The Star Tribune endorsed Tom Horner for governor yesterday. The editorial board must really like him. They endorsed him a few weeks ago, too. Their point back then was that, while it was too early to endorse anyone, it was time for people to start paying attention, and they made it clear that Horner was the one we were to start noticing. Now, today, they have officially endorsed him, one week farther out from the election than their preference is usually announced. Their theory is that thousands upon thousands must know that Horner is best but are worried about wasting their vote, since in polls he is running far behind DFLer Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer. Horner needs an extra week, between the boost their endorsement gives him and the election, for all right-minded people to talk to all the ditzes who worry about wasting their vote on someone who can't win.
Sounds like an argument for ranked choice voting, but where is the argument for Horner? The editorial itself is a procession of cliches. It adopts Dayton's talking points about Emmer (he's a right-wing flame-thrower), Emmer's talking points about Dayton (he's a flaming liberal who wants only to "soak the rich"), and Horner's talking points about himself (he's the affable, serious, sensible alternative). I can't imagine why the editorial is so long because that is really all there is to the thing.
I've just read it again, because I was genuinely curious about what could have filled up so much space. The wind. There is nothing that might properly be called analysis, and no evidence of human thought. What is the point of this paragraph?
Horner's plan for erasing the big budget deficit that's been forecast for 2012-13 is sound--and while not as complete as it will need to be next January, it compares favorably with the ideas advanced by both Dayton and Emmer.
This seems to say that, on the single weightiest issue facing the state, Horner's ideas aren't any sketchier, or worse, than those of his principal opponents. Is that a reason to endorse him--twice? The idea of Dayton's with which Horner's plan "compares favorably" is that top earners should not pay to the state a lower percentage of their income than do cops and school teachers. The editorial anticipates this objection and strikes the following blow:
But Horner also sees that there are less destructive ways to stabilize state finances than to give Minnesota one of the nation's highest top-bracket personal income tax rates, as Dayton aims to do.
When I say there is no analysis, and no evidence of human thought, I mean, among other things, that the author, or authors, feel no need to back up such a claim--to say why it would be "destructive" to make the highest earners pay in at the same rate as the rest of us. Here is a sentence that captures, in a stroke, the emptiness of the editorial:
[Horner has] attracted an impressive list of bipartisan endorsements from thoughtful Minnesotans, buttressing his claim to be a uniter and a problem-solver.
Horner is so great that he has to be endorsed twice before a normal gubernatorial candidate would be endorsed once. Yet all that can be said in his favor is that he is "bipartisan" (cliche #1), a "uniter" (cliche #2), and a "problem-solver" (cliche #3). Why should we believe it? The answer to that is the biggest cliche of all--the unnamed "thoughtful Minnesotans" to whom this thoughtless editorial appeals.
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