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Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!

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Two current news trends at once – leaked documents and felons voting!

Memo to: All Candidates
From: Strategy Team
Re: The Felon Vote

The assertion that convicted felons were a crucial swing group in the 2008 contest has taken us by surprise! People who are voting illegally should be caught. But if they can’t be caught, we should at least try to capture their loyalty. After all, candidates, our job is to win!

Some think this group sides with one party, but felonious voters are as diverse as the general populace with little in common except face time on America’s Most Wanted. Don’t assume that felons vote as a (cell) block. If we want them, we have to offer candidates and ideas they like.

Let’s look at strategies to attract some important sub-groups.

Arson Moms
They are big-gesture optimists who always imagine positive outcomes from their crazy, roll-the-dice actions.
To get their vote – position yourself as a hip-shooting chance taker and disparage Big Insurance whenever possible. Careful and judicious use of arson-resonant terms like “accelerant”, “blaze” and “inferno” can send a subtle message to Arson Moms that you are a candidate who can ignite their considerable passion.

Serial Killers
Capturing the serial killer vote is not as hard or as risky as it sounds.
To get their vote – Go after them! SK’s love being pursued! And remember, they despise themselves for their twisted compulsions, so promise change, and lots of it! No punishment is too severe. The only sin you could commit would be to stop paying attention.

NAIFS (Numbers And Information Felons)
This white-collar crowd of felons includes embezzlers, inside traders, forgers, financial fraudsters and tax evaders. The votes of this group may appear to be the easiest to secure, but competition for their political loyalty has always been tough.
To get their vote – tax breaks and less regulation.

AGGRAVOTERS (Aggressive Guys and Gals, Reprobates And Violent Offenders Too Extreme to Reach Safely)
Keep your distance. AGGRAVOTERS don’t support anyone. They attack!
To get their vote – vilify your opponent whenever possible, and if you can make your opposition seem helpless as well, this despicable class of felon will become intensely interested. The voting booth can be as good as a dark alley, but it’s up to you to dim the lights.

Rounding up the felon vote is a difficult task that calls for focus, discipline and a certain kind of cynical recklessness that can’t be taught. Are you up to the job? If so, get ready to call yourself Governor, Congressman, or Senator. When the votes are counted, 2010 is looking to be the Year of the Felon!

If you stretch for that brass ring, you might fall off your horse.
Ever reach too far?

56 thoughts on “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!”

  1. good morning, All –
    Dale, what a wonderful idea! i trained to be an election judge for Blackhoof this week. one topic was the felon vote. how timely! and how wonderfully clever, your piece. thanks
    i regularly stretch (being 5’1″) for things i can’t reach. but now they are not money, fame, etc. – mostly the salad spinner and other kitchen stuff that seem to always be just out of my reach. new cabinets? step stool? nah, that’d take all the fun out of it.
    off to a busy day – ha det!

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    1. Barb, kudos to you for working as an election judge!
      That’s a very valuable and under appreciated public service.
      If you can share it, what were you told about the felon vote?

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      1. the county auditor said that one should question politely but that we should err on the side of letting folks vote. it will be caught in the long run anyway. he said that absentee ballots are more of a pain in the neck. he thought that there will be a time when “early voting” will be the option – where one can vote at the county court house, e.g. i had no idea that there was so much involved. or that one must stay at the polls from 6 a.m. (to get ready and open) until about 9:30 p.m. after all is said and done. Steve will bring the goats over to the town hall so i can milk them 🙂 not. you may hear Dream and Alba yelling all the way to Forest Lake.

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      2. Hey,

        Additional comments to Barb’s reply regarding felons; if a notation shows up by a persons name in the registry and it indicates a ‘challenge’ (and it could be for any number of reasons; challenged address, felon, absentee vote, ect) then yes we should question them politely… and that includes having them read the paragraph at the top of the roster page which indicates that by signing they have the right to vote. So if they choose to vote anyway, then they are violating those laws as well…

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      3. I’d like to also point out that in Minnesota a convicted felon’s voting rights are automatically restored once he has completed his sentence. So most of the felons who are still ineligible to vote are in prison. The ones that may show up at the polls are on parole, probation, or work release, or they have been ordered to make restitution and have not done so yet.

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  2. Be patient with me, babooners. I just had the kind of drastic nap with powerful REM dreams that leaves you confused and shaking upon waking. The first dozen things I’ve said since coming to after this thing are “woo.” I am fumbling toward consciousness.

    Dale’s intro is a satyric masterpiece, not to mention a towering accomplishment of cynicism that reflects knowledge of deviant personality that should make us all afraid of him. Your mastery of the kinky side of human nature is matched, Dale, only by Hannibal Lecter. I’m keeping an eye on you.

    One of the best jokes about American politics is how crazy the right gets about the possibility that felons are voting for liberals. It is an obsession with them. The truth, of course, is that felons are not a reliable voting bloc. Felons on the whole are not disciplined enough to get to the polls, nor are they clever at seeing how influencing politics could be in their long range interest. They have poor impulse control and don’t believe in social cooperation, even when it comes to voting to get their way.

    Even funnier–felons, were they to vote, would vote a straight right wing ticket. Felons hate liberals and their creepy good social intentions. Felons believe the Good Lord takes care of those who take care of themselves. Many can embrace no values bigger than themselves but will blubber with emotion about pride of country. Nobody believes in harsh retributive punishment like felons. Heck, they were kicked around by their folks and now they believe in controlling others by violence. Compassion is for wimps and elitist reformers. You don’t hear Emily’s List types bragging about being Mama Grizzlies.

    And now my dog has made me an offer. Either I let her out or she will leave a wet spot on the carpet. That is a persuasive argument.

    Enjoy the day, babooners!

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    1. Thanks Steve.

      Can I put “Towering Accomplishment of Cynicism” on my resume under the Awards and Honors section? I’m looking to puff it up, and this is exactly the kind of thing that makes a huge difference with prospective employers, I believe.

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  3. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    Just in from my walk. What a beautiful Minnesota summer day. My favorite.

    I cannot think of much to say about voting felons. I did hear something about investigators narrowing the problem to 8 possible MN felons who might have illegally voted. I used to have to do Mental Status Exams for people held in the jail. I’m certain some of them were felons. I don’t think voting, legally or illegally was high on their list of priorities.

    Off to the showers and into the beautiful day.

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  4. I usually stretch too far when I plan special family dinners. This is especially true when I cook Indian and Italian food. My family has come to expect at least two kinds of Indian bread, plus chutneys, a couple of curries, special rice, and vegetables. I also make my own pasta dough, and my kids have their favorite sauces which, of course, they talk me into making for them. Don’t even ask me about holiday dinners. My son and his wife are very avid cooks, I’m happy to say, and they love to cook for us when we visit, so perhaps it has been all worth it. I also say great, Barb, for your civic mindedness.

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  5. I should mention that my paternal grandfather was elected to the Rock County commission only by the toss of a coin. He and his opponent had exactly the same number of votes, and election laws called for a coin toss to settle who won. May you will be tossing a coin at some point, Barb. I would hope there wouldn’t be a goat close by to eat the coin before the winner was determined!

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      2. I thought perhaps the opponents could see which was best herding (or persuading ) the goats to go certain places on command.

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      4. I think the possibility for corruption is pretty high here. I’m thinking goats would not be above taking bribes.

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    2. Two friends of mine from college, who were brothers, managed to get their family dog listed in Who’s Who Among American High School Students. If they could do that, why we shouldn’t contemplate goats running for office.

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  6. Good Morning to All,

    Why not straigten up and stop all this reaching for things that are too far away. I know a person like Barb who is short but will not get a stool to reach things up high. It does no good to say it, but why not get the stool and end the reaching for something too high to reach. Of course, I am sure that a short person does get frustrated when many things are placed where only tall people can reach them and I don’t think that is fair.

    Those felons would have been better off if they hadn’t reached for something they shouldn’t have tried to get. A canidate that needs to reach for the felon vote might also be reaching too far. I am kind of cranky this morning, but all of this over reaching can get annoying.

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  7. Got up this morning at 5:50, did my morning oblations, went online to check the weather before biking to work. At 6:15 opened up this post to see where Dale’s gentle but warped mind was going to take us. No post yet. Headed out for a thirteen mile ride. My mind was of its own will wondering over my life, drifting restlessly over the times I had reached too far, things I did that failed, asking myself if maybe my life would have been better if I had not reached or if I should have reached more. You think this way when you are preparing for retirement.
    So help me, Dale, get out of my head.

    I think Dale should add to his resume “Would have been a felon if he were not so gentle a human being. “

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    1. Clyde, since we think so much alike, it won’t surprise you to hear that “felon” is one of the employment classifications I’m considering. Everybody says the unemployed should take a fresh look at all the possibilities.

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      1. So you must be reading “What Color Is Your Parchute?” I have given that book to two friends who said it helped them a lot. I wonder if it applies to 66 year olds. I will have to check it out.

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  8. I frequently overcommit — something sounds really fun in the moment and I way “Oh, I’ll sign up for that,” then sometimes have to renege (?sp). I then feel silly, but I’d rather be silly than insanely overbooked. Note to self, pay more attention when committing…

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  9. A year ago tomorrow, I was trying to reach 3rd base while playing softball and tore my ACL and my medial and lateral menisci. I should have just taken the out instead of trying to slide into 3rd, but I was so sure I could make it. Not even close. I know my limits, I know how clumsy I am, and yet I still tried to reach 3rd safely. Now, a year, an ACL replacement, surgery and physical therapy later, I can say that I’ll never overreach that much again, haha. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever try sliding again, as well.

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      1. Yep, I wear a knee brace and my team only allows me to run to first base. When I reach first, they bring in a runner for me 🙂

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  11. I hope others don’t mind my venting strong feelings about a development related to voting in recent days. MN Forward is a conservative interest group that (“thanks” to a recent Supreme Court decision) can now donate money to political candidates. MN Forward has been pushing the candidacy of Tom Emmer for Minnesota governor. And two local companies making contributions to MN Forward are Target and Best Buy.

    So . . . companies we have all patronized are now helping to decide who will be the next governor of the state? I find Tom Emmer the most frightening politician to be a major candidate in my lifetime in Minnesota. He is scarier to me than Michelle Bachmann, a sentence I thought I’d never write.

    I have many options about where I spend my money. Target and Best Buy just made my options much simpler. I can’t stand the thought that money spent at Target could help elect someone like Emmer.

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    1. Large corporations routinely give to both sides of major elections. I’m pretty sure this is just another case of this trend. The unfortunate part is that now corporations are allowed to spend as much as they want to buy support candidates.

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      1. That HAS been the pattern, VG, but it seems not to be the case here. In this case, the firms contributing to this fund that supports conservative “pro-business” candidates are not contributing to the other side.

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    2. I strongly agree.

      We have a solution. Vote with your dollars. Shop for locally produced goods, if possible. Shop at your local food coop or farmers market or corner produce stand for arts, crafts and seasonally available foods that don’t have thousands of miles on them.

      Sorry for the speech. I usually just lurk.

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    3. can you find a post stating where target and best but truely spend their dollars and then post it to let them know that the domations don’t go unnoticed. if they give emmer a million , kelliher and dayton and entenza all a milion each i have no problem. we should start a money gathering group for the correct candidates rather than leave it to business to dictate. lets ask bp for 10 million for the progressive movement in mn

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      1. tim, I find it interesting that you don’t perceive a problem if the corporation gives equally to candidates of multiple parties. I think this is the thing that MOST disturbs me about corporate donations – it’s that the company doesn’t really care who wins the election, just wants to buy influence with whoever comes out on top.

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      2. I’ll try, Tim. I have read several articles that say Target and Best Buy are contributing to Minnesota Forward, and it is that group (a pro-business, pro-growth group) that is making the contributions and they are NOT spreading the honey evenly. The Target CEO is a fan of Michelle Bachmann’s and seems to support her general approach.

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  12. I agree , Emmer is scary; as a Target retiree i am embarrassed that Steinhafel has thrown money at the guy
    i am still pondering how to react (maybe vote in the Rep primary instead so i can vote against him?)
    my recent reach too far involved trying to do the splits in yoga class……

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  13. OT but funny-I just saw a photo on the front page of the Bismarck Tribune of a young woman at the ND State Fair blowdrying a prize chicken to get it ready for its moment in the show ring. Anybody else ever blowdried a chicken?

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      3. No, this one was full feathered and full of life, being foisted upside down while his beautiful furnishings were being fluffed.

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      5. And now I have tea up my nose.

        Checking in during a few spare non-working minutes… I’m having a $%^!#@ of a summer this year. Gack. You guys always lift my spirits.

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  14. I guess I’ve been stretching my little clerk’s budget too far for too many years. My little budget has these short little legs and stubby little arms – it just doesn’t reach as far as I’d like it to.

    Anybody need a house in Waterville? The American dream is stretching itself away from me. I want one of those Rolling Homes that were so cool back in the 70s.

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  15. I’m with you, Krista – had that book out from the library… what a lot of cool creations.

    Actually – wanta trade houses? We could try out Waterville and small town life, you could have a yard that feels like country in the middle of city…

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    2. My ex had a copy – I loved it! He wouldn’t let me have it though… I’ve heard that copies can go for as much as $125 now! I hope Morgan still has his copy. I’ve also heard there is a resurgence in the small house concept. I think it’s wise to be both small and mobile.

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  16. Jim Crow laws still on the books are currently keeping 1.4 million black men (that’s 13 percent of the national black male adult population) from entering the voting booth. I Voted for Gummi Bears, a one-person show written and performed by Minneapolis artist Ochen K., dissects these laws, their history, and their effects through stories of those struggling to love this country while being told their voice doesn’t matter.

    Laws restricting the voting rights of convicted felons were enacted alongside poll taxes and literacy tests in the late 19th century. One Southern senator even described the felon voting restrictions as an insurance policy, should courts strike down the more blatant laws. Companion laws that allow lesser, non-violent crimes to carry felony convictions (a felony is any crime that could result in a prison sentence over one year) such as minor drug possession, and a “drug war” targeting inner-city, minority populations, combine to create a whole new form of institutional racism. I Voted for Gummi Bears follows the history, enforcement, and consequences of felon voting rights laws by presenting narratives of those directly impacted.

    I’ve seen this performance twice. It’s compelling stuff. The USA is the only 1st-world nation with such restrictive voting laws for criminals.

    Now, the accusations of voter fraud in the infamous debacle of a recount are probably not related to voter rights activism. Rather, it’s yet another straw for the losing side to grasp to support their claims of a ‘stolen’ election. And, in the end, Coleman’s camp made the decision not to pursue further action after the thoroughly publicized recount trial (and lizard-people votes).

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  17. streching out ive done it yeah but then again who cares to mention
    i wish i had a job that paid like most salary and pension
    but no i have to try to do what ever comes into my head
    and no i can not stop until i am dead

    but than a gain who cares about this? its just old tim in his abysis
    he can not stop, spins like a top and then he goes a big jkerplop
    he does it all and then he falls
    he as his day then gets filleted
    he tries once more,we know whats in store , he did it his way

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  18. Just tried Alanna’s chocolate mug cake recipe. Oooooooh. Is there anything better than chocolate?

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