says he thinks that siefert was kind of blind sided by Emmer’s support–and that by the time Siefert realized how much support Emmer had, it was already too late to come forward with all of the “dirty laundry” (his assumption was that Siefert knew all of this–he felt that Siefert was too good at oppo research not to have found this stuff)
Siefert could have used Tony the Landscaper at the state endorsing convention, a la Joe the Plumber!
Minnesota Publius makes a good point about the Strib article. Though it was the type of good investigative journalism we don’t see enough of, the characterization of Emmer as “Feisty” was a gift to Emmer from the headline writer:
Headline: “Emmer’s feisty spirit fuels legal fights”
That’s a pretty positive summation of a very negative story. Reporter=bad cop. Headline writer=good cop.
I wonder what the definition of frivolous for those “frivolous lawsuits” that are ubiquitous in Republican mythology. A lawsuit that succeeds is by definition not frivolous. As long as the subject is contingency fee lawyering, the problem is limited by the market. The lawyer who sues and wins gets a cut of the award, usually a third, but if he or she loses, the lawyer eats the costs. A lawyer who habitually files frivolous suits is soon out of business. It’s so entrepreneural Republicans ought to admire it.
Furthermore, if there really is a problem, there is a solution. Some years ago, a division of the forest products industry sued the DNR, or maybe the federal equivalent, seeking to keep it from enforcing logging regulations on the the grounds that they were based on an ideology of “deep environmentalism” which was, they claimed, a religion and therefore constituted an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The judge blistered the lawyer for bringing such a dumb-ass argument to the court and then fined him. If there is a problem, the judge has the power to punish it.
There is the larger question: a corporation or other powerful institution injures a person, whether as worker, customer or bystander, what should be done about it? The obvious solutions are government regulation or tort law, but Republicans can’t stand either, so what’s left? Telling the injured they just have to take a bullet for free enterprise, wait for the invisible hand of the market to smack the evil doer down, or what?
Breaking news: Tort reform champion Sarah Palin has bestowed her endorsement on Torter Tom.
[…] gubernatorial candidate, a lawyer and serial suer,Tom Emmer should look that law […]