Good grief

Sid Hartman has to be one of the biggest stadium pushers in the state. I wonder if he is registered as a pro-stadium lobbyist?

Sure, his job is a sports columnist and so he has a vested interest in seeing the Twins stay around. But the slobbering kisses he gives to Carl Pohlad and everybody else who has been pushing for a new stadium for over ten years are just pathetic. You'd think that a sports columnist wouldn't be so transparently political.

Hartman calls out Reps. Ann Lenczewski and Phil Krinkie as two people who did more than anybody else to kill the stadium. Good for them. I really don't care for Krinkie's politics much, but at least he is consistent, and he is a consistent opponent of projects like these (and a lot of other spending). Rep. Lenczewski actually lives in Hennepin County and would have to pay the increased tax, along with all of her constituents, so it's not too hard to understand why she would have a problem with eliminating the referendum. As I noted before, the people who voted to eliminate the referendum do not live in Hennepin County. It's not hard to vote for a stadium when you aren't footing the bill, is it?

I like the Twins. But if they leave in 2007 or whenever, I'll survive. There's TV. There's lots of other entertainment downtown. There's the St. Paul Saints. If the Twins move, it won't be the end of the world, and it's certainly no reason to give Carl Pohlad hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing in return.