Episode 432, The Andrew Parker Show with Special Guest Tom Rosen on Tim Walz: Politics, Business and the Future of the State

In this episode of The Andrew Parker Show, Andrew welcomes Tom Rosen, CEO of Rosen Diversified, for a candid discussion about Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota politics, and the state’s shifting business and economic climate.

Andrew and Tom explore whether Minnesota will elect Tim Walz to a third term, how the state’s electorate has changed, and why Republicans have struggled to win statewide races since 2006. They also discuss the business challenges created by high taxes and regulation, the decline in education quality despite increased spending, and how unions and liberal institutions are influencing policy and politics across the state.

Tune in for straightforward insight into politics, business, education, and the future of Minnesota—delivered with the smart, plain talk you expect from The Andrew Parker Show.

Transcript

Episode 432 Transcript

Andrew Parker (00:01)

Welcome to another episode of the Andrew Parker show. Thank you once again for joining us as we talk politics, Israel and the law each and every episode. Go to theandrewparkershow.com to join and not miss out. You can subscribe and follow us provided your email and you'll get each episode as soon as it drops.

We have yet another short today, and that is with our special guest businessman, Tom Rosen of Rosen Diversified, ⁓ a huge part of the United States of America. as I've said before, we take it for granted when we go to the grocery store and there are things to pick up, bring home, refrigerate or not.

Put it on the table and boom, you've got a family dinner. Yeah, how'd that happen? Well.

Google Milton Friedman.

⁓ i pencil.

I, pencil, Milton Friedman. He talks about the creation and the economic wonderment of the creation of a pencil. I don't know if you can see this, if you are watching, but this is a pencil. This is a black wing pencil. I have my number two always available and my yellow pad. No breakdown of any computer there.

I've always got it.

And I've got my Boston pencil sharpener. And you got to have ⁓ that's another one. It's not going to break. You know, there's nothing newfangled about it. It is basic mechanical engineering at its core. Beautiful. It's just a beautiful thing. ⁓

So, Tom has been with us on the show a number of times. I like to get his opinion on things. ⁓ And I want to turn for a moment to the state of Minnesota, Minnesota politics.

In particular, let's start with who's running the state of Minnesota. of course, it's set up where the governor is at the point of the pyramid. And he has the policy control. And he's been in office now for, what, six and a half years or so.

And he is, you know, trying to make his way to his third term. Yes, he is running for a third term. Some people were actually surprised to hear that. And I wanted to get a sense from Tom Rosen, not so much how well Tim Walz has done, but whether or not

The state of Minnesota will actually elect a governor for three terms.

i mean what do you think now the electorate

in Minnesota has changed. Over the last decade, it has changed. Intentionally so. As people have been brought into the state to vote a certain way, they are doing their darndest, and you come to the Twin Cities and votes are found and put in play, and how many votes do we need? And there they are. Every year.

So it has been very difficult to figure out, you know, I remember Doug Wardlow ran against Keith Ellison for attorney general. And Doug Wardlow won, I think he won every county outside of ⁓ Hennepin and Ramsey.

⁓ Now that doesn't mean you win the election, but the number of votes that were for Keith Ellison in Hennepin and Ramsey were far beyond any number of votes ⁓ for a Democrat out of, mean, even as hugely democratic as both those counties are.

It still was astonishing. It was. And it kind of describes.

who the new electorate is in the state of Minnesota. And I'm just wondering if that new electorate might actually return a guy for a third term to be governor of the state. They might. And it could be, you know, four more years of this. Here's what I think is different. First of all, think that the republic

will run better candidates. The last three cycles have not, they've not been great candidates. But I was talking to some and they said, you know what? Instead of coming to the city and we try to do better here and we never seem to, they said we're gonna go out. You're talking about Republicans doing better in Minneapolis, St. You know what we need to do? We need to get more mail.

more white ⁓ out in greater Minnesota. I mean, you could pick up a lot of votes, most of them out in greater Minnesota, we'd all be Republicans. I think they gotta go to a different place, and I think that's where they're gonna go. Well, that's one strategy, and we're just talking about identifying people and how they generally might vote, and out-state voters,

just by looking at the facts of vote republican far more often than they vote democrat ⁓ it has shifted the i a range used to be staunchly blue staunchly democrat no question about it but that has changed the city of delude has been staunchly democrat it still is ⁓ but not as as ⁓ wildly blue as it was ⁓ and ⁓

you know you could count on those republican votes ⁓ you know what the races of the voter might ⁓ have impact all the although even that is shifting ⁓ the gender of the person might have impact whether they were born here or not might have impact a number of things ⁓

cause people to vote one way or the other. But in the state of Minnesota, the Republicans have not been able to win statewide since 2006. It is ⁓ nearly 20 years. Now, ⁓ Tom Rosen and I predict that over the next several days, maybe months,

the candidates for governor on the Republican side are going to be known. ⁓ One year out from the election, maybe a little bit less, maybe 11 months out from the election, Republicans are going to coalesce around a certain candidate. And once they do,

They're going to have a lot of cannon fodder ammunition to carry against the going for third term governor, tampon Tim. ⁓

Tim Wells and it is going to be a very interesting race. historically we don't know, not many have sought a third term. ⁓

Rudy Purpich, I believe, sought a third term and didn't make it, did not make it. You'll recall he was in, he then lost, then he ran again and he won. So he was in twice and then he tried to run again and he lost. And you know, it's fatigue, it's voter fatigue that ⁓ kind of occurs.

What are you seeing is we've had democratic rule now in the state of Minnesota It's very close in the House and Senate certainly Within a you know, one or two seats either way But previous to that it was governor House Senate all controlled by the blue team ⁓ How is the business environment from a fiscal standpoint an economic standpoint

How is the business environment of the state of Minnesota compared to surrounding states? What are business owners saying? Well, one thing, ⁓ it's a tough place to do business. You know, the taxes are high. ⁓ Some of the laws are passed. know, like this family leave act and on and

You know, the building thing, we use the same building codes as the state of California. ⁓ really? Yeah, really. there's sometimes things get, will finally get so bad. They'll probably tip back. And I, I think we'll see that. And I think the Republican, well, I'll tell you one of the biggest problems Republican has is

They don't get near the money that the Democrats do. Like the- You mean from donors? From contributors? The largest donor is the teacher union. Yeah. The teachers union. ASME union. Yeah. And ⁓ a bunch of rich ⁓ billionaires from around the country. Yeah. You got ⁓ Charlie Munger's kids.

Is are actually given I mean, I and I don't understand it. I don't understand it of course you got George Soros and his crew if we The Republicans don't get that money, but they cannot spend probably six to one Yeah, when you figure out all the money that's coming in from the outside. Yeah, but I'll tell you you know Tom You mentioned it ⁓

Minneapolis st. Paul are pretty much a lost cause I mean a lot of people in Minneapolis and st. Paul are not even Wanting the Democrat candidate Because they're too far right For for the voters in Minneapolis and st. Paul, they want the socialist candidate socialist communist it's unbelievable and that's what it says under that socialist communist. Yeah, so

You don't look there. Where do you look? Maybe you can mine some more votes, just sheer more votes in the sixth district, which is Tom Emmer's district, a very conservative district. Maybe we need to spend our time focusing on getting even more votes out of there or ⁓ fighting and battling tooth and nail hand-to-hand combat in the third district.

Which is, you know, was Dean Phillips district. It's now Kelly Morrison's ⁓ district. ⁓ They are electing Democrat upon Democrat there now. That didn't used to be that way for 50 years. You know, was ⁓ McGregor, Clark McGregor, ⁓ Bill Frenzel, ⁓ Jim Ramstad, Eric Paulson, all Republicans.

out of that third or that area of the state. It obviously shifted ⁓ every census. The lines get redrawn. But it's now a Democrat district. Angie Craig's old district out here in the second is a Democrat district. A little bit, a little bit. It can be won by the Republican. That's going to be very important race ⁓ as Angie Craig moves to run for Senate. And I think it'll be formidable in that run. But ⁓

You know, that's how elections are won. You've got to find those votes somewhere, and I just don't think you're going to really find them in Hennepin or Ramsey. All right, so.

The business climate is not great. You talk about Education Minnesota, which is the teachers union. And boy.

Education in the state of Minnesota has just tubed. is math and reading scores are down worse than ever. The amount of money we're spending per pupil is up. ⁓ Can we explain why we continue with this failure, constant failure? I think you can explain it this

You know, the...

teachers are more liberal than they used to be. they were, lot of them have been to schools that are more...

And ⁓ I think that for one thing though, it isn't right. Well, they're not teaching the Constitution. They're not teaching United States of America is the greatest experiment that has ever existed in humankind and created ⁓ the greatest ⁓democratic republic ever in human history.

I think that the one thing, the teachers are not maybe paid quite as well as they should be, but it isn't all about money either. It's kind of about where they went to school. There's kind of a philosophy floating around the colleges. And you can see it, Harvard, Yale, places like that have become very democratic. Yeah, the liberal philosophy.

Yeah. Really has permeated and then you, you know, you, you graduate teachers, they go teach our kids, those kids go and they, and it's, it's a constant ⁓ treadmill that arises. Well, too, you gotta, you gotta remember the one thing like the Soros people did, the school boards are that way. They, we've got too many kind of-

liberal people out of school boards. No question. the school boards, some of these local institutions, ⁓ whether it be city council, park boards, school boards, ⁓ even prosecutors, down to that local level of important political institutions.

Soros and others have decided to go after because they can make a huge impact for not so much money or much broader and they've been able to do it. Even state legislatures they haven't paid as close attention to although they're coming back to now. As Republicans controlled state legislatures a majority of them across the country, don't know 28 to 30 usually

is the number that Republicans control. So they went from that down to local elections and you can win a local election with, you know, hundreds of votes. And maybe there's a thousand that are cast. Yeah, and ⁓ I think a lot of the universities, ⁓ University of Minnesota, no exception, are very, very democratic and are

basically ⁓ kind of spread it through the kids that go to school there. And I guess they believe it and come out, but the universities have not done the Republicans much good. They really haven't. Well, I try to be ⁓ balanced in my views on the subject, but I often...

⁓ use air quotes when I call them are institutions of higher learning. Not quite, not quite. Tom Rosen, our special guest today on the Andrew Parker Show. Thank you so much for joining us for this short. And until next time, be kind to your neighbor.