Interview With Weekend America's John Moe, p.1 of 3

 
[Contributor's Note: It was a harried day and circumstances kept me from being at my best...On top of work demanding that I, you know, worked, the digital recording device I acquired for this purpose was not working as promised. The appointed time for the phone call East was nigh approaching, and I decided to proceed while taking harried notes on the computer; a process that had previously served me well in my daily job. I mention this only because what follows is not a complete representation of the conversation that ensued. Mr. Moe is an extremely amusing man, there were several moments where I was too busy laughing in order to transcribe everything properly (for example, one word: Tinklenberg). All of this simply as a preamble to a disclaimer: If it seems like Mr. Moe is a little stiff, nor as uniquely humorous as you'd expect him to be, the fault lies with the interviewer, and not the interviewee. -- TBO]

For those who wonder about such things, John Moe answers the phone as amiably as you’d expect. It was one full week after the election, and the week leading into November 8th's edition of Weekend America ended up being hectic: Moe had self-produced a segment that focused on stories meant to engender an understanding of Barack Obama the man and his charisma; he also worked on a separate piece asking Alaskan Public Radio's Lori Townsend “what the hell’s going on up there?” [At the time it seemed the Alaskans had voted to send convicted Senator Ted Stevens back to Washington DC, only to have them send him back.]

SEI: So, what the hell is going on up there?

John Moe: Well [according to Townsend], what's happening there is simply that Stevens has been good to his constituents, as well as directing business toward the Native Corporations [Alaska does not have Native American Reservations, instead they use corporations - TBO], and they’re saying “he’s taken care of us, so we’re going to take care of him. And we don’t care what a bunch of guys in suits in DC have to say about him.”

So now, if Stevens goes--they’re still counting votes, the absentees, the undervotes, and the other random uncounted votes that are still trickling in. If Stevens goes, he’s going to get kicked out of the Republican caucus, but that’s depending on the result of his appeal; if that’s denied, he’s going to jail...which is strange to think about, but there it is.

SEI: What’s going on with the Al Franken race?

JM: Right now, after the miscalculated count is accounted for, Franken’s down about 206 votes, with a few ballots from Minneapolis/St. Paul yet to be counted. Those are likely to lean toward Franken, so, we’ll see.

SEI: So, there’s going to be a recount.

JM: Yeah, the recount is going to happen. Judges are making the decisions on how it’s going to happen, and there will be a recount starting in about a week.

SEI: Speaking of “what’s going on up there?” Michelle Bachmann, how’d she win her race?

JM: What you’re seeing there is the power of incumbency, beyond that I’m not sure, I’m not familiar with that constituency. From what I hear, she lives in a very conservative district.

She ran a radio ad in the St. Paul area, where she said that she doesn’t always use the right words, that she was misquoted and taken out of context by the liberal media, which is very hard for her to do with a straight face. She was on MSNBC, with Chris Matthews, plainly and repeatedly stating that Obama was anti-American.

But I think the people there were thinking that their world wasn’t on fire, it was looking like Obama was going to win the White House, and they were okay with that, as long as they send her to DC to keep the Democrats in check.

She did run some negative ads on Tinklenberg (he wasn’t exactly a saint, he did have some strikes against him). He wasn’t like the Lone Ranger or anything.

However, he does have what I think to be the best name ever in the realm of politics: Elwyn Tinklenberg.

It's like his parents were thinking, “well, he already has a funny surname...He’s not gonna run for office with a name like that, so, what the hell? Let’s call him Elwyn.”

[Laughter.]

His nickname...He goes by El. Which is sort of Spanish sounding, El Tinklenberg. [Radio serial announcer’s voice:] “Don’t worry, miss, here comes El Tinklenberg.”

[More laughter.]

Still, nickname-wise, El is the best he could do; otherwise, he’d have to go with Winnie...or “E”. No, El was the best he could hope for.

Next: Small Town Conservatives & What Barack Obama's About