Fraters Libertas

It Pays to Have A Friend in Mark Dayton

An affectionate tribute to Mark Dayton disguised as a news article appeared on the front page of the Star Tribune on Monday. Entitled: “With Republicans in charge, Dayton relishes the small wins” the tenor of the article is set immediately: despite the Republican stranglehold on the Senate, Mark Dayton is still able to do some good things. (Or “small wins’ as they say, meaning, I suppose, the ‘big wins’ could only happen with a Democrat controlled Congress.)

The article text starts with the tale of a handicapped child, denied medical coverage for apparently illegitimate reasons. That is, until Mark Dayton rides to the rescue on his white stallion.

Luke Stadelman, 2, of Burnsville was born deaf and deemed a good candidate for a cochlear implant, a medical device intended to help him hear. When his parents discovered that their insurance wouldn't cover the surgery, a doctor suggested they contact Sen. Mark Dayton. The boy ended up getting the surgery seven weeks ago after the Minnesota Democrat intervened.

(Notice how the author, Rob Hotakainen, casually works in the Senator’s party affiliation within the same sentence that establishes his heroic actions. Very subtle, Rob.)

I have to assume the basic facts of the case as reported by Hotakainen are correct. (Even though my standing policy of never, ever trusting a Finn has served me well over the years, I’ll waive it this time.)

And I’m glad the little boy got the expenses of his operation picked up by all those in his insurance risk pool (and hopefully these fine folks won’t see their health insurance rates rise too high because of extra-contractual benefits being provided to those who have US Senators intervening on their behalf).

But taken as a whole, this story sounds like a fairly routine case of constituent service. To be fair, it may not be routine, but it is the kind of thing every elected politician engages in, to some extent. Yes Star Tribune - even Republicans do it. Responses to personal requests such as this are an inherent feature of a democratic system. Politicians are motivated to act, at least in part, because it plays well with the folks at home.

It plays especially well when the dominant newspaper in the marketplace decides to shamelessly promote it for you. Which the Star Tribune has now done for Dayton. As I wait for a similarly over-the-top article about Norm Coleman, I’ll just have to laugh at the comment later in the article:

[Dayton] said he's frustrated by how difficult it's been to keep people in Minnesota aware of his activities. "If you do something here that's scandalous, you can be assured of a major story," he said. "But if you do things here that are constructive but don't have some great drama to them, it's more difficult."

Slightly less difficult if you have Rob Hotakainen’s number in your Rolodex (and his political philosophy in alignment with your own).

So, helping out the average stiff in your state is a well established and widely performed service among politicians. But the question arises, were the Stadelmans really average stiffs? More to the point, is their doctor just an average stiff?

The part that makes me wonder is the comment “a doctor suggested they call Sen. Mark Dayton.” How often does that happen in a typical doctor-patient conversation?. A rare and expensive, elective medical procedure is established as not covered by your employer-sponsored insurance plan and your doctor just happens to recommend you ask a United States Senator to intervene on your behalf, to change the contract.

According to my experience, that never happens. Although my doctor may be a bad example, as I suspect his reaction to an onset of deafness in me would be a comment like ‘you know, I’ve always felt that sound is way overrated.’

Just who was this unnamed doctor who made the suggestion to the Stadelmans (and why was he unnamed in the article)? More to the point, what is his relationship to Mark Dayton?

I of course can’t verify it one way or another, but is it possible that this doctor has some connection with the good Senator’s office and thus could grease the skids for a timely and diligent response? Connections - that’s usually how things like this take place, especially in the world of multi-millionaires like Mark Dayton. Nothing unethical about that. But the high connections that could have enabled all this to happen would cast a new light on the motivations of everyone involved. Motivations which were described in the article as nothing more than:

"It was as if they were the moms and dads and took off with this cause," [Mary Stadelman] said, referring to Dayton's staff.

All warm fuzzies aside, perhaps we should be glad if connections do prove to be the motivating factor here. Can you imagine the cost of healthcare insurance if Senator Dayton really did take up the cause of intimidating private employers into changing their policies every time a constituent wanted to arbitrarily expand the benefits provided in their contracts?

My God if that were to happen, you’d actually have to have a trust fund the size of Mark Dayton’s to afford health insurance. (FYI - That would be $4.2 to $17.8 million, according to recent disclosures.)

Not content to merely lionize Senator Dayton’s actions, this article also goes out of its way to show the supposed devious and uncaring nature of the Republican Party, with some contextual sleight of hand. I quote:

Dayton is relishing the small wins, and his behind-the-scenes work is paying off: Since 2001, Dayton and his staff say they've helped more than 800 people do battle with insurance companies and HMOs, recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars for Minnesotans. But most of his work is done in obscurity, doing little to raise his profile. As Dayton prepares to run for a second term in 2006, Republicans see an opening: They're criticizing the state's senior senator as an invisible liberal who has achieved little of substance in Washington.

Utterly shameless. First, Hotakainen matter-of-factly sets up the premise that Dayton is tirelessly working on behalf of Minnesotans, in a humble and non-self-aggrandizing way. Then he states the Republican characterization of Dayton as “an invisible liberal who has achieved little of substance” as them “seeing an opening.” Just how does one interpret that, other than as the Republicans intentionally trying to deceive the electorate because the voters don’t know the real truth and therefore can be manipulated?

"Boy, we sure don't see much of him," said State Republican Party Chairman Ron Eibensteiner. "I think you could ask 10 people on the street to name one thing that Mark Dayton has done since he's become senator, and I think nine of them would say they couldn't come up with one thing."

A brutally harsh commentary from Mr. Eibensteiner. Right after he hears about Dayton’s work on behalf of handicapped children, he has the gaul to say that? I guess Republicans really are uncaring advocates of the super rich.

Unless of course Mr. Eibensteiner’s comments were taken out of context and he wasn’t directly reacting to the facts the article implies. Or if Eibensteiner was simply asked to to make an honest appraisal of Dayton’s legislative accomplishments and he wasn‘t commenting on the man’s constituent service activities (and certainly not with regard to the Stadelman case).

Perhaps the most shocking part of this article is the fact that Mark Dayton isn’t running for re-election until 2006. And yet they’ve already started the process of getting people to ignore his record and instead focus on his perceived advocacy of the “little guy.”

Granted, this media-fueled sentimentality is from the same playbook that worked to elect Paul Wellstone twice. But he was a fiery little bully with at least tenuous connections to the working class. Can it work for a distracted trust fund millionaire dilettante who has trouble coherently stringing three sentences together in public? We shall see, because believe me, they’re going to try.