Bob Rouillard's blog

I just finished a book by Andy Stern, president of SEIU the largest and fastest growing union in the country, "A Country that Works." In it Andy Stern confronts all the major areas of concern for our country: economy - the working class is falling behind, healthcare - are we ever gonna dig ourselves out of this hole, education - China and India graduate more science and engineering students from college than we graduate people from college over all...etc. etc.

These are large issues, no doubt. But I'm not too influential on the national stage, like Andy Stern. However, all of us are highly influential locally: we run in to our city and county officials at the grocery store, at the farmer's market, we know what kinds of cars they drive and what they do for a living - we're citizens of the same small community. And they are all very responsive and will take our phone calls.

I'm particularly excited about walkability initiatives. I spend some time imagining a walkable corridor from my neighborhood on one side of KMart to Soldiers Field on the other side. Right now to walk or bike that 2 block distance is treacherous: with 6 retail wide driveways in one city block, no buffer between the traffic on 9th St and the sidewalk, a bicycle tire inner-tube eating railroad crossing. You get the picture.

So I thought that Amsterdam by all reports would have walkability figured out, and I could take inspiration from that, and come back and get 'er done. But I soon realized that every solution is complex.

A huge victory for healthcare workers in Minnesota was won today! I worked on this project in my own small way - so I'm very excited.

Now anybody that works in healthcare, like I did for 5 years, will tell you that it's becoming more about dollars than about patients. Our esteemed local institution is not exempted from this observation. Just ask somebody who works there.

But there's a new wave coming in healthcare, and we can see the first breaker hitting shore in the Twin Cities Allina Health System. Anybody that works at your normal healthcare institution knows how it works there - management studies, redesigns then hands down a decision. Those with the most valuable insight, the frontline employees, are by and large ignored and left to deal with the messes management makes. But Allina and Service Employees International Union Local 113 are tapping the insight of frontline workers in a serious way.

Now as a devoted DFL'er for a long time, you hear about the Swedish Meatball Suppers. For years either I wasn't paying attention or there just wasn't one at a time that worked for me. But Friday night I made it to our local Olmsted DFL Meatball Dinner.

The meatballs were terrific and rich - thank goodness I don't have to watch my cholesterol! There was a chocolate buffet that was unbelievable at least nine chocolate items: truffles, snacks, and bars all with chocolate. Most of the conversation I had was near the chocolate. There was spinach and lettuce salad - to make up for the meatballs and chocolate, no doubt.

Thinking of some targets for journalism and neighborhood history.

Honest Paul of the Bike Shop, selling bail bonds now, owned his shop in my neighborhood on 8th Avenue when I was in junior high and high school. Thank goodness he kept an ice-cream freezer in the store.

There's Jerry who walks his cocker spaniel every day, sometimes smoking a pipe. We talk politics on the sidewalk in the summer. He attends Quaker meetings - his non-violence shows on his face in his voice and in his regard for his pet. He is such a mellow mellow man.

I think of the nonagenarians across the street, Doris and Harold. They lived in my inner core neighborhood, SE Settlers neighborhood, when it was on the outskirts of town. Doris used to walk out here to milk cows by one of the garages. The original farmhouse is right out my front window. Wonder if she remembers the names of the streets before they had numbers?

In Friday's PB, we saw a story that two republican legislators want to require photo id's for voting. State reps. Tom Emmer and Joe Hoppe have proposed requiring these photo id's without legitimate impetus - they do not allege there is a problem with people voting who shouldn't be.

The only problem the GOP might have with voting in our state for the last two years is that democrats are winning. Every special election in the state over the last year was taken by democrats - the most recent pair being Larry Hawes, and Tarryl Clark,.

Minnesota politics is pretty clean. And it's designed to stay that way. Two things that create an environment for clean elections: 1) partial public financing, 2) low spending limits for state races.

In talking to credible candidates for state races, money is rarely their number one issue. Why is that? If you were running for State House your spending limit is right around $30,000. Now that may sound like a lot, but crunching numbers a bit it turns out that you only have to raise $50 from 600 people. Many people will donate beyond that so the number whittles down. And there is a decent sized check from the state that whittles it down even further. Why do I say $50? Because that is the amount any Minnesotan can direct toward a candidate and get it all back - "Donate for Free" is what Mike Hatch for Governor describes it as.

Full public financing of elections should be the central theme for democrats in 2006! Why go for nibbling around the edges of the purely republican Abramoff scandal. Let's do radical surgery on the cancer of corruption in Washington!

In the book "Freakonomics" by Stephen Levitt and Steven Dubner, the authors do an extensive analysis of candidates and money in elections. How often do we hear about the ungodly amount of money spent of political campaigns? All the time? As the authors point out america spends as much on political campaigns as it does on what? - chewing gum! That's paltry political debate, if you ask me. More people know about Double-mint Gum, than about their governors.

Although it's years away, some democrats are surveying the horizon for the presidential candidate of 2008. So many democrats that I talk to have been anxious about the presidential choices we have so far: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, etc. from the establishment. All of whom supported the use of force resolution concerning Iraq, voted for all of the president's tax cuts, and spoke in favor of invading Iraq, and all voted for the Patriot Act - the most dangerous piece of legislation for american civil liberties since the McCarthy era.

But there's one star that is emerging for the netroots community, Russ Feingold. He single-handedly defeated the bad Patriot Act, by threatening a filibustser, and directed attention to a good Patriot Act which passed unanimously in June 2005. Russ Feingold was the single senator who was right on the Patriot Act in 2001; he voted against the onerous provisions 98-1, being the only candidate to be right on the Patriot Act. On Friday December 16th, 2005, 40+ senators, republican and democrat alike, joined Russ on his position on the Act.

Tim Walz

With the tide of national opinion in flux, we here in Rochester are in the bullseye. The questions of a permanent republican majority have quickly evaporated with republican scandals mounting. Now the democrats are talking about taking back 15 seats in Congress which would put them in the majority for the first time in more than a decade. One part of that 15 will be played out right here.

DFL'er Tim Walz, challenger to GOP Congressman Gil Gutknecht, is one of the candidates the punditocracy is calling the Fighting Dems, and here democrats who have fought in the War on Terrorists. This is a group of soldiers who are running as credible challengers to the powers that be. Tim is getting national coverage, the Boston Globe, Atlantic Monthly, and Air America Radio.