Save the Mavericks -- Minnesota Basketball Team on the Chopping Block

Nov 13th 2009 By Dan Solomon, Asylum (online men AOL magazine)

Here's a movie: A group of struggling community college students learn that greatness exists inside themselves after their school's basketball team takes home the national championship, thanks to the inspiration of a gifted coach and the commitment of a core of dedicated fans. Come up with a bummer for a third-act twist and you're in Oscar territory. Like, maybe, budget cuts shutting the basketball program down, even after a storybook final season?

That's roughly the scene at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, whose team -- the Mavericks -- is in anything but a rebuilding year. Despite the fact that the team is currently ranked number one in the nation by the NJCAA, 2009 is slated to be the final year of the program.

If you need villains for the story, you can look to the Student Senate and Student Life Budget Committee, made up of folks currently enrolled at MCTC, who voted to end the program at the end of the year, citing that basketball was not a major priority. Which kind of puts a "Revenge of the Nerds"-in-reverse spin on things: Those students who opt to sign up for an extracurricular activity that allows them to make long-term determinations for their two-year school are the ones who get to axe the jocks' fun.

Longtime MCTC fan Rach Eggert, a prominent member of the "Help Save the Minneapolis Community & Technical College Basketball Program" Facebook group who commutes from the suburbs to watch the Mavericks, explained some of the passion that members of the community have for the team. "The coaching staff has done an outstanding job to keep games going on and bring in more fans -- I've ended up going to almost every home game. I've been following them since 2007."

But that's not good enough for the Student Senate or MCTC President Phil Davis, who insists that if the program is to continue, it'll have to score some serious independent grant money -- roughly to the tune of $118,000 a year. Predictably, there haven't been a ton of community college alumni boosters coughing up the cash (maybe they should hit up Chevy Chase). The Facebook group attempted to score $10,000 in funding from Nike, but fell short, meaning that there appears to be little that can be done to save the program.

But whenever a cool college organization is threatened by The Man, we're visited by the ghost of John Belushi, and we say nothing is over. To that end, the contact information for President Davis can be found here, and the Asylum army is encouraged to march the cavalry. If your passions can't be inflamed in the service of the players at a Minnesota Junior College, then perhaps some parting words from Eggert will do the trick. "If the program ends," she told us, "who will I watch besides the Timberwolves?"

Even if you don't care about some kids in Minnesota, helping to spare their fans from a long, painful Timberwolves season is the most noble way we can think of to spend a few minutes. And don't forget to share your words of support or condemnation for the Mavericks in the comments.

Jesse Ventura Storms Out of 'Opie & Anthony'

Source: Pop Eater

Former Minnesota governor and pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura walked out of 'The Opie & Anthony Show' after getting into an argument with comedian Jim Norton.

The two are discussing 9/11 and American troops when the discussion turns heated. "You sulk and walk away, why?" Norton questions Ventura.

"Hey, there's a f------ guy here, telling me I have schedule, a--hole," Venture responded before leaving.

You may watch video here (Warning: Mature contents)

Jesse Ventura Storms Out of 'Opie & Anthony'

Jesse Ventura Storms Out of 'Opie & Anthony'

NOVEMBER BUDGET FORECAST QUESTION SUBMISSION

I am planning on doing e-mail interview with State Economist Thomas Stinson and Commissioner Tom Hanson from Minnesota Management and Budget office (MMB). I also am trying to do with Governor Tim Pawlenty sometimes next week.

Unlikely media who shoot questions at the press conference, I am letting the readers and fans submit questions that I may be asking during e-mail interview.

Questions have to be appropriate, and stay on track/subject regarding November budget forecast. You can either submit question in comment box or e-mail to me at senatoreggert@yahoo.com with November budget forecast on the subject line and question aimed at whom (Stinson or Hanson or Pawlenty).

Deadline is Monday, December 7 to submit your questions.

GOV. PAWLENTY: $1.203 BILLION CAN BE SOLVABLE.

Top: Governor Pawlenty speaking to the media during his press conference.

Bottom: Blank Christmas tree in Governor's Office is symbol of state budget being in black.

By Rach Eggert, Rach’s Political Report

December 2, 2009

State of Minnesota are expected to be in $1.203 billion deficit; the budget forecast was projected during month of November according to Minnesota Management and Budget Office (MMB).

Governor Tim Pawlenty mentioned that he would reduce his out of state travels during 2010 legislative session to save money and focus on working with legislature to resolve the budget and get back on track.

Pawlenty is planning on unallot Local Government Aid (LGA) this month and request the Legislature to meet in committee hearings immediately to reduce budget that would be enacted at beginning of 2010 legislative session which kick off on February 4, 2010. He also request his cabinet members to work with legislative leaders immediately to discuss possible unallotment and solutions.

He is also ordering all state government agencies to put hold on spending and reduce three percent of unspent operating funds in current budget period.

Pawlenty wanted Minnesota to be more business-friendly and job-friendly state, believe that budget could be resolved during 2010 legislative session and willing to work with the Legislature.

Any ideas or suggestion for next weekend?

Since Steven from Steven's Sports Report and I are taking on Loud Dome challenge next weekend, there should be things for me to keep occupied for 2 days when Steven is cooped up in pressbox with deafening reporters who are trying to listen with 10,000 screaming fans while having shouting match in pressbox trying to communicate.

Someone suggested that I should do:

• Take pictures of weird things at the dome that nobody ever think to look at.
• Read Senator Amy Klobuchar's book on Metrodome "Uncovering the Dome".
• walk around and count how many steps I took and use pedometer.
• Knitting.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions? They have to be clean and fun. Leave a comment or e-mail me at senatoreggert@yahoo.com with ideas or suggestions.

Loud Dome challenge: who will stay in the dome longer?

Steven at Steven's Sports Report and I decided to do a challenge:

We will stay inside Metrodome during November 27th and 28th to see who can stand really loud 10,000 screaming fans at MSHSL B0ys State Football Tournament.

We will only eat dome food nothing else even if it's domedog for breakfast and to see who will stay longer. One of us leave early will lose the challenge.

Not sure what the loser will get. I guess if I lost, I will have to buy Steven a dinner. If you have a suggestion or ideas, please comment and we are open to ideas and suggestions. It have to be clean though.

I also get the idea from my friend, Dusty Trice where he spent whole 12 days at State Fair.

How many Domedogs do you think I should eat?

On 28th we might step out of dome during Minneapolis Community and Tech College Basketball game so not sure.

It should be fun. I thought this would be something to do outside of politics and there isn't much going on in politics.

How loud can a football game inside Metrodome can be?

I just spoke to Steven from Steven's Sports Report regarding loudness at the Metrodome. He said its full of 10,000 screaming fans and the reporter next to him have to be yelled by other reporters to communicate.

He said its somewhat louder than Obama or any major political rallies.

I would hope that Steven would contribute his opinion and explain how he deal with loud games.

I should go to a game tomorrow or next weekend to see it for myself and come back with my reaction on how loud game can be. I am sure I will feel virbation on floor since I am deaf.

Anyone also can comment on how loud sporting events could be.

On sunday Steven will be writing his opinion on loudness at the game.

Steven's Sports website is www.stevenssports.com He is covering MN State Football State touranment this and next weekend.

Rybak mulls options for governor's race

Source: KARE 11

By John Croman

Minneapolis, MN -- There was never much suspense over the outcome of the mayoral election in this city Tuesday. The media focused on the new methodology -- ranked choice voting -- but when the polls opened there was no doubt voters would hand Mayor R.T. Rybak a third term.

He claimed 73 percent of the 45,000 votes cast, while 10 other candidates combined for the remaining share of the ballots. Even before the polls closed political journalists had already started to pepper Rybak with questions about his next move.

Will he run for governor? And how soon will he make it official? What does he make of his chances? Has he been running all along?

They were all questions he politely brushed aside out of respect for the campaign workers and supporters who had gathered at the Graves Hotel downtown to celebrate his re-election victory.

"One of the things we laid out a year ago is that I would be prepared to run for mayor and I would be prepared to run for Governor," Rybak told reporters, "And I've done all the preparations I should. And I'm in good shape on that."

Rybak said he would let the dust settle on the campaign that ended Tuesday night and get back to work on city issues in the short term.

"I'll be talking to people, and announcing my intentions in a couple of weeks."

For those who suggested Rybak risked his political capital by running for mayor while keeping his eyes on higher office, at least two political experts say it's not a factor in the Rybak equation.

"Many Minneapolis voters knew he was thinking about this," Larry Jacobs of the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs at the U of M told KARE, "He's been pretty open about his interest in running for governor, and my hunch is he probably won't be damaged too much."

Hamline University's Dave Schultz said Rybak's commanding margin of victory in the mayoral race should put to rest any notion that his core supporters harbored any ill will about his dual focus.

"The question will be if campaigning for governor keeps him from solving any big issues inside the city of Minneapolis, and becomes the type of distraction that affects his job performance."

For Rybak, or anyone who wants to enter the wide open race for Governor in 2010, there's a risk of waiting too long to make a move. The election time clock has been accelerated by the DFL party's decision to hold its endorsing convention in April instead of June.

A dozen Democrats are already actively campaigning or considering a run, for the seat that Governor Tim Pawlenty will vacate in January of 2011. Schultz said that's one of the reasons Rybak kept the door open during his run for mayor.

"By getting those feelers out earlier, perhaps what he does is send a signal to supporters and donors not to commit to somebody else, because he may enter the race."

Jacobs pointed out that Rybak, at least on the face of it, will be starting behind.

"After all, his main competitors have been at this for months," Jacobs said, "They've got statewide organizations, quite a bit of money in the bank, and they're well prepared for the Democratic party's endorsement process which begins shortly."

Some of Rybak's critics point out he criticized Governor Tim Pawlenty for campaigning for Senator John McCain's presidential campaign and traveling frequently to raise his own presidential profile. How is that different, they ask, from what Rybak will be doing on the state level.

But Schultz points out Rybak's complaints about Pawlenty are that his national aspirations have impaired his ability to solve the state's structural budget problems.

"Mayor Rybak isn't complaining about the governor running for President," Schultz explained, "He going after him for what he sees as dereliction of duty."

If Rybak were to run, and win, it would break a long dry spell for Twin Cities Democrats in the governor's office. The last one elected was Wendell Anderson, who won in 1970 and again in 1974.

Jacobs concedes metropolitan mayors traditionally haven't found it easy to attract support in the state's more rural areas, and there are already two Iron Range lawmakers in the field of candidates. But, on the other hand, the state's demographic shifts toward urban areas given the Twin Cities metro added weight in a statwide race.

"There's much greater concentration of voters in this region," Jacobs remarked, "If Mayor Rybak can lock down the core of Minneapolis and Saint Paul and the ring suburbs it will give him a tremendous advantage."

Somewhere, the next Jesse Ventura might be waiting

Independence Party says the time is right — but can't find a candidate

By Bill Salisbury, Pioneer Press

Updated: 11/04/2009

While a large pack of Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates has roamed across Minnesota for months clamoring for attention, the state's third and smallest "major party," the Independence Party, has yet to field a single credible contender.

State party chairman Jack Uldrich insists he isn't worried about not having a candidate yet. It's still early, and he has been talking to a "handful of eminently qualified individuals" who would be strong candidates, he said in an interview last week.

Uldrich is confident that one or more of what he considers "three leading candidates" will get into the race.

He declined to name them but said all three work in private business and have experience either "in government at the highest levels or in public policy circles."

They also "have resources of their own" — money, that is — to wage a competitive race, he said. That's important because the Independence Party never has had much money.

"I am 100 percent confident that we will have a very qualified candidate," Uldrich said.

In addition, Dean Barkley, the party's U.S. Senate candidate in 2008 and former Gov. Jesse Ventura's closest political adviser, said he is considering a run for governor.

"I am contemplating whether I want to strap on the knee pads one more time and start begging people to give me money," Barkley said. "I really don't like doing that. I've got to convince myself that I've got one more fight left in me, and I haven'tdone that yet."
To be competitive, he said, the Independence Party candidate must raise at least $2 million, enough to air TV ads in the month before the election. He said the party's past two candidates spent about $1 million and ran short of advertising money late in the race.

(Rahn Workcuff, a political unknown from Minneapolis, has filed with the state campaign finance board to run as an Independence Party candidate for governor. He has run for the Legislature at least twice and lost badly.)

Uldrich said he tried to recruit Jim Ramstad, but the popular former GOP congressman said he's "not interested in running at this time."

Whomever the Independence Party nominee is, Uldrich and Barkley agree he or she will have a good shot at winning next year.

Why? "Because people have become completely disgusted with the other two parties," Barkley said. "It's been growing and growing and I think it's at an all-time high now."

Uldrich said the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has become extremely liberal and the Republicans extremely conservative.

"The middle is wide open," he said.

Polls suggest Minnesota voters are becoming more independent. Minneapolis pollster Bill Morris said a statewide survey his firm, Decision Resources, took in late July showed 39 percent of voters identified themselves as Democrats, 33 percent as Republicans and 26 percent as independents. That represented a 4 percent increase for independents since January and a 4 percent decrease for Democrats.

But fewer than 1 percent identified with the Independence Party. Still, Uldrich said, independents are more likely to vote for a candidate on the party's ticket.

One reason the Independence Party, like other parties, may have a hard time recruiting candidates is that the next governor will face a projected $4.4 billion to $7.2 billion budget shortfall and ongoing structural deficits.

"Everyone I talk to (about running) I ask, 'Do you really want this job?' Because it's going to be a crappy job," Uldrich said.

He said the three leading potential candidates "to their credit say, 'I get that. But somebody needs to do it. We need some real leadership.' "

The Independence Party hasn't provided much leadership since its first and only governor, Jesse Ventura, left office in 2002. He was elected with 37 percent of the vote in the three-way 1998 election.

Since then, the party's 2002 gubernatorial candidate, Tim Penny, received 16 percent of the vote and the IP's Peter Hutchinson got 6 percent in 2006 — barely clearing the 5 percent threshold for maintaining "major party" status under Minnesota law.

But Barkley received 15 percent of the votes in the 2008 U.S. Senate race.

Why has the party slipped? Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, cites three reasons.

"It still is basically a cult-of-the-individual party," he said. The Independence Party can succeed when it gets a celebrity, such as Ventura, to run, but it has no elected office holders, no organization with thousands of members and little loyalty among voters.

"The party surfs on voter frustration," Jacobs said. They get attention in the weeks leading up to an election, but "outside of the election period, they're irrelevant." They aren't players in the state's public policy debates or a presence in policymaking at the Legislature.

Finally, the party doesn't have a clear role, he said. "They don't win elections. They raise issues during an election, and they act as a kingmaker by drawing voters away from one party so the other one wins. But that's about it."

Nonetheless, state DFL and GOP leaders don't dismiss the Independence Party.

"I take seriously any party that's elected a governor in the past 20 years," state GOP chairman Tony Sutton said.

How seriously depends on the quality of their candidate, he said. "If they don't have a celebrity candidate, they don't have the infrastructure, apparatus or loyalty of a base to help their candidate build a platform for a campaign."

State DFL chairman Brian Melendez said he takes the Independence Party seriously not because he thinks they can win but because they could be spoilers.

He said he believes the Independence Party cost DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch the 2006 election. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty beat Hatch by just 1 percentage point, and Melendez is convinced the Independence Party's Hutchinson siphoned off enough disgruntled Democrats to tip the election.

He said he also thinks U.S. Sen. Al Franken would have won in 2008 without a recount if Barkley hadn't run.

"Nobody's really voting for their (Independence Party) candidates; they're voting against the candidates of the two major parties," he said. "It's kind of turned into the None-of- the-Above Party."

Uldrich asserted that the Independence Party, unlike the DFL and GOP, stands for fiscal responsibility and moderation on social issues.

Party leaders learned two lessons from their defeats in 2002 and 2006, he said. Their candidate must launch a campaign earlier.

Uldrich wants the IP candidates to enter the race during the legislative session next spring "so we get engaged in the debate and start drawing distinctions with both the DFLers and the Republicans."

The second lesson, he said, is that they must communicate with voters the way Ventura did. While Penny and Hutchinson were highly qualified candidates, "their messages never resonated with the public," he said. "We have to keep intellectually honest but figure out how to package our message better."