Category: The Real Erik Paulsen

J. Patrick Coolican in StarTribune Morning Hot Dish

Lunchtime reading

Good morning. Apologies for the tardiness.

The gamesmanship between U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen and  challenger Dean Phillips continues to impress. Paulsen’s campaign manager John-Paul Yates asked Phillips if they could use his coffee shop to film an ad:

I am writing to request the use of the Linden Hills Penny’s Coffee shop to film a political commercial. Since Penny’s has previously allowed political commercials to be filmed at their shops, we believe that the facilities are equipped to handle such logistics. To the extent that the location requires any additional build out or resources to facilitate the filming we are able and willing to provide that at our own expense without impacting the shop. We are more than willing to pay whatever fee was charged of other political campaigns to shoot at Penny’s Coffee shop.

The subtext here is that Paulsen has continued to hit Phillips for not offering employee health insurance when the shop opened. Phillips called their bluff, responding:

Thank you for your inquiry about using Penny’s coffee shop…Coincidentally, I too am running for Congress, and I operate my campaign the same as Penny’s; by offering accessibility, radical hospitality, a fun environment to which everyone’s invited, livable wages, and a healthcare plan for all full-time employees. We would be happy to host you at Penny’s to film your commercial for Congressman Paulsen free of charge, provided it’s during normal business hours. Please advise me of the date and time you’d like to shoot, and we’ll confirm if it works for our team. I’ll also commit to being onsite to ensure the experience exceeds your expectations.

View the full post here.

The Top 5 Most Creative Brand Ideas You Need to Know About Know (Hint: Bigfoot Makes an Appearance)

Welcome to the Creativity Top 5 most interesting brand ideas of the week.

5. Denny’s: ‘Mobile Relief Diner’, EP & Co
Denny’s is taking its grill on the road to provide food to people affected by natural disasters. After a trial run feeding victims of California wildfires, the Mobile Relief Diner is headed to North Carolina, with free pancakes, bacon and coffee for people hit by Hurricane Florence. The chain’s creative agency of record, EP & Co, is getting the word out.

4. Nike: ‘Fastest Ever’, Wieden & Kennedy Portland
Nike’s timing is perfect. Just days before Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge set a stunning new world record at the Berlin Marathon, this spot from Wieden & Kennedy came out: It features his feet, hitting the track like a meditative machine. It also hearkens back to Nike’s attempt to break the 2-hour marathon record in 2017, a goal that seems a bit more attainable now.

3. Dean Phillips for Congress: ‘We Found Bigfoot!’, Hunt Adkins
The Pacific Northwest’s hairiest protohuman makes a public appearance in a campaign ad for Dean Phillips, a Democrat running for the House in Minnesota’s 3rd District. Bigfoot tries to track down Phillips’ elusive opponent, Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen, in a spot from Minneapolis agency Hunt Adkins.

View the complete September 24 article by I-Hsien Sherwood and Alfred Maskeroni at the Ad Age website here.

KARE 11 VERIFY: Attacks against Phillips fail truth test

MINNEAPOLIS — New claims in attack ads against DFL candidate Dean Phillips range from misleading to just plain false.

Phillips, a business executive and political newcomer, is challenging five-term Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s 3rd District, which covers a mainly suburban area west of Minneapolis.

We put several fresh claims to the VERIFY truth test and found the average viewer would come away with several false impressions of Phillips from watching these ads.

View the complete article by John Croman on the KARE11 website here.

Reality Check: Phillips Ad Finds Bigfoot Looking For Rep. Paulsen

NOTE: For those who’ve tried to participate in the tele-townhalls, we know that it’s like calling in to a radio program.  There’s a screener who decides which questioners will be allowed to speak (it’s rarely been anyone who doesn’t parrot GOP positions).  And, any request for follow ups to questions aren’t fulfilled.  Those who have gotten one-on-one time with Rep. Paulsen have found that what he says in those meetings a lot of the time aren’t what he does on the floor of the U.S. House.  And, what can we say about those “Congress on Your Corner”?  They were never announced to the public in more than hours in advance.  By the time people found out about them, Rep. Paulsen had usually left the location.  

 

Paulsen, super PAC teamed up to tear Phillips down with lies

To the Editor:

Here we are, about two months away from midterm election day and the voters of Minnesota’s Third District are on the edge of their seats. We are paying attention to our candidates and determining who will be the best representatives of our interests. But instead of seeing incumbent Erik Paulsen put his best foot forward, we see attack advertisements, special interest money and smear politics.

This has to end. The Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC and Erik Paulsen have teamed up to try to tear down Dean Phillips’ reputation with lies. Is that how campaigns should run? It’s incredibly misleading and quite honestly annoying. I don’t want our candidates filling the voters’ minds with falsehoods. Let’s provide facts only, please.

Here are some facts: Dean Phillips is a business owner who is passionate about getting money out of politics, saving the environment, making health care accessible to all and much more. He is being attacked for not providing health care to his employees at Penny’s, but he does, in fact, provide for all full-time employees. Continue reading “Paulsen, super PAC teamed up to tear Phillips down with lies”

Republicans hoped voters would forget they tried to kill Obamacare. They bet wrong.

Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty

Earlier this month, over a year after Republicans tried multiple times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I asked people in the Twittersphere if their representatives in Congress had voted for repeal and, if so, if they held a town hall to explain their vote and put forward a better vision for health care. Within 24 hours, over 500 people had tweeted back their experiences.

The responses reflected not just people who disagreed with their member of Congress, but people who felt ignored by them. The list of those who chose to vote and disappear in 2017 is long, including many who now find themselves in highly contested races — among them Republicans Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters of California, Peter Roskam and Mike Bost of Illinois, Steve Chabot and Steve Stivers of Ohio, and Bruce Poliquin of Maine.

Sensitive to criticism for avoiding their constituents, some lawmakers have taken to holding a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” style of constituent meetings. They often label them town halls, but in reality they are either paid events or telephone calls with limited capacity where only “random” questions are accepted. Few sound satisfied with these interactions. It’s certainly not representative democracy at its finest.

View the complete September 21 article by Andy Slavitt on the Courier-Express website here.

Two major political handicappers find Minnesota’s Third District slipping out of Erik Paulsen’s grasp

© Greg Nash

Heading into the 2018 midterms, it was clear 3rd District Rep. Erik Paulsen was in for the fight of his political life: Although the Republican congressman has easily won five terms in this moderate, west metro district, opposition to President Donald Trump runs high here, and national Democrats have put it high on their target list as they go all-in on a campaign to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

With less than 50 days to go until the election, though, Paulsen may be in for more than just a tough fight: Two major election forecasters said this week that it’s more likely than not that the congressman will be out of a job next January.

The Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics are two of the most prominent outlets that assess the competitiveness of U.S. House, Senate, and governor’s races. To this point, they had rated the contest between Paulsen and Democratic challenger Dean Phillips as a “toss-up,” along with about two dozen other House races around the country.

View the complete September 20 article by Sam Brodey on the MinnPost website here.

Paulsen Ad Quotes WCCO’s Pat Kessler Out Of Context

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A new campaign ad from Republican Congressman Erik Paulsen is generating a lot of comments from WCCO’s viewers, and questions about whether the ad is legal.

That’s because WCCO-TV’s own Pat Kessler is actually featured in the ad, edited in a way that makes it seem as though he’s endorsing Paulsen’s attacks on Democratic candidate Dean Phillips.

Kessler reported that it is a “wildly out-of-context ad,” which took what he actually said and edited it to make it sound like he said something different.

View the complete September 20 article by Pat Kessler on the WCCO.com website here.

Minnesota DFL Issues Statement on Drop in Insured Minnesotans

ST. PAUL, Minnesota, Sept. 13 — Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party issued the following statement by Chairman Ken Martin:

“President Trump and Republicans, like Jason Lewis and Erik Paulsen, have continued to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA), driving up premiums and threatening access to care for people across the country. This effort is especially being felt in Minnesota as the number of Minnesotans without health insurance grew by 18,000.

“If Republicans maintain control of Congress, this number is just the tip of the iceberg of Minnesotans without health insurance. Republican leadership said repealing the Affordable Care Act is a top priority. If reelected, Lewis and Paulsen will continue to turn back the clock on health care.

View the complete September 14 post on the InsuranceNewsNet.com website here.

 

A field guide to green: the outside groups that will be spending tens of millions in Minnesota this election season

Debates over the 2018 midterms have centered on whether there will be a so-called “blue wave” that sweeps Democrats into power, but one phenomenon is crystal-clear: there will be a tidal wave of political spending by outside groups hoping to influence key races for U.S. House and Senate.

Call it the “green wave,” if you like — and there’s no question it’ll be crashing down hard on Minnesota. The state is home to four top-tier House contests and a nationally-watched Senate race, making it one of the country’s biggest battlegrounds as Democrats and Republicans fight for control of Congress. It’s possible no single media market in the country will be saturated with more political communication than that of the Twin Cities, where TV and radio stations reach voters in virtually every competitive race.

Many of those ads will inform you that they’re paid for by a group you may not recognize: maybe their political bent will be clearly identified, like with the National Republican Congressional Committee; other times, they’ll have a generic name like “House Majority PAC.”

View the complete September 14 article by Sam Brodey on the MinnPost.com website here.