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With an insider’s eye, Hot Dish tracks the tastiest bits of Minnesota’s political scene and keep you up-to-date on those elected to serve you.

Contributors in Minnesota: Jennifer Brooks, Baird Helgeson, Mike Kaszuba, Patricia Lopez, Jim Ragsdale, Brad Schrade and Rachel E. Stassen-Berger. Contributors in D.C.: Kevin Diaz and Corey Mitchell.

Posts about Morning Hot Dish newsletter

Forget the forecast scramble

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: November 30, 2012 - 12:06 PM

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Twice a year for more than a decade, Minnesota’s finance gurus set a date to brief the governor, lawmakers and reporters on the biannual budget forecast.

And twice a year for more than a decade, reporters have wheedled the forecast number out of officials hours before they are supposed to know the number.

No more.

Starting with Wednesday’s forecast, state financial officials will release the number to the media as they are briefing lawmakers. They’ll make the number public, with some context, so the initial reports will be more complete and reporters (and their lawmaker sources) won’t have to scramble.

John Pollard, spokesman for Minnesota Management and Budget, said financial officials realized: “The current system just needs to be updated. We’ve been doing the same thing for the last ten or 15 years and things changed…The fact of the matter is news moves faster than it did.”

 

This post first appeared in our Morning Hot Dish political newsletter. If you're not already getting the political newsletter by email, it's easy and free to sign up.  Go toStarTribune.com/membercenter, check the Politics newsletter box and save the change.

Ten years ago today

Posted by: Jim Ragsdale Updated: October 25, 2012 - 10:34 AM

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Telephones began ringing in the basement press offices of the State Capitol around the noon hour 10 years ago today.

Rumors at first, then a great silence from normally gabby political insiders, and finally, the news – that U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife and daughter, three aides and two pilots were dead in a plane crash near the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport.

Shock, along with flowery memorials and crepe hung on green Wellstone signs, shared the emotional space with what-next prognostication. The state faced an exhausting cycle of mourning and campaigning, when separating the two was impossible and remembrance was crowded out by the election calendar.

Today we pause, during the frenetic last days of another election campaign, to honor the memory of those who died: Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila Wellstone, their daughter Marcia Wellstone Markuson, staffers Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy and Will McLaughlin, and pilots Richard Conry and Michael Guess.

This post first appeared in our Morning Hot Dish political newsletter. If you're not already getting the political newsletter by email, it's easy and free to sign up.  Go toStarTribune.com/membercenter, check the Politics newsletter box and save the change.

From Morning Hot Dish: Million-dollar quarter for Graves

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: October 16, 2012 - 9:32 AM

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By Jennifer Brooks

Democrat Jim Graves raised $1 million in the third quarter for his effort to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, his campaign reports.

That total is more than double the three-month hauls of most other candidates in the state’s most competitive congressional races.

But Graves is challenging one of the House’s most prolific fundraisers; Bachmann reports she raised $4.3 million in the same three-month period.

Graves, a millionaire hotelier, donated $270,000 of his own money to the campaign, but also received more than 12,000 individual donations. 

 This post first appeared in our Morning Hot Dish political newsletter. f you're not already getting the political newsletter by email, it's easy and free to sign up.  Go toStarTribune.com/membercenter, check the Politics newsletter box and save the change.

Bachmann event on Wednesday

Posted by: Paul Walsh Updated: October 9, 2012 - 8:45 AM

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Correction: Because of an editing error, the Morning Hot Dish newsletter incorrectly listed the day that U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is speaking at the Minnesota Republican Party's Elephant Club luncheon.

The event is Wednesday, Oct. 10. The luncheon is at the Hilton Minneapolis, from noon to 1 p.m.

Mary Pawlenty, libertarian leanings

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: September 12, 2012 - 10:30 AM

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Former Minnesota First Lady Mary Pawlenty said on radio-maven Tom Barnard’s podcast that she is “probably more moderate than people think” she would be, considering she went to Bethel College and based on her faith background.

On the podcast with former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Mary Pawlenty said “there are points where we should compromise.” She added, “there are a few things about the Ron Paul people that make sense to me,” particularly the libertarian push for “wanting the government to go away.”

Tim Pawlenty said the pitch for smaller government is great, but Paul went too far when he said it was okay to legalize heroin and suggested that it is not in the United States’ interest to care if Iran has a nuclear weapon.

Mary Pawlenty’s response: “Dude, I was not completely defending Ron Paul’s positions, alright? I’m just saying there are a few things with the libertarians that I agree with. Of course, I don’t agree with Ron Paul on all that kind of stuff.”

(Tim Pawlenty also said on the podcast that his presidential campaign “only lasted 10 minutes,” during which they didn't raise enough money and they “botched the strategy.”)

If you're not already getting Morning Hot Dish political newsletter by email, it's easy and free to sign up.  Go to StarTribune.com/membercenter, check the Politics newsletter box and save the change.

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