Can Dan Powers Beat Big Oil Puppet John Kline In 2012?

When people consider what's insane about Minnesota politics, their minds immediately jump to deranged religious fanatic Michele Bachmann. But, as we saw in 2006, John Kline is an ideological doppleganger to Bachmann, just as extreme and just as detrimental to Minnesota families. In 2006 Blue America endorsed Coleen Rowley in her run against Kline. Two years later she did a guest post for us exposing what she termed the devious tactics of the most "out of whack" Republican in the country, still very much worth reading when looking into Kline's shameful political career. Yesterday told me why she's supporting Dan Powers for the seat Kline is still holding.

Dan Powers convinced me that he was and would stay issues-based when he successfully sought and obtained our Minnesota 2nd District’s Democratic Farmer Labor party’s endorsement in the lead-up to  the 2010 election. When the two candidates for DFL endorsement got asked about ending the wars, the other candidate quickly went with the party line including Obama’s stance for military escalation in Afghanistan but Dan Powers stayed true to his original position that the U.S. needs to withdraw and end these military occupations as soon as possible. That questioning provided a window into his more principled mindset and principles are sorely lacking amongst politicians generally.

That other candidate, garden variety Democrat Shelley Madore, did worse against Kline (37%) than any other Democrat in memory... and she wants to run again. Dan is a better choice for the 2nd CD, directly south of St Paul. He's been campaigning on a progressive platform that includes an important green energy component and we asked him to explain how his own vision for a clean energy future differs from the shocking Big Oil record Kline has racked up. Here's his guest post:

Our economy is in crisis in part because of the house of cards we built on cheap energy, cheap oil to be specific. All of the flaws in our economy were revealed when oil prices spiked at over $100 per barrel and gasoline prices reached more than $4 per gallon in some parts of the country. Too much of our economy is based on oil. The effects on the country were not subtle, raising the costs of everything, putting a bigger and bigger squeeze on consumers. Our recovery is going to take years.
 
These rhetorical questions are not being answered by our current policies and it is past time we found the answers. Are we secure as a nation when we depend on others for our basic energy needs? How much do we spend every year to maintain our access to oil from the Middle East? Why do we continue to make a mess of our foreign policy always supporting one dictator after another just to keep the oil flowing? When can we began to make the correct move and grow up as a Nation and quit wasting time, money, lives and resources? How much of our economy is tied to oil and the problems associated with oil? This carbon economy that we have come to depend on is polluting our air, soil and water. How much of our environment are we going to let be destroyed either through willful neglect or accident? The Gulf disaster last year and many others have shown us what can happen when problems occur. More than just the cost of the oil, all of the lives affected show us we must do more. How long until the coast lines or fisheries recover? How much pollution is too much? Now is our chance to create those jobs based on clean renewable energy and make our world a better place.
 
The problem is too important to be passive and wait for the market forces to push us along. This is the type of investment and guidance that must come from the federal government.
 
While we can’t do much about the costs of oil in Saudi Arabia we can invest in clean renewable energy here at home. Rather than just depending on oil and coal we must greatly increase our investment in solar, wind, hydrothermal, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. We must also invest in new and existing infrastructure to get these energy sources to market. All of these steps and more give us the Independence we must have and the choices that will give our economy the lower cost and stability we need to grow. 
 
To make our transition from oil, especially foreign oil, we must forget about finding one solution to solve all of our problems. Since President Nixon was in office every President has talked about reducing or eliminating our reliance on oil with little effect. Often time’s one grand solution (silver bullet) was proposed, but the long term commitment and investment was missing. Too many groups trying to get money and nobody interested in solving the problem. Now we must pay for the mistakes and miss-starts of the last 40 years. Solar alone is not the answer nor is wind. We will need to continue domestic oil production as well as a host of other energy production methods as we transition to other less polluting or zero polluting energy sources. With stable, clean, abundant, renewable energy coming from multiple sources our economy, environment and our Nation will be strong. Together we can make a difference, but we must start now.

By the way, Kline has taken over $140,000 in thinly veiled bribes from Big Oil and Gas so far. He has never voted against any of their special interests legislation.