I am disappointed in the GOP over a couple of things. Perhaps the biggest thing I am disappointed in is Michael Brodkorp. He was obviously the voice of the GOP during the session. He is very rude , arrogant and obnoxious. He treats the constituents like we are very stupid. I for one have a PhD in Human Resources, with a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelors in Psychology. I was a government employee in two states for 21 years and in the corporate world for another 20, these included working for two of the largest companies in the world. GE and Johnson Controls. I currently am a Business Consultant. When someone like Brodkorp talks down to people, makes very ignorant statements, it is very upsetting. Upsetting to the point where I am sure other long time GOP’ers like myself don’t want to vote GOP anymore, because we are so turned off by the rhetoric that is being fed to us. There were a couple of times when I actually tweeted him and told him to shut up, because his statements were outrageous and repetitive and I was hearing about it from acquaintances.
I am also disappointed in the leadership of the GOP, for several reasons. One, they did not and do not recognize the strategy of the Democrats and I am afraid that is going to be costly in the next election. The GOP needs new leadership, someone who has strategic management experience. Here is why. It is obvious the Dem’s strategy is to play the role of the underdog and act like they are being kicked around. Believe me it is working, especially with people like Brodkorp spouting off in everybody’s face and constantly falling into the Dem’s strategy and kicking them around. Have you seen the pathetic images of Dayton in the papers, that is part of the strategy. Secondly prior to the session the leadership made some promises to the sportsmen of Minnesota and they reneged on their promises. I belong to several sportsmen’s groups that have a couple of million Minnesotans as members. Many are angry and many of them will not vote GOP again, they have turned to Dayton to veto the DNR bill. Specifically they are angry at killing the No Retreat bill, and at changes made to the DNR bill. I know for a fact one of the groups has just hired a firm to represent their interests at the legislature and have hired another company to build a new web site to put the information out on the GOP leadership and, has asked the NRA-ILA for help in fighting the GOP leadership. During the campaign all GOP candidates talked about creating jobs, but nothing happened that was put out to the public during the session. That was a very poor strategy and should have been a key talking point.
The GOP has to stop talking that it the passed a budget bill with no new taxes. Obviously that is only technically true, with cuts, everybody knows that the local governments will have to raise real estate taxes and that statement is going to come back to haunt the GOP. Also every long time GOP’er like myself knows that historically, no new revenue, has never been part of the conservative platform. Innovation with revenue has always been available, casino’s, innovative fee’s, etc.
It really is necessary that the GOP get a spokesman, who will get in front of the people, listen to what they are saying and then be able to speak for the GOP in a professional manner. Currently the impressions being left are terrible. The GOP also needs to control some of the knee jerk reactions by some of the legislators themselves, apologies afterwards don’t cut it. Early on the GOP got caught up in the Voter ID and gay marriage bill. That was bad strategy. They should have attacked the budget first and forgot about those two bills until later. As it turns out the session will probably be remembered for those two bills, one which stands a good chance of being defeated by the voters, and the second costing a lot of money in a constitutional court battle. The voter ID bill, in all likelihood, may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution unless the state provides free voter ID cards, in fact at the time I blogged about this. So again poor strategy by leadership.
There also should have one compromise and I have heard it over and over again. The GOP should have bought into taxing the rich. I have heard more comments about the GOP representing the rich than almost any other comment. We have a lot of people out of jobs and that one compromise would have gone a long way to make the voters happy.
I hope you take this in the manner in which is intended, as constructive information and not criticism.
Respectfully;
Ken Kjer
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