As many of you know, there have been at least 4 negative mailings put out against me by something called the Freedom PAC. A look at the donor list for this Republican PAC leads us to a long list of wealthy corporate donors intent on spreading political half-truths, inuendo, misplaced facts, and propaganda. In many ways I thank them. Every time they send one out, another slew of people contact me ready to support my candidacy and donate to my campaign. “What can we do about these mailings?” they ask. “Who can I complain to?” “How can I donate to your campaign?” Negative campaigns promote cynicism among the electorate, give politics a bad name, and turns people away from the political process. That is unfortunate.
Many of the mailings have claimed I voted to spend $400,000 on abrass band music library, a sculpture garden, a polar bear exhibit, or a bird atlas? Really? All of these projects were part of an $800 million bonding bill, eventually signed into law by then Governor Tim Pawlenty. The State of Minnesota sells General Obligation Tax Exempt and Taxable Bonds, Revenue Bonds, the proceeds coming from the sale of General Obligation bonds that are used to pay the cost of building the capital projects that are approved by the Legislature. The Freedom PAC has cherry picked from the hundreds of infrastructure and construction projects that typically make up a bonding bill passed by every legislature in non-budget years. Those projects are carefully vetted and chosen by the capital investment committee and typically mean hundreds of other projects are left on the committee floor. Bonding bills are job creators, not job crushers. Interest rates are at an all time low with constructions workers eager to work on projects that invest in Minnesota. These investments include our public universities, our zoos, municipal buildings, structures that have regional economic impact, roads and bridges, and other public projects. Legislators are asked to vote the entire bonding bill up or down. These bonding bills typically have broad bipartisan support and the debt service on the bonds make up a tiny portion of the overall state budget.
Joe Kimball of MinnPost wrote about the Brass Band Music Library several years ago. Look for similar references to surface in campaign lit over and over again across the state over the next few weeks. His story, in the link that follows, puts things into context much better than I can.
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/05/pawlentys-veto-unique-music-library-hits-sour-note-chatfield
As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story. Happy trails to all of you! And thanks for your support.
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