MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty addressed a meeting in Naples, FL, of the Forum Club of Southwest Florida, this morning. He's talked to them before, back in December, I believe. He's raising money for the Republican Governors Association in Orlando on Monday, and will presumably spend his time until then privately trolling for money and support among redneck Floridians.
TBag likes to pretend he's running his own office lean and mean, by using staff that technically work for other departments, and therefore appear on someone else's books. Here's an article.
This post includes a list of prominent MN contributors to Gutshot's Freedom First PAC.
Absentee Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was in Dallas appearing at a fundraiser to raise his profile as he campaigns for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. A stenographer for the Dallas Morning News caught up with him and asked a few questions:
Jeffers: You are mentioned as a potential 2012 Republican nominee for president. Are you running for president in 2012?
Pawlenty: If there's something to look at for 2012, it's going to be down the road, but it's not now. I'm not ruling it out. I'm just saying I don't know yet.
Pawlenty has been criss-crossing the nation attempting to build credibility within his party. The only reason he might rule it out is the anemic responses he's been getting to his speeches. He may be one of the few non-crazy, scandal-free, high profile Republicans available for 2012, but his flat speeches and lack of charisma might not get him very far.
Jeffers: What do you think about the direction of the Republican Party? What does the GOP have to do to rebound from the losses in 2008?
Pawlenty: Clearly the pendulum is swinging back from Democrats to independents and conservatives.
But we can't have as a strategic plan and a message for the future of this country that President [Barack] Obama continues to goof up. In addition to that, we have to have our own positive agenda for the future of the country.
America is in trouble. The country yearns for a return to basic American common sense. There's a sense that certain elites get bailed out, others in need get a handout, and everybody else gets their wallet out. They want to know, what's the future of this country?
"Swinging pendulums" is an interesting metaphor for him to use. America began its rightward swing with Reagan, briefly interrupted by Clinton, but quickly (in '94) returned to its rightward swing culminating in the ruinous administration of George W. Bush. So after roughly 30 years of swinging to the right, America will swing leftwards for a year (arguably 3 if you consider the landslide elections vicories of 2006) and then start swinging the other way?
It's very possible that Karl Rove's dream of 100 years of one-party rule will happen ... just not how Karl imagined it.
"Obama continues to goof up" is also an interesting turn of phrase. Beginning to fix an economy ruined by 30 years of Republican domination isn't going to happen in 1 year. Of course, Pawlenty may consider "goofing up" to mean stimulating an economy that was plunging into depression. Pawlenty's solution of stopping spending which he's been attempting to implement in MN is simply neo-Hooverism.
Finally, it's interesting that he's blaming Obama for the bail-outs that George W. Bush started, the Republicans in Congress supported and Obama continued. I actually agree with him if when he says "bailing out the elites" he means the too large to fail banks and not the auto industry.
(Somehow, I think Dusty might be bringing this up on the radio tonight, on AM950, at 6:00 pm.... - promoted by TwoPuttTommy)
I've got a bone to pick with Maureen Reed. Yesterday Maureen Reed's campaign sent out a really whiney email implying that people are trying to twist her campaign's record. I figured I should probably chime in, you know because I'm bored and whatnot.
In the email Reed sent out she says people are claiming that she'll run as an independent and corrects the record saying that she's running as a 'Proud DFLer'. Ok fine, she PREVIOUSLY ran as an independent and claims rather boldly that she can rally independents. The reality is that her 2006 run dramatically underperformed other independents who've run in CD6. I don't know who or what a Binkowski is, but it seems to know more about reaching independents in CD6 than Maureen Reed.
About that independent record of hers... It's probably the reason Tim Pawlenty is waltzing off into the 2012 Presidential campaign sunset right now. Sure T-Paw bested Mike Hatch by 21,108 votes, and much of the blame can be pinned on the Hatch campaign, BUT the 141,735 votes that Maureen Reed helped peel away certainly can't add much to her proud DFLer status. By my count that's 120,000 reasons for us to blame Maureen Reed for Pawlenty's re-election.
Why did MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty agree to a compromise to 'save' GAMC? The deal would essentially put much of the cost on hospitals and clinics, which would then presumably have to raise fees on everyone. In the Milton Friedman fantasyland that the likes of TBag inhabit, this is an example of using 'the invisible hand of the market' to produce 'greater efficiency.' Even after the last thirty years...some idiots don't ever learn.
But the question is why he even agreed to this much. GAMC is, after all, what righties call 'socialized medicine,' and it's anathema to the teabagger types Gutshot has been seeking, so assiduously, to woo.
It's a looong paragraph from Chris Cilizza of the Fix explaining how Minnesota poll numbers don't matter for Pawlenty's presidential campaign:
National Democrats gleefully touted a new Survey USA poll in Minnesota showing that a majority of the state's voters disapproved of the job Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) was doing while an even larger percentage (63 percent) said that he should not run for president in 2012. Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant ascribed the somewhat sluggish numbers to the fact that the governor "is making tough decision to balance the budget without raising taxes," adding: "It's premature to ask questions about 2012 -- let alone read anything into their results." While the numbers are far from stellar, it's hard to imagine that they will have any significant impact on Pawlenty's standing in the 2012 field. For one, politicians of all stripes and parties are deeply unpopular these days; in the same poll just one in four voters approved of how the Democratic-controlled legislature was handling its job while a whopping 66 percent disapproved. Second, most states tend not to think their home state politician should run for national office in the early days of his/her candidacy as they struggle to envision that person occupying the big chair. As campaigns drag on, the "rally behind our guy" phenomenon tends to take effect and, even if it doesn't, it will make almost no difference to Pawlenty's chances at winning the GOP nod since Minnesota is too late in the nominating calendar to have any significant impact. The constituencies that matter to Pawlenty now? Donors, grassroots activists and the Republican voters of Iowa and New Hampshire. Period.
What the people think of Pawlenty, doesn't matter. "Period."
The funny thing is: Cilizza may be right. GOP presidential tickets haven't exactly been known for their "flight to quality" in the face of election adversity, have they? Look who gets on there, regardless of what the public and party regulars think of them.
It is true that the big money donors and organizers, and the "grassroots activists" (including "Tea Party" wingnuts) will count for more than the people Pawlenty's actually governed in the presidential race. Cilizza might have as well mentioned a constituency that counts as much or more than either of these: the conservative broadcasters who tell the herd where to go, every day and night.
But so far Pawlenty's not blowing their skirts up, either. TP didn't exactly leave them gasping at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this year, did he? He generated headlines in the national press after CPAC, but when you read the stories that followed the headlines you find that the conservative insiders found him yawn-worthy.
And isn't it cute that Cilizza quotes Pawlenty spokesman Conant's explanation uncritically? Cilizza quotes Conant explaining TP's "somewhat sluggish numbers" (Sluggish? They're dog dirt.) as being due "to the fact that the governor "is making tough decision to balance the budget without raising taxes." I guess nobody told Cilizza that TP will be leaving us five billion dollars in the hole here in Minnesota. Cilizza still thinks he's Mr. Balance-the-Budget, and that that's what's costing him dearly! (Taking Obama's deficit spending stimulus money? Oh, Cilizza won't even go there, God forbid "conservative principles" should enter into it.)
But again: Cilizza has a point. In the Republican Party, the White House ticket will be put together by the money guys (and the conservative media, and the religious right.) If Pawlenty had managed to impress the people of Minnesota during all his years of office, that would be nice: but in the Republican Party, it doesn't really matter. What matters are TP's current efforts to impress the elites that will ultimately make the decision. Pawlenty's actual performance as a leader and what his constituents think of that performance don't matter. "Period."
The last funny bit, though, is Cilizza's assertion that some Minnesotans will flock back to TP if he does get on a ticket. This too, may be true--if they think that TP will suddenly "start to care" about the state of Minnesota if he makes it onto a White House ticket. I don't know why TP would suddenly have a change of heart like that after sacking the state's economy during his time in office--but I know that there are people dumb enough to believe him if he says he will care, in the future. We've seen that.
Poor Tim Pawlenty. The DFLers won't cut him any slack and, apparently, neither will Minnesotans. A recent SurveyUSA poll shows that a majority of Minnesotans don't like the job he's doing. These are his worst numbers as Governor.
Not great news if you're running for president: A new SurveyUSA poll finds that 52% of Minnesotans disapprove of the job Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) is doing and only 42% approve, "giving him some of the lowest marks he's gotten in his seven plus years at the state's helm."
(Political Wire)
It's going to be fun as his 2012 presidential campaign "ramps up" and we Minnesotans get to tell the nation what a rotten Governor he's been. I'm trying to think of slogans for his 2012 campaign.
MN Governor Tim Pawlenty still thinks he can become a darling of the teabag right, based on a speech he gave in Dallas on Saturday.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Saturday urged conservatives gathered in North Dallas to stand up against government's "creeping tyranny" in order to protect personal liberties and the nation's security.
"America is in trouble," Pawlenty told about 600 people at the Dallas County Republican Party's Reagan Day Dinner. "It needs you. It's worth fighting for."
I suspect Tea-Paw himself is having a hard time trying to figure out how to best walk the line between the teabaggers and the less freakish segments of society. His dismal performance at CPAC must have been indicative, even for him, of how little his efforts in this direction have done, so far, for his cherished aspirations.
Here's some analysis, from Mary Turck, of the proposed deal to 'save' GAMC. As she points out, the details are "sketchy, and often ugly."
Hmmm... rough day for Timba... take THIS! from MPR's Polinaut:
A KSTP-TV/Survey USA poll is giving Gov. Pawlenty and the Minnesota Legislature are getting poor marks.
Gov. Pawlenty says 42% of those polled approve of the governor's job performance while 52% disapprove...
63% of those polled also say Gov. Pawlenty should not run for president. 28% say he should run...
Pawlenty has not been doing well in national Republican polling either. The Pawlenty for President people (a small group that includes Pawlenty himself) claim that the reason his numbers are so low in national polling is "lack of name recognition."
But these latest figures from the governor's home state suggest that the opposite may be true: that Americans may be uninterested in Pawlenty because they recognize his name. If so, the Governor would be well-advised to change his name entirely. In light of his record in office, Pawlenty can only improve in the polls if he manages to disassociate himself from himself.
A name change could be a game change: to something like "Rock Manly" or "Ronald Reagan the Second" or "Joe Low Taxes." "Joe Low Taxes" (nee Pawlenty) should also deny that he has ever known himself or met himself or supported any of his own policies.
It's not too late to turn this thing around, Timba.
Tomorrow (Saturday), MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty is special guest for the evening at the Reagan Day Dinner Gala 2010 hosted by the Dallas County Republican Party, in Texas. It's $100 to be an 'Individual Guest;' to be a host of some kind is more costly - here's the fee scheduleinvite. And, as an aside, here's the website for the Texas Young Republican Federation. Be cool. Be conservative. Rock Republican.
There was a diarist at Kos, last Saturday I think, from Texas, unhappy that his state was relentlessly bashed on progressive websites. I haven't been able to locate the diary via their search engine, and there's no way I'm manually scrolling back that far, but I'm sure my memory is pretty accurate in that his points were:
1) Based on a newspaper article, 70% of political contributions from Texans to candidates in other states were going to Dems.
2) The Houston, Dallas, and El Paso areas all went Dem. in '08.
3) Based on demographics, Texas will likely be a swing state, even 'trending blue,' by 2020 at the latest. It could well be sooner than that i.e. mid-decade.
From what I've seen, plenty of people in the blogosphere generally agree with the above.
Also, check out this post, from 2020 Hindsight, about Gutshot and health care.
The Minnesota House tried to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of its effort to save General Assistance Medical Care, a program designed to provide some measure of health care access for many of Minnesota's most vulnerable residents, but didn't. Because of a parliamentary maneuver, they apparently get another try; I don't know when that might happen.
They were four votes short. The original legislation passed 125-9. This is from an email I got from Alliance for a Better Minnesota:
Under pressure from the governor and party leaders, (Republicans) decided their political agenda was more important than listening to the thousands of constituents, faith leaders, doctors and nurses, and veterans who joined you in calling on them to save GAMC...It's not leadership to throw the most vulnerable 70,000 Minnesotans under the bus because party leaders say so. This sort of politics is what got us into this budget mess, and it's certainly not what will get us out of it.
Why would anybody rational vote to reelect a legislator who goes in fear of an odious, corrupt little weasel like Tim Pawlenty? It certainly appears that this man of the cloth won't do so.
I'm no huge fan of Harry Reid, myself, but I'm not at all sure that he's in as much reelection trouble as the conventional wisdom has it. The right and left both have stakes in pushing that meme - the left, to try to get him to act more aggressively in Congress. I saw something to the effect that a Nevada court is allowing a teabagger-type third party to put a Senate candidate on the ballot there, which could work to Harry's advantage.
Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post does 'Ranking Republican Leaders.' Yup, this list is the Repugs' best & brightest. TBag's #4.
Tonight, MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty is featured speaker at a dinner celebrating the 111th Annual Missouri Lincoln Days. Here's an article from a Missouri website, stltoday. And here's the website for the Missouri Federation of Young Republicans, just because I find those poor, oh-so-earnest, delusional 'Young Republican' ignoramuses such a fascinating psychological study.
If the Dems. get it together, the Missouri Senate seat being vacated, due to retirement, by Kit Bond should be a pickup. Likely Rep. candidate Roy Blunt, a longtime U.S. House member, is a worthless old-guard hack. I don't think Dem. candidate Robin Carnahan is the sort of hard-core progressive we'd like to see, but she's apparently not going to be an odious Blanche Lincoln type either.
Here's what's happened so far on this year's bonding bill:
Tim Pawlenty puts out a version of the bill he'd like to see. It's relatively small, and not very bold despite interest rates being low and bonds for construction projects that would put people back to work being available cheaply.
Who cares what Pawlenty thinks? He's not a legislator. Rightfully, the Legislature, under the leadership of the Senate Majority Leader and the House Speaker, put together a bonding bill that's about 40% larger than Pawlenty's proposal.
Before it passes, Pawlenty says he won't sign it.
The Legislature passes it anyway
Pawlenty vetoes it
The Legislature's leaders run away, send the bill back to the State Senate, with some mumbled statements about "sitting down with Pawlenty to find common ground."
The bonding bill is NOT like the GAMC extension. There is no moral cudgel to use against Pawlenty when he vetoes a bill focused on issuing bonds and funding construction projects. And when Pawlenty vetoes the bill, you can be pretty darned sure he knows going in that the DFL wouldn't have the votes to override that veto.
If the legislative leadership had instead done the following, what do you think could have happened?
Before any votes are taken on final passage, Pawlenty threatens to veto.
DFL leadership threatens right back to override Pawlenty's veto, and takes the case for the bonding bill public with a quick PR blitz
In the ensuing standoff, THEN the DFL offers to sit down with Pawlenty to find common ground -- BEFORE any votes are taken.
I'm thinking it would have the following effects:
You look good to the base for standing up to the Governor.
You have an even chance of Pawlenty actually sitting down to compromise on some things.
You might even get the bill passed.
Obviously, one solution to the quandary in which the DFL's overwhelming legislative majorities find themselves is to elect a DFL governor. That would certainly make this whole governing thing easier. In the interim, however, leadership needs to learn a thing or two about basic game theory and how to apply it in a political setting.
It's. Not. Difficult.
Update: Pawlenty has not yet vetoed the bill -- it was passed but then sent back to the Senate for rework. I misheard the report on this morning's news on that point. However, the criticism still stands -- why were the passage votes taken if a certain veto was waiting?
Of any kind -- GAMC, MinnesotaCare, pfffft. Get outta here, poor people. You don't vote anyway.
Never mind that Social Security has provided a great boon to our seniors for the past seventy years, and helped millions avoid the horrors that came with events like the Great Depression (life savings lost, no way to hold a job due to age, the list goes on): Tim Pawlenty thinks we just need to phase those silly programs out:
So the truth of the matter is, is we are going to have to reform entitlement programs. I've done this in Minnesota, for example, with our bus drivers in the Twin Cities. They had post-retiree health insurance benefits, and the premise was this, if we made a promise to you, we'll keep it. We're not going to cut people off in terms of their pensions if we've made a promise to you. But for people who are new to the system, who are coming on, where we can fairly give them notice and fairly change expectations, the system's going to change. And we did it.
If someone else already made a promise to you, we'll keep it. Otherwise, we're not making any more promises about the future. We're in it for ourselves. Right?
Right?
It's really quite a shame -- there was a time when Tim Pawlenty wasn't terrible on some issues -- climate change, green energy -- but the panderfest for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination goes on.
Apparently, advocating for radical changes to the most popular government program of the past century is the way to win his party's trust. Or something.
Recent sage, learned commentary about the lying, rich man's bootlicker that is MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty:
- The Mesabi Daily News is unhappy about TBag and an ally raiding the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board fund as part of his budget proposal.
- The Cucking Stool, on TPaw and education. I don't know that he and other conservatives really want to 'destroy' public education. But they'd certainly like to see it include a much larger helping of right-wing indoctrination, especially in the early grades. In fact, that may be about the only chance for the long-term survival of 'movement conservatism.'
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty 
MN Governor Tim Pawlenty still thinks he can become a darling of the teabag right, based on a speech he gave 
Tomorrow (Saturday), MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty is special guest for the evening at the Reagan Day Dinner Gala 2010 hosted by the Dallas County Republican Party, in Texas. It's $100 to be an 'Individual Guest;' to be a host of some kind is more costly - here's the 
Tonight, MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty is scheduled to hold forth at the 
Recent sage, learned commentary about the lying, rich man's bootlicker that is MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty:
