Duluth

My day was consumed with a business trip "up north" to Duluth, Minnesota which is a vital port city on Lake Superior. The chamber of commerce was hosting a town hall meeting so I attended so I could do some networking to expand the monthly "leave us alone"/center-right political coalition meeting that I organize in St. Paul, Minnesota.

If any readers are interested in attending the coalition meeting that I organize or in another state (and some non-USA locations that I know of) please feel free to contact me via this blog. But first I need to see you if you pass my ideological litmus test so please take one or both of these web-based political quizzes so I have an idea of how you view the world:

www.self-gov.org

and

www.politicalcompass.org

Since I have visited Duluth several times I knew my way around a little so it was fun to walk around the downtown after the meeting I attended. Overall the downtown seemed vibrant although I did see several for sale/for rent signs -- it would actually be nice to have one of the empty condos I saw as a weekend retreat but first I have to reduce our income taxes so we can afford such an asset. Oh yea, government is there to help us :-)

While walking back to my gas-guzzling, Mother Earth-hating SUV I noticed a campaign office for one of the mayoral candidates since their election is set for November 6th. So I spent a few minutes talking with the staff in what appeared to be a VERY relaxed atmosphere since the election is only five days away. Since I don't know either of the mayoral candidates I asked the staff person to describe them for me to which he replied --

• one considers himself to be a "moderate Democrat", and
• the other one is viewed as more conservative

What? The choice is between a "moderate" and a "more conservative" -- that sounds like they are both dancing around in the middle just focusing on getting elected not leading a revolution. Duluth's major issue is the public pension liabilities it has for current and retired government employees. No where in the campaign literature that I saw did either of the candidates tell the truth -- pensions for government employees is the best example to show that welfare reform has not gone far enough since we need to take these pensions off 'auto pilot' by moving them to 401k retirement plans like most private sector employees have today.

As the saying goes, "Duluth is a great city on a great lake................" but there won't be any "great" changes after the November 6th elections I fear.

Todd