Sunday, August 17, 2008

Rep. Mark Olson is the Endorsed GOP MN 16 Candidate and the GOP Supports Olson

For a few days, Brodkorb hoodwinked the media and even liberal bloggers into believing that the Minnesota GOP may not support Rep. Mark Olson. Now some folks are beginning to tell us it aint so.

Hal Kimball:

No one condones domestic violence. No one. There is never an excuse, even if one's tossing a Bible.

But how can Senator Coleman play standard bearer and cheer on the Senate Republican Caucus when Coleman himself has an "unconventional marriage"?


It's more likely that all of this faux outrage is coming from Norm Coleman's campaign. It may not have originated with Senate GOP Caucus... more on that later....

A comment on Hal Kimball's post sums it up:

What’s also amazing about Norm’s position is that he knows nothing about the other candidate the republicans put up. Nobody does.

She has never run for an office before or held any kind of public position.

She is listed as an “activist” but nobody knows what she was being an activist for.

So for all Norm knows she could be a complete wacko. Whatever she stands for is good enough for Norm because he knows better than the local 150 people who took the time to attend the convention.

Think of how bad she must have been for the 150 people to say “We’ll take the wife beater”.

I thought Norm’s pitch was that you should have some record of public service before you ran for a Senate seat. I guess that only applies to people running against him.

For 18 years Olson has been the laughing stock of the house. Now all of the sudden the Republicans are shocked at the idea of him running. MDE suddenly is offended by Olson. The Senate caucus is shocked!

Where the hell have these enablers been the last 18 years?

Where was the outrage the 1st time Olson assaulted a staffer? Or the 2nd time?

What did they say when he wore a gun on the house floor?

Where was the outrage when he was the only member of both bodies to vote against bills containing things like a task force to catch child pornographers?

The list goes on and on. He for ships being able to dump bilge water in Lake Superior, He stands alone against early childhood education. Hell he’s against public education period.

No matter to these guardians of republican purity, they don’t care how he votes or how many lives he destroys with his nonsensical bills and rhetoric. Now they are offended because he finally got arrested and convicted for what he was well known for.

Your reap what you sow, and for 18 years the Republican party has stood shoulder to shoulder with Olson.

Olson better that anyone else including Norm, represents the Republican Party in SD 16 and the Republicans here aren’t going to let a bunch of RINO’s tell them who they can endorse.


Lloydletta links to Olson supporter Chris Kumpula's account of the SD 16 convention.

Chris Kumpala's blog has the pledge signed by Olson and Krueger and a link to an interesting Polinaut post about Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem's flip-flp on Olson:

The miracles of audio tape gives us some detail into Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem's thoughts on Mark Olson.

When asked about Olson's candidacy on July 22nd, Senjem said this:

"Well, we welcome Mark. I mean democracy is a wonderful thing. If people want to run for office, they have that opportunity. Mark will go through the process now, through the endorsement process. We'll see where that leads. Certainly if he emerges he's our candidate and certainly we're riding with him."

After MinnesotaDemocratsExposed raised concerns about Olson's candidacy on Wednesday, Senjem said this:

"Character and integrity in this case rise above party and process. And we felt that Mark, given his circumstances in life, specifically his conviction for spousal abuse, really didn't pass the test if you will for the kind of candidate we wanted."

Update:

Senjem just told Tim Pugmire that he hadn't thought much about Olson's candidacy at the time. He said upon further reflection, looking back at the court records and thinking through the implications of Olson actually winning led the caucus to come to the conclusion to exclude Olson.


If there's any doubt that the MN GOP stands by Rep. Mark Olson, listen to "Chris" and MN CD6 Chair Mark "Swannie" Swanson on the Jason Lewis radio show Friday:

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