Speed Gibson

Do we really need network news, as in ABC, CBS, and NBC? The recent debacle at CBS prompts such a question in the face of new media.

When the big three was all there was, the need was the there and by and large they did a good job. One reason no doubt was that at the designated news periods around 6 pm, all stations were airing news, so quality was king. There were no Friends or Simpsons reruns to compete with.

Today, there is CNN and Fox News. There is no significant national or world event that they do not cover. There are also Reuters and the Associated Press, for what their worth these days.

So put yourself in charge of your local station's 10 pm news, say, Channel 4. Do you really need CBS? Again, CNN has whatever you need at the national or international level, and since WCCO is liberal like CNN, it's a good fit. Other stations might use Fox News, and if the big three drop out or spin off their news organizations, other alternatives will likely exist.

Now imagine you're the head of CBS. Your entertainment and sports divisions pay all the bills, and the network concept is still very much valid in these areas. The news division, however, generally makes no money. It no longer adds luster to the brand. The network metaphor itself no longer holds, supplanted by satellites and cable. Isn't the correct business decision to either fold or more likely, spin them off as a new cable service? Your top line suffers a little, but your bottom line improves a little.

There are already signs that entertainment is dominating the news. Look at the limited coverage of the political conventions, press conferences, and certain other events that used be aired without exception. They far get more money airing Everybody Loves Raymond than a night of speeches, however entertaining.

So again, I ask; does ABC, CBS, or NBC really need ABC, CBS, or NBC News? I say no. It's old media that can't compete with tiny slots against the 24 hour CNN, Fox News, and C-Span.

In an earlier post (Aug 31) I discussed and proposed combining Minnesota's many counties, 29 more than California. The improvements in transportation and especially communication make this possible, saving taxpayers money by consolidating the duplications in management and services.

Later (Sep 13), I discussed cities in Greater Minnesota, that smaller cities should unincorporate, turning over the reins to their county. Now let's consider Metro area cities, where I contend many merger opportunities exist.

There is no better case than that of Crystal and New Hope. If you look at the map, you see two small cities with a jigsaw border. In fact, a small portion of Crystal is land-locked inside New Hope. There has been some discussion of such a merger, and already some public services are being shared. But I wouldn't stop there. I would add Golden Valley and Robbinsdale to the plat.

This new city, which I'll call "Queens" for now, would be about 25 square miles, with a combined population of about 80,000. They are all fully developed, and demographically similar. Queens would be comparable to Bloomington, Plymouth, and other large suburbs.

Other obvious opportunitiies are Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, and Champlin ("Brooklyn"); Edina and Richfield; St. Louis Park and Hopkins; Maple Grove, Dayton, and Osseo.

None of these cities existed 150 years ago. There is no great reason for them to continue to exist as small entities going forward. The neighborhood concept can preserve the heritage. What is Brooklyn Center today might be the Earle Brown neighborhood in "Brooklyn" for example.

These consolidations would in any case should save the taxpayers money while improving services.

Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton said he would "respectfully not attend" interim Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi's speech to a joint session of Congress, which Dayton said would be "a staged production" presumably to support President Bush.

I am respectfully not impressed with the Senator's logic. No matter what Mr. Allawi is and represents, insulting him and the millions of Iraqi's he represents (not all, but millions) makes no sense. Such sniping will hand the next President - Bush or Kerry - an even more difficult situation to manage. How can this possibly help?

Furthermore, Senator Dayton has no credible information on which to accuse Mr. Allawi of being our puppet. Certainly we put him in power, but where is the evidence of an "understanding" with Bush in particular or America in general? When you call a man a liar or a puppet, you had better have the goods on him, not just an opinion consistent with your Party's leadership.

Finally, while many Senators and some Representatives like to speak on foreign policy, the traditional, constitutional way is to take on the Executive Branch, not attempt to conduct foreign policy directly as Dayton did here. Our disagreements are supposed to end at the water's edge.

What are you, Dan Rather, a man or a mouse?

A man apologizes for his mistakes. As I understood your words, in the context of your career which included a Democratic Party fundraiser appearance, you're mostly sorry that your story about President George W. Bush, a Republican, fell apart, at least in the public sphere. And without pressure from CBS management, you clearly wouldn't have apologized at all, since you still believe, wish really, that the underlying story to be true. What you gave us was just regret, not remorse.

A man apologizes directly to those whom he offended, in this case, his co-workers at CBS News, his profession, those in the Texas Air National Guard he mis-represented including their families, and above all in this case, President Bush. That hasn't happened yet. What damage has accrued to the list of wronged parties is a result of our unwillingness to accept your unproven assertions, not your excesses in pursuing them.

A man takes one for the team if that's what repentance and restitution require. If there are no consequences for lying, which you so clearly did, how are we to believe anything you or CBS News say? Jayson Blair and Howell Raines had to leave for false reporting at The New York Times, and many on both sides of the aisle say the Times is clearly regained most of their luster as a result. CBS will not have that opportunity until you and those involved with this scandal are gone, possibly including your boss, Andrew Heyward.

This also means you drop the whole story if you have no other proof of your charges to publish. After all, even if true, it means nothing. A voter who values this over Bush's four year record was going to vote for Kerry even without your help, Dan. The honorable thing to do is drop the whole thing, as Vice President Gore did in 2000.

But if you insist on pursing this thin line of inquiry, first tell us why you continue to ignore the Swift Vets and their verifiable evidence against John Kerry's record of the same period. This story is relevant by John Kerry's own declarations that these exploits alone qualify him to be a capable President of the United States, no matter what he's done since then.

Better still, apologize to all the people you hurt, then prove it by resigning, effective immediately.

Shot in the Dark linked an article noting Senator Kerry's lack of organizational skills. He should have been able to build a significant alliance of veterans, as in thousands, not the one or two dozen he currently has. Someone who could get France and Germany to send troops to Iraq should have no trouble organizing a campaign office. But like former Vice President Gore in 2000, Kerry has had to make at least two major shakeups, and there are still several weeks to go.

This made me think of Hugh Hewitt's comments the day John Edwards became Kerry's running mate. Hugh said something like, "The first big decision of his campaign and he fumbles it." Hugh argued that Edwards was too light and too similar compared to Gephardt and others.

Hugh's show regulars and many callers disagreed, saying that Edwards' youth, personality and oratory skills were a big plus to the candidate so obviously weak in these areas. But the jury is in: Edwards has turned out to be a bust. He draws no crowds, the press doesn't follow him, and he raises much less money than hoped. There was no poll bounce when he was named, nor after the convention, completely upstaged by a true master, former President Bill Clinton.

In other words, Hugh Hewitt was right. Channeling the unspoken thoughts of unborn children might work in a courtroom, but that's not the skill needed on the stage or out on the campaign trail.

I, too, thought Hugh Hewitt was wrong. We all had been fearing this silver-throated trial lawyer for almost four years, and he had largely lived up to his press in the Primaries. A little more experience and he might have finessed Kerry for the nomination as everyone scrambled to pick up the Howard Dean pieces. Some Democrats wrung their hands, wishing they could somehow move Edwards to the top of the ticket, but it was too late for that.

So let me now personally acknowledge the veteran experience of the Commissioner of the Northern Alliance.

We have all spent considerable time tracing Dan Rather's steps and motives regarding the "Memogate" scandal. We have also spent some time speculating what retribution generally awaits Mr. Rather in the near future.

I thought ahead to Election Day, and wondered how in the world, barring some Lazarus-like event, CBS can allow Dan Rather to be their Election Night anchor. I even wonder why he's being allowed to go to Texas this week, to either bolster or "break" his original story, given he is the story now.

With CBS News' ratings already well below the competition and The Simpsons reruns, who is going to watch Dan on November 2? Even liberals cannot take the chance of believing anything he says until another network confirms it.

We are now between the Primary and General elections of 2004. This system has always seemed flawed. Two major candidates of a major party may have to face elimination at the Primary election. But an unopposed minor party candidate with far less support than the defeated major party candidate is on the General ballot. There are many such minority parties, which means the General ballot often has more names to consider than does the Primary ballot.

The Primary classically is a political party mechanism, which is why you ask for a ballot for your party of choice. But clearly this concept is breaking down with low turnout and crossover voting.

Primaries also operate in non-partisan elections, such as for many local elections. Here, the Primary trims the field to the maximum allowed on the General ballot. In my city, there can be up to four candidates running for the two open Council seats. If more than four enter, the Primary election chooses those four. This Primary system works. If you can't muster the votes to make the list of four, you can hardly be considered a significant candidate in the General election.

Why couldn't this latter system serve us at all levels? For Governor, all who enter square off in the primary, with party affiliation shown. The two who survive square off in the General election. In 1998, that probably would have meant Republican Coleman vs. Independence Ventura. It might mean two Democrats or two Republicans or two minor party candidates someday.

But yes, we will almost always see the two major parties represented in November. The Greens, the Libertarians, and the other parties would howl, given the empirical reality is that America has a two party system. So let's make it the top three candidates that move on to the General election. This provides good incentive and debate from the minor parties, and makes crossover voting in the Primary all but pointless.

I also think party identification on all ballots is a good idea. I fail to see how hiding this tiny but important piece of information makes for better voters. I think this is especially important for the minor parties, with limited name recognition, and avoids any confusion where candidates have (or adopt) similar sounding names.

We clearly face some big challenges ahead in strengthening our election process. A simpler, more information General election ballot of truly qualified candidates from the Primary election would be a good start.

I have an almost forty year old copy of the Minneapolis Star my mother saved. I was mentioned in an article describing the introduction of a computer terminal at our high school. But what's really interesting now is the more formal, more polite, and more respectful style of the writing.

I wrote the Star Tribune four years ago when an article's first mention of then Vice President Albert Gore was simply "Gore". Vote for him? I never gave it a thought. I voted for George W. Bush. But Mr. Gore was then Vice President of the United States, and should have been formally identified as such at the beginning. After that, just "Gore" is passable, but Mr. Gore or candidate Gore would be preferable, showing proper respect for his office. That clearly wasn't a problem 40 years ago.

This past year, we had members of the Senate personally attacking Cheri Pierson Yecci, then Commissioner of Education. Senator Sandy Pappas and others wore "Mr. Yuck" style buttons with "Yucci" logos. Ms. Yecci has a PhD, and was quite possibly the most qualified ever to hold the position. They obviously could not confront her ideas in open, honest debate, so a smear followed by a clever late night ambush. This lack of basic respect would have been unthinkable 40 years ago.

Republicans, including me at times, have trouble with this, too. It has become fashionable even among leaders and reporters I respect to refer to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat" party. It sounds more harsh, I suppose. But the fact remains that the correct names are Democratic Party, Democratic National Committee, and Democratic Nominee; they are proper nouns. That "Republican" applies to both party and member means nothing as far as any other political party is concerned.

It really takes so little effort to take the high road of respect, even when undeserved. I think it ultimately pays dividends in clarifying arguments and winning voters.

Rush Limbaugh posed this at the end of Monday's show. "What if I attempted to say that I had come up with some documents that prove John Kerry did 'X', and my documents were forgeries? What do you think CBS would be doing to me today? What do you think the mainstream press would be doing to me today?" The answer is obvious.

Better still, what if had been Fox News? You wouldn't have been able to lift the Sunday StarTribune due to the extensive coverage it would have drawn. Judy Woodruff would have been caught smiling on CNN for the first time since Election Day 2000.

But back to this universe, where CBS was at fault. There's finally general acceptance in the MSM that the documents are fraudulent, but so far, relatively little concern or outrage, and even less curiosity as to where they came from. Why? Again, the answer is obvious. The MSM leans to the left, though this incident suggests the degree of tilt may be more than most think. Even at full volume, there simply aren't enough Republican-leaning media outlets to make very much noise.

Look at how the Democrat-leaning media jumped on President Bush's remark on The Today Show that we couldn't win the war on terror. Matt Lauer and company heard what they wanted to hear, ignoring dozens of prior Bush speeches that make Bush's meaning clear. Yes, he could have said it better, and he did the next day. But Bush's view and intent were never in doubt.

Remember when President Clinton told an audience that he agreed that he had raised their taxes to much? No coverage except for one lone reporter who managed, with Rush Limbaugh's help to embarrass the other media present. To their credit, incidentally, they all apologized for missing it.

So far, no one's apologizing here. Personally, I think this was to be Dan Rather's exit strategy, one last big story before his retirement. He had what the wanted, and assumed the prevailing double standard would protect him once again from cross-examination, and in a way he was right, in terms of the MSM.

But instead, Mr. Rather himself is the story, undone not by Limbaugh, not by Fox News, but by the littlest things, typewriter repairmen and Internet geeks, that God in His wisdom has put upon the Earth.

For this post, Greater Minnesota means the large area of Minnesota outside the Twin Cities. Its share of the state population has been declining for decades, making it ever difficult to find jobs.
The State has been redistributing the wealth of the Twin Cities into Greater Minnesota, increasingly so it seems to me, but it hasn't really addressed the problem, if there is one.

The Taxpayers League may disagree, but the Twin Cities should help out with Greater Minnesota. When we travel or go on vacation in Minnesota, we need good roads, police, fire, and emergency health care facilities. We can do without the "interpretive centers" and other pork projects, however.

Greater Minnesota, in turn, must come to grips with its own realities. There are many towns, once vibrant when Agriculture employed 20 percent of the population or more, that are now just a few hundred people. It's time to consider unincorporating them. The town and buildings can remain, but be run by the county. Police would be provided by the county sheriff's office, which may need to expand (see my post regarding Counties - Aug 31).

That is, there should be a minimum population required, say 5,000, to remain incorporated as a distinct government within the county. Also, a minimum density should be required to keep cities from merely drawing expanded boundaries.

People my age think of these cities and towns as they were, not as they are. We have fond memories of a vacation, a fishing trip, the family farm, hunting, and so on, but those days and places are generally gone.

Indeed, we would strengthen what's truly alive in Greater Minnesota by not trying to keep all of these entities afloat.

The host of TV's "Love Connection" Chuck Woolery often went to commercial by saying they'd be back in "2 minutes plus 2". In those days of 25-30 years ago, that meant 122 seconds total. Nowadays, however, it means 2 minutes plus another 2 minutes, and maybe more. Go back another 15 years and the breaks were more on the order of 60 to 90 seconds.

Four minutes now seems to be the focus group determined maximum commercial break that broadcasters think you and I will now tolerate. That's what most of the talk radio I listen to uses. I listen to two hosts commercial free by subscribing to their web sites. Each hour of Dennis Prager is about 35 minutes, Rush Limbaugh about 36 minutes. I find NASCAR on Fox and NBC in about the same proportion. Law and Order reruns on TNT use four minute breaks, sometimes more.

Herb Carneal, who has been broadcasting the Minnesota Twins since 1962, remembered when it was just one minute between innings. Now it's two minutes and 15 seconds he said. I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't longer, and now when they rejoin the broadcasts, the announcers get in a little more ad copy. Salem Radio is doing this, too.

Folks, there has to be some limit to this, doesn't there? We are approaching the 50:50 ratio of content to commercials. That's bad news, but the good news should be that market forces may do something about this. Actually, there is one such solution already in wide use and gaining: TIVO.

TIVO is basically a computer that can record, play and buffer television broadcasts. You have to pay for the equipment ($100-300) and the service ($12.95/month), but I have yet to meet a dissatisfied customer. If anything, it's outright love at first sight.

So why not RIVO for us talk radio junkies? I basically have that for Prager and Limbaugh, but a TIVO-like device for radio would work for all broadcast programs, including sports.

Trouble is, if we all start doing delayed broadcast and therefore not watching the commercials, where does the revenue come from? Again, I think the markets can answer that. Salem Radio, for example, could make its formidable lineup available as a subscription package. Talk Radio Network could do the same with Ingraham and Savage. And the Northern Alliance could similarly expand their empire.

I think the days of free broadcasting are numbered. Much of it is already not free because it's cable or satellite provided, or in radio's case, internet provided. The broadcasters think it's wonderful, having more income minutes and less production cost. But ultimately, we will decide, via the free market.

I suppose I should have already known, but it was great to see and hear Pat Summerall in the booth once again, calling the ESPN Sunday Night game. What I always admired was his brevity, especially when paired with Tommy Brookshier those wonderful years before John Madden appeared. He seemed a little tentative at first, but quickly settled in to his old rhythms.

Summerall demonstrates that you can communicate a great deal with relatively few words, with or without the video image. Reagan had that same gift, perhaps because he, too, was an old school broadcaster? Or perhaps, facts and logic don't need quite the embellishment that speculations and non-sequiturs require.

But now we have chatterboxes in the booth, even locally, most notably Paul Allen for the Vikings, and John Gordon for the Twins. Allen is a screamer and a delusional homer. If the opponents fumble the snap, somehow it was a great defensive play by the Vikes. His constant referring to Randy Moss as "Superfreak" sounded like an older man trying vainly to be hip. I've heard many such broadcasters in my years and travels. Paul Allen is easily among the worst football announcers in the country, college or pro, for the simple reason he won't shut up.

John Gordon, to his credit, loves baseball, no question, and he does a good job telling you what happened. But it's like an episode of Showtime's "The Paper Chase" where the students tried to tell Professor Kingsfield that one of his staff was losing it. Kingsfield attended his next lecture, which was flawless. "What's wrong with that?" demanded Kingsfield. "He gave the same exact lecture last Friday," replied one of the students.

John isn't losing it but he gives out the same information 2 or 3 times each inning. Where a more terse announcer might say, "Runner holds ... low, ball three, full count", John will say something like "the pitcher checks first base, sets and delivers, and here's the pitch ... low, out of the strike zone, for ball three. That makes it 3 balls and 2 strikes, a full count for the batter." I half expect him to also tell us that the catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher. Before this season is over, I think I'll record an inning or two and tabulate the redundancies.

What these announcers forget is that radio should allow us to picture the event. If they're constantly talking, it's hard to get our imaginations in play.

***

p.s. Another great time-waster are "audio highlights" - now part of every sports' post-game show. Is there anything sillier?

Governor Pawlenty gets so much right that it's especially disappointing when he fumbles an issue, particular one of his own creation like the false economy of Canadian prescription drug imports. His latest proposal that teenage drivers have their driver licenses suspended if they are truant is especially confounding. It is unconstitutional sophistry.

First, what's to be gained? Yes, students not at school cannot learn. But you logicians out there know that does not mean that attendance results in learning. Worse, unmotivated students are often disruptive students who interfere with the class. Lowering the truancy of some may impair the learning of others.

Second, who's in charge? School administrators, who regularly practice political correctness, affirmative action, zero tolerance, and other forms of injustice. These administrators also have a conflict of interest, since schools literally get so much state financial aid per day per student in attendance. I personally got "the look" when I picked up my daughter for "Take your Daughter to Work" day one year. "You realize this counts as an unexcused absence, don't you?" muttered the clerk as I signed her out. Anyone care to bet there won't be special rules and exceptions made for certain groups, those on free and reduced lunch, and enrolled in English as a Second Language (ESL)? If so, does this not violate equal protection under the law?

Third, what about dropouts? Such a proposal might push some marginal students, however foolishly, to drop out rather than face license revocation. Or does Pawlenty intend to withhold licenses to anyone before age 18 not in school? Again, does this not violate equal protection under the law?

Fourth, what about the home schooled, by parents or tutors? What about those attending charter schools and private schools? I'd like to see how you're going to again not violate equal protection under the law?

Finally, what about birthdays? In a given class there will be just over a year's range of birthdays. There will be Seniors who turn 18 in early September, others that turn 18 in late May. Throughout the year, 17 year old Seniors are subject to this rule, while 18 year Seniors are not. The consequences for truancy are clearly not equal for this reason.

For all these reasons, I believe this is clearly unconstitutional, and besides, it accomplishes nothing.

Governor, if you would really like to try something innovative, how about repealing the compulsory education statute? I like the thought that those students who do show up are there voluntarily or because their parents insist, undisturbed by would-be truants.

Better still, how about changing the aid formulas to pay districts for proven results, not mere attendance?

Public post-secondary education in Minnesota comprises the University of Minnesota (UofM) and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System ("MnSCU"). Both are bloated and unfocused, with significant academic and geographic overlap.

The UofM has five campuses, six if you count St. Paul separately, the satellites being in Duluth, Morris, Crookston, and Rochester. There are also a number of associated "outreach" centers.

MnSCU was the result of a merger in 1995 of the various community and technical colleges, plus seven state universities: Bemidji, Mankato, Marshall, Metropolitan, Moorhead, St. Cloud, and Winona. Metropolitan has one Minneapolis and two St. Paul campuses. Note: this system also includes a number of vocational / technical colleges, which I'll discuss in a future post, not here.

The original goal was to have such an institution within 35 miles of every Minnesota resident, a long-outdated agrarian model that sadly is still largely in place today, and with significant over-capacity. The various rural communities involved have fought off all but one proposed closure, the UofM campus in Waseca. New proposals are sharply criticized by rural legislators as metro attacks on Greater Minnesota.

Former UofM Presidents, notably Kenneth Keller and Mark Yudof, have tried to refocus the University as the true jewel of the crown by focusing on those programs not generally feasible elsewhere, such as Engineering. General College functions as a community college within the UofM and is obviously totally unnecessary. (Many athletes seem to be enrolled there, though.) Such reforms were rejected, even though that would provide more quality options for our students. So much for "it's for the children!" This system is for the employees and municipalities.

The University of Minnesota should be the jewel of this crown, shedding the satellite campuses, including St. Paul. It should be a little tough to be accepted as a freshman at the UofM. Those who fall short can spend a year or two at a MnSCU college, then transfer in if they prove themselves. As it now stands, the jewel wastes significant time on marginal freshmen who soon drop out.

MnSCU can pick up the shed UofM campuses, then pare them all down to a few key centers, each with a specialty besides basic four year degrees in English, History, etc. For example, Mankato could pick up Agriculture from the shedded St. Paul campus. St. Cloud might concentrate on Accounting, with the "higher level" Carlson Business School at the UofM. But small sites like North Hennepin Community College should be closed.

This would save the State of Minnesota many millions of dollars each year, while providing each campus with a distinct, significant role. Without the latter, you wind up with a lot of "North Hennepin" facilities. Given their proximity to each other, and their over-capacity, they must compete with each other with ever lower standards to recruit new students.

Minnesota needs quality, demanding schools, not diploma mills or rural employment centers.

Michael Medved made an observation recently that the left has enclaves all their own, while conservatives do not. In these enclaves, there is little diversity of thought, and therefore no restraint or challenge of emotional rants like "the worst economy since Herbert Hoover." With no one to ask "what about Jimmy Carter?", the group asserts this as a fact that they assume everyone will accept. And since there is no one to offend, a dislike of President Bush's policies can grow into personal dislike, even outright, unreasoning hatred.

One obvious example is the New York Times and many if not most other large metropolitan daily papers. Indeed, it was the Times' Pauline Kael who in 1972, astonished that Nixon had won said, "How can this be? Nobody I know voted for Nixon!" More recently, the Times had to explain Jayson Blair, and they clearly didn't want to. Blair's writing fit the liberal template, it made sense to them, and there was therefore no reason to edit or do a little fact-checking of his articles. Warning signs, some from Blair's articles alone, were ignored until it became undeniable. Even then, the Times was clearly annoyed with those outsiders who had exposed this fraud.

Another example: most college faculties. It's a wonderful life for a tenured professor. By private sector standards, they have a light workload and schedule, good salary, great benefits, and the best job security there is. The campus is an idyllic. isolated world that protects them from outside thoughts, events, and ideas - and scrutiny. Inside their "ivory tower" there are few consequences for the dissemination of false information or unfounded ideas. Only in the sciences is reality acknowledged, by necessity.

Look at Hollywood, both actors and studio executives. It's chic to be liberal. And look how rudely and shamelessly Charleton Heston was treated recently on NBC's The Today Show. Still, I think there are a few cracks in the dyke, and I think conservatism will continue to make inroads.

Here in Minnesota, we have Education Minnesota. Their rise to power over the past 40 years correlates with the decline of the public schools during that period. But Education Minnesota is not concerned about educational performance. It is, after all, a labor union, and it seeks to improve life for its members. There is nothing wrong with this. What is wrong is that Education Minnesota uses its power to shut out ideas it doesn't like, often without study as whether their members would actually benefit from them. We need more and better science teachers, for example, but Education Minnesota will never sanction a pay differential to attract qualified people from the private sector. The accountability required by the Federal "no child left behind" program or State Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecci was clearly not acceptable. They couldn't do much about the Federal program other than lie about it, but they could use their political power to fire Ms. Yecci. Throughout, the union claims there is nothing wrong, that such scrutiny is unnecessary.

To wield this kind of power, a chilling requirement of "group think" is required of its members. There are a few brave souls who call in to Joe Soucheray now and then, plus his many moles that send him the silly memos and policies he reads on the air. But generally, Republicans have no home in Education Minnesota. There is to be no opposition, no alternatives, and above all, no competition. Though it shouldn't matter, it does matter to Education Minnesota what its members think about abortion, spending, same-sex marriage, and taxes, and so on. Don't forget: if they can get Ms. Yecci fired, what chance have you?

I have tried hard to think of a similar isolated world for conservatives or Republicans. I can't think of one. Some might say "big business" or "upper management" but that's easily disproved. Maybe Accounting tends to be conservative, but there is no need for it and the proof is that there are indeed many liberals in that profession, including management. What about Human Resources, as a liberal enclave? Hmm, let me get back to you on this one.

But again, conservatives are always in a mixed world of liberals and conservatives. As such, we hear the other side, and that in fact helps us focus our own ideas. As humans, if left alone, our ideas, too, would begin to stray, as they do in the liberal enclaves above. We all prefer praise to criticism, but a conservative rightly perceives criticism as a friend and wants praise only when deserved. The liberal fears criticism, often smearing those who offer it, then demands praise.

If it ever happens that conservatives find themselves in a world cut off from feedback, they must act quickly to avoid the same fate as these insulated liberals.