Category: DFL Gov 2010

by Dave Mindeman

OK -- hate mail alert! I am going to do my monthly ranking of the DFL candidates again...but before I do, let me explain something. This is just one observer's ranking and meant to be a "fun" exercise. I don't have any special insight...no hidden contacts; and first and foremost, I DO NOT WORK FOR OR FAVOR ANY PARTICULAR CAMPAIGN. I want to make that clear above all. This is not anything scientific. If you don't like where "your" candidate sits...hey, feel free to blow it off. It means nothing at this stage. This is merely a method to start conversations. Nothing more -- nothing less. If you want to yell at me, hit the "contact us" button on the left. I get a copy of whatever is sent. Feel free, but try to keep the four letter words to a minimum.

OK, did I cover everything? Probably not. But before the ranking starts, let's look ahead a bit....

This is the start of August. Precinct caucuses are just 6 months away. That is not a long time in political organizing terms. And the preparation for the Convention done at precinct caucuses is crucial...along with the probable straw poll. We have 11 announced or deeply interested candidates -- they are probably very busy people right now hitting every Senate District gathering they can find. With so many potential people running, it is important to get out and talk to the candidates. They are more than willing to talk to you.

Next, we are going to have a primary to determine the nominee of the party. That is a virtual 99% certainty. It would be helpful if we had an earlier primary (like June) to help the winner get out of primary contest and into general election mode quickly and with some time to debate the Republican (and Independent) opponent.

If you agree with an early primary then make your feelings clear at the precinct caucuses.

Now for the rankings -- and we have 11 candidates for the list:

11. Steve Kelley (Previously #7): Steve is working hard but I think he is getting overwhelmed by numbers. He would probably fare better if he had a smaller group where his policy ideas could get a chance to stand out. Right now, unless he is raising a ton of money, he disappears into the larger field. Not fair...just a real problem.

10. Tom Rukavina (Previously listed #10 w/Marty): Rukavina is just getting started and he is going to need to get his star shining quickly. His populist message may resonate but so far he is just another guy on the podium. And with Tom Bakk in the race as well, he can't guarantee any regional strength either. I have always been curious how Rukavina would play in a statewide race -- guess we are going to find out.

9. John Marty (previously #10 w/Rukavina): Marty won the Austin straw poll by one vote, not exactly a landslide...but it did prove that Marty can still speak to the party base. Each candidate had 15 minutes to state their case and obviously Marty made an impression. Still has a ways to go to be considered a first tier candidate.

8. Tom Bakk (Previously #6): Rukavina's entry carves into his base of support but the word is he is working very hard and could be making inroads into new areas. It will be interesting to see how he compares in the money raising area.

7. Susan Gaertner (Formerly #9): She moves up because she continues to impress with message. She has a way of differentiating herself from the field by saying the same policy ideas but in a very different way. May sound odd, but that is a communication skill you will certainly need in a general election.

6. Paul Thissen (formerly #8): Paul moves up on a hunch....I think he is making an impression on the 20 and 30 something crowd. He has great presence on the internet and seems to be everywhere. Could be a real factor in an endorsement that works against the primary runners.

5. Chris Coleman (formerly #5): Coleman still gets credit for a good campaign staff, but I haven't seen any "magic" here yet. He has some proven leadership among the city mayors and is well respected in those circles, but it is hard to discern any movement in the trenches -- and he still has to concentrate on his re-election campaign.

4. Margaret Anderson Kelliher (formerly #2): She has committed to seeking the endorsement only. That means she will have to be announcing formallly soon and get busy making the rounds to the bean feeds. That is going to be tough to do because legislative business goes on beyond the session and she will need to prepare for another contentious year. It can be done -- but it looks tougher than I thought.

I consider the next 3 candidates the clear front runners right now.. with not much daylight between them. Each is a formidable candidate and each have things that could hold them back. This also may be the primary field.....

3. R.T. Rybak (formerly #3): Of the two mayors, Rybak looks like the go-to guy right now. However, his re-election campaign is first priority and that will make the candidate have to do the "am/am not" a candidate dance a little harder....and also might put him behind the full timers. Still, Rybak has a grass roots group working the trenches for him and that will be a plus.

2. Matt Entenza (formerly #1): Matt is a great policy guy but as we drove home from Austin, my wife made the comment that we were both thinking. "Entenza doesn't have that connective common touch". That is not always something that is necessary in a successful candidate... and it could be that Entenza is better at the one to one meetings. It's just something that hit us both that day. Plenty of time to adjust and lots of opportunities to find that "touch", so we will leave it at that for now. Matt still has the most formidable campaign....without doubt.

1. Mark Dayton (formerly #4): Dayton still has some of that "common touch" personna. He also still has statewide connections that are more and more evident. I'm not sure if he would be the best general election candidate, but in a field like this, Mark will stand out to the activists. All of that will probably not play into a convention endorsement for someone who is already talking primary, but time will tell.

The DFL Convention will be a real event this time around. There will be non-stop arguments about the importance of who will or who will not "abide by the endorsement". It all comes down to who has the best argument that says "I can win!"

And boy oh boy, do we need a winner.

Category: I-35 Bridge

by Dave Mindeman

Just making it under the 2 year deadline, the State of Minnesota has filed suit against bridge inspector, URS. As I mentioned back on July 9th the URS/MnDOT relationship is a very curious one....and apparently it's turning sour.

A URS spokesman reacted strongly Thursday to the lawsuit. "It is disappointing that the state of Minnesota has chosen to sue URS, especially in light of the state's earlier admissions that URS is not responsible for the bridge collapse," said Ronald Low, a company spokesman. "We intend to vigorously defend ourselves."

Tomorrow marks the 2nd Anniversary of that tragic day. A lot of questions still remain and as I have contended all along, the only avenue that will bring out the truth will be the myriad of civil suits that are pending. With the filing of this suit, a "new" memo has been released:

But the state's suit also included a potentially revealing memo from URS.

"We will not calculate actual capacities of all of the connections since that is too much work, although that provides the most accurate results,'' the firm wrote in March 2006. "Instead, we will do some approximate but conservative adjustments to the member capacities per [the] design specifications."

The suit also reports that a note from an internal URS meeting in 2005 states, "Gusset Plate Buckling -- If this occurs, it is not catastrophic."

That memo seems to be a fairly damaging admission by URS that they did not do the hard data on load capacity....as well as a direct reference to Gusset Plate Buckling. As the lawsuits unfold, MnDOT will certainly want that memo to be front and center for their defense. They can say that they had "assurances" that gusset plate problems would not be catastrophic.

However, on the other hand, this could open up the trail of e-mails that URS has been stingy with over the course of this investigation. Their "silence" on the matter is about to change.

This is interesting for another reason as well.

The NTSB Board that investigated the I-35 Collapse is undergoing a complete changeover. Three of the five members of the board have either resigned or in the process: Steven Chealander resigned quietly in late February. Kathryn O'Leary Higgins tendered her resignation on July 22nd, which will be effective in 2 days. And the Board Chairman, Mark Rosenker, who was the public face of the board during the investigation, tendered his resignation letter the same time as Higgins. He will stay on until new appointees are made by Obama....in order to maintain a quorum on the board.

A lot of the public faces that were such an integral part of the I-35 Bridge disaster are now leaving the Minnesota scene. As noted, many of the NTSB Board membes are leaving. Carol Molnau was removed as Secretary of Transportation. Doug Differt, the Deputy Commissioner of MnDOT, now works for URS. And Bob McFarlin, an assistant to the Commissioner when the bridge collapsed and later, Acting Commissioner after Molnau was removed, was passed over for the Commissioner job and now is on the Met Council.

Two years....and there is still a lot we don't know.

Tomorrow marks a quiet anniversary. A simple moment of silence at 6:05 pm will be the only reminder. But for the families that have endured, that day will never be forgotten.

And as you can see from this news article...

AP IMPACT: Bad bridges passed up for stimulus cash

..we still have not learned any lessons.

We move on into the courts. Pawlenty moves on to the national stage. What happens in the former will most certainly affect the fortunes of the latter.

Category: Health Care

by Dave Mindeman

I have wanted to talk about health care more of late, but the subject is really getting depressing. Politico has been doing story after story about health care....

from the current bill's complexity,,

IS HEALTH BILL TOO COMPLEX TO GRASP?

to a simplisticly ridiculous and foolish Republican fix....

HOW THE GOP WANTS TO FIX HEALTH CARE

to our inability to address obesity in America....

FAT ACCOMPLI: CONRESS'S WEIGHT ISSUE

to a punditry discussion of Obama's inability to sell health care.

THE ARENA: CAN OBAMA SELL HEALTH CARE?

It would be easier to talk about it, if we were discussing the right mix of ideas. But we aren't...

We are discussing the wrong solutions.
We are discussing the wrong problems.
And we are discussing it all in the wrong context.

Having worked in pharmacy for over 25 years, I have seen the evolution of the workings of health care. From fee for service..to HMO's...to PBM's....to preventive care....to disease management.

They all have good intentions but they all fail to stop the spiraling cost increases. And they all originate with a fatally flawed idea.... that Health Care is a commodity that can respond to market forces.

Obama's first mistake was to let Congress become the architect of the bill. What good did it do to bring together all the stakeholders of health care as Obama did, and then let the Congressional lobbyists become the architects of the bills?

Secondly, the Democrats and Republicans continue to make the same mistake in their debates. They both argue costs from the idea that health care is a simple competitve model. It's not.

Let me take the second problem first. The health care insurance industry has a competitive model that simply wants to avoid insuring the sickest among us. Profits aren't made on diabetics and people with heart disease.... they are made on people who don't need the system.

That is a profitable business but that is not health care.

And Republicans like to talk incessantly about how health care consumers need to make more of the decisions in order to increase "competition". Wrong again.

The health care consumer can't make an informed decision because he or she doesn't know the questions to ask. When a person has a heart attack, does the idea of expense enter into the equation? No, it is proximity....quickness....competence...and the facility with the best trauma center that matters. And that is often going to be the most expensive facility. But, the desired outcome will be the preferred one....that you will live.

Health care needs innovation to make improvements. And that is an expensive undertaking. And unlike consumer electronics, innovation does not make things cheaper in health care...rather it often gets more expensive. Better diagnostic tools and more detailed testing doesn't always build on what is currently available. Sometimes it opens up a whole new area and makes other technology obsolete. That is not conducive to cost cutting.

The fixes for health care have never started from the proper perspective. The first thing we needed to start with was how do we cover everyone in American effectively. But we did not do that, we started with how can we take an expensive industry and make it cost less. By making costs the priority, we allowed the insurance industry to dictate the terms. They brought in cost innovations but not to improve health care but, rather, to make it more profitable and affordable. Which, in and of itself, wouldn't have been harmful if the first priority had been my original premise, to cover everyone....but it wasn't. Profits and efficiency meant we analyze the people vs. costs ratios. And that meant people lose.

As we have continued to examine health care under those inherently "wrong" parameters, we have continued to make things worse. Governor Pawlenty has given us the perfect example of where we are headed if Republican ideas are given credence. We push the people with the most needs out. We force people to pay more out of pocket expenses. We force providers to consolidate and get smaller.... but expand the number of insurers... with the industry's ever growing number of complications and red tape.

But what about the "socialist" idea of government run health care? Why indeed...because it is the only answer. Some of the worst health care outcomes come from health care provider obsession with dealing with the insurance bureacracies. And, you ask, why would a government bureacracy be better? Because it is a single entity.

Every year in the late fall, senior citizens will start their questions about Medicare Part D Prescription plans. There are thousands of them. It seems that every insurance carrier has developed a whole subsidiary which deals with nothing but the Part D plan. That means two sets of administrative arms for every insurance carrier... completely separate from each other. Imagine the cost of that?

This is the anniversary of the start of Medicare (not the ugly Part D -- the original Medicare program) in America. We had the same arguments about "socialistic health care" then, that we do now. Yet, no politician in his right mind would ever argue about doing away with the Medicare program. It is an essential part of today's American health care. That model is in place and that model can be expanded to include coverage for everyone. Insurance companies can compete for the more expensive coverages...they can develop supplemental plans. They will do fine. But the basic and necessary coverages that everybody in America should have MUST come from a government plan. It is better for the country, better for universal coverage, and most importantly, it is better for costs.

That is where Obama should have started. He should have used single payer as his opening plan for health care and let Congress argue on the margins. He has lost a lot of political capital letting Congress argue about the wrong ideas. I don't know if we can even salvage a reasonable plan.

How this will end up, I don't know. I wish we could just start again. And this time, get it right.