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by Stan Roeser Litchfield Independent Review News, Sports, Politics, Blogs And Forums For Litchfield, Minnesota | (320) 693 3266

I follow baseball and politics quite closely.

This summer, I?ve noticed a disturbing pattern of similarity unfold relative to these interests.

The Minnesota Twins have gone from having one of the best records in baseball in recent years to fashioning what this year is close to the worst record in the game.

Similarly, in politics, we have gone from behing represented in St. Paul by a state senator, Steve Dille, who was one of the best, to being represented in that post by one of the most partisan and misguided legislators.

In perusing the paper for the ?old time news? last week, I came across a comment from then-Sen. Dille 10 years ago, relative to a situation, when, like this year, the Legislature and governor could not agree on a budget.

Here is what Dille wrote: ?I am sorry and troubled for the delay in getting the legislative work done on time relative to the budget. I have thought about what I personally could have done to speed the process. Compromise and getting things done is part of being a good legislator. It is also a part of being a good neighbor, a good spouse, a good worker and a good citizen.?

How welcome it would be to hear such common sense expressed by current legislators on either side of the political spectrum.

Our current state senator ? the successor to Dille ? got off to a sorry start in office with the flap over the refusal of his office to talk with a group he felt had opposed him in the recent election. The blame, of course, was passed off to an underling in the newly elected state senator?s office.

Then, there was his misuse for political purposes of the reasons for Hutchinson Technology?s job loss. Our state senator stood by at a press conference and heard the HTI chief executive officer, a Litchfield native, say emphatically that the so-called bad economic climate of the state was not the reason for the job cutback. Yet, within days, our state senator was ranting that the job loss was due to the state?s anti-business stance.

Most recently, our state senator was joined with three of the most far right legislators at the Capitol in challenging Gov. Mark Dayton?s proposal to let the courts assist in deciding on essential activities in the event of a state shutdown.

Our state senator will also be in the forefront, apparently, in pushing for an amendment to the state constitution that would require an ID to vote.

This, despite the fact that Minnesota has consistently had the cleanest elections in the nation in the past, with only 80 incidents of illegal voting certified among the millions who voted in the 2008 general election.

An incident cited by our state senator in support of his ID measure bordered on the ridiculous in my mind.

He cited a scenario in an Eden Valley nursing home where a victim of Alzheimer?s had affixed to her garb an Election Day ?I voted? sticker as evidence that someone had illegally cast a ballot in the woman?s absence. What nonsense.

We should be more concerned about the fact that in the 2010 general election, only 55 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. Requiring voter IDs will no doubt reduce that figure when we should be promoting ways to make voting easier. The League of Women Voters, a fiercely nonpartisan organization intensely devoted to good government, opposes the voter ID plan, incidentally.

For those readers who do not follow politics closely, I should point out that the legislator I am referring to in this column is Sen. Scott Newman and not our state Rep. Dean Urdahl. While Urdahl has become a pretty polished politician, adept at talking around serious state issues, I regard him as well above our current state senator when it comes to common sense and political judgment.

The sad part of the fact that we are saddled with such a partisan, narrow state senator is the fact that we could have done much better.

The Republicans had a superb candidate in Randy Wilson of Glencoe ? a former high school teacher, a businessman, a mayor of Glencoe, and incidentally, the director of the Litchfield Male Chorus.

With this background, he would have been an acceptable successor to Dille at the Capitol. However, Wilson refused to kowtow to the far right, which controls the GOP party in Meeker and McLeod counties, and he did not get the nomination.

Now, I?ve pretty well given up on my Twins for the year. With the continuing rash of injuries and the fact that since Mauer and Nishioka have become almost automatic outs since returning to the lineup, there is little hope.

But in baseball, there is always, ?wait until next year.?

It?s different in politics. We?re stuck with the current occupant of our state Senate seat for three more years.

Source: http://independentreview.net/bookmark/14699627

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