[Mpls] Stenglein and Lambrecht

[David Brauer]

Just for the moment, let's assume that, as Mark Stenglein has claimed,
there's no financial interest between him and Bruce Lambrecht, part-owner of
the stadium land. (*)

That would leave us with these points from Mike Kazuba's excellent piece:
1. Lambrecht was a key Stenglein campaign advisor.
2. Stenglein leased campaign office space from Lambrecht.
3. A Stenglein aide took an unpaid leave to work Lambrecht, then came back.
4. Stenglein's campaign manager, after the election, lobbied for Lambrecht.

My question:
How is this different from, say, local candidates who have union officials
as key advisors, who may have leased space from unions, whose aides cycle
between unions and the halls of government, and whose campaign managers are
union employees on leave, or who end up taking union organizing jobs after
the race?

I'm not trying to pick on unions - they're just the commonest similar
paradigm I can think of. Are our standards elevated because the ballpark is
the issue, or is there something different about the Stenglein-Lambrecht
ties?

(*) - not taking a position on whether there should be further investigation
of direct financial ties, but Kazuba's piece contained no evidence that
there was, thus my assumption, for discussion purposes.

David Brauer
Kingfield