Smart money was betting it wasn't going to take long for the short knives to start slashing in the race to replace the cooked books regime of FEC Tony. Money placed that way is a winner! Recently deposed MNGOP Chair Tony Sutton - and make no mistake, Tony didn't leave willingly - was MNGOP Treasurer back in the day when the back room book cooking was brought to light; for a quick primer, go read "A Key Element Of The Tostenson Memo".
With that in mind, I went and checked some twitterlines o' some GOPers that for various reasons I find interesting and/or amusing. First up, Andy Apliikowski of Residual Forces - let's look!
OK, the link in that tweet takes you to Andy's website, where Andy has a niftly little sreadsheet, listing potential candidates for the recently vacated MNGOP Chair position. Now, keep in mind Big E's recent post on that vacated seat, "Michael Brodkorb slings mud at Tom Emmer and his supporters at the legislature". That said, here's what Andy says about one such potential candidate:
OK, apparently Andy doesn't like Joe; likes to take little digs at him. I understand it goes way back, to when Repya was running for MN GOP Party Chair, and Andy was a volunteer. That was a particularly nasty campaign from those that liked the party's status quo and didn't like the reform-minded Repya. For background, see "Enemies Of The Party". Andy has been, shall we say, "taken to task" by the Brodkorbs of the party, but he's been working himself back into good graces of the last regime. And I'd venture taking cheap digs at Repya helps him do just that. Whatever.
Anyway, I did a quick twitter check on Repya, to see what others were saying. This one popped up, from Repya himself!!!
Ruh-ROH!!! Repya's talking to someone - Luke Hellier - on Erik Paulsen's local staff - and NOT his campaign staff; his official, local congressional office staff! Matter o' fact, Luke - who used to be Brodkorb's cut&paster at the notorious "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" slime machine "blog" - has the official title of "Constituent Services Representative."
What got Repya's dander up? Let's look!
Oh, wait - seems Luke's done scrubbed his twitterline!
Seems that since I started looking on the ol' I'phone while running errands, the offending tweet done "magically" disappeared!
That's ok; I already had a screen shot! Silly Luke...
Now, somefolk might think "hey - that's not so bad." Yeah, "right." Keep in mind that although Paulsen postures about the need for "civility in politics", he's had two of the least "civil" folk I can think of, working for him: first, Brodkorb, back in the '08 cycle, and now Hellier, on his district staff. And keep in mind Paulsen is a career politican - he rose to the position of GOP Majority Leader during the last 4 years of his 13 years in the State House.
Paulsen's tight with the people that have been taking shots at Repya for years; shots for the simple reason Repya doesn't - IMNSHO - like that GOP now stands for Greed Over Principles. And make no mistake; there is a high-stakes fight brewing in thee GOP over the direction of the party. Some people are going to get trashed. These opening shots at Repya will only get worse if he decides to rejoin the party and run. Smart money is betting against that, but with the Brodkorbs of the GOP, that doesn't matter - smear 'em and make SURE they don't run is the standard operating procedure.
Hellier should know better than to tweet that - he's on the taxpayer-paid payroll working for a Congressman. Paulsen should know better than to have a hack like Hellier on the official staff - but with Paulsen, it's not what he says, but what he does that counts. Especially in matters of civility.