Targeting Emmer

There's more to the Minnesota governor's race than meets the political lay-person's eye.  Though the DFL Party hasn't yet annointed its prospective leader, the progressive attacks on GOP Candidate Tom Emmer have been in full swing.  Groups like Alliance for a Better Minnesota, an arm of George Soros' Democracy Alliance, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on attack ads and launched a website with the sole purpose of smearing the GOP nominee.

None of this is particularly surprising.  This campaign season will likely see many attack ads generated by the George Soros machine of "alliances."

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Carole Sonnefeld was a research associate for Common Cause, a political activist group currently heavy with lobbyists and heavier with George Soros money, when she married now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.  Common Cause began political activism in 1970 with its founder, John Gardner.  His stated purpose for the group was to create "a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest."  The organization has transformed over the years and now has a donor list that reads like a Who's Who of the progressive movement.

In light of the recent $150,000 donation from the Target Corporation to MN Forward which has been running pro-Emmer ads, Common Cause Minnesota has jumped on the "smear Emmer bandwagon." 

CCM Leader Mike Dean:

"Just the reputation damage that this is doing to the corporations that have given should be a compelling case of why these corporations should not give."

Common Cause and other left-leaning groups have criticized Emmer's stance on gay marraige, though neither MN Forward nor Target have made any reference to gay rights regarding the donation.  So what "reputation damage" is he referring to?  Who is responsible for that damage?  Is he in faovr of smearing the Target Corporation?

Local news groups like Kare11 gave voice to advocacy groups including Common Cause but failed to ask the above questions or to investigate two new boycott Target Facebook groups that popped up Tuesday, saying only that they exist but not reporting how they started, by whom, and with what funding.

Target representatives have tried to highlight the company's outreach to the community including education programs, food banks, and the Twin Cities Pride Festival, as well as stress the reason for the large donation was to advocate for business initiatives and job creation.

As the summer ends and the campaigns heat up, there is likely to be an escalation of attacks from "advocacy" groups like Common Cause, Alliance for a Better Minnesota, Democracy Alliance, Democracy Matters, and others.  How Emmer fights the smears, as well as the massive funding from these rich progressive groups will be interesting to watch.