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I have been waiting – in vain - for the Minnesota media to do a more critical expose on how many days Governor Tim Pawlenty has been out of state on something other than official state business. Even if – as the Governor asserts - most of these trips were paid for with campaign dollars (or other non-state monies), that is beside the point. There is still the issue of his Highway Patrol–provided security detail. Taxpayers do foot the bill for their travel costs as they accompany and protect our Governor. In a related vein, I have always questioned why we allow politicians to essentially campaign full time for another job while drawing a full time salary from their current job.
In contrast, the media was routinely and extremely tough on Governor Jesse Ventura for his out-of-state trips. For example, Ventura left the state – only occasionally – to show up on the David Letterman or Jay Leno shows (and for a few Saturdays to announce games for the fated and short-lived XFL football league). But without exception on each of these occasions, the Minnesota media loudly blasted Ventura!
My question is this: How are Ventura’s out-of-state excursions any different – or any worse – than Pawlenty’s purely political travels? In both cases these trips have NOTHING to do with our state’s business. Yet, the Minnesota media seem to write only glowingly about Pawlenty's trips (apparently because they believe the trips are evidence that he is a contender on the national scene). Whether he has the potential to be a presidential contender (a disputable assumption), is also largely beside the point.
What matters is this: There are serious challenges to be dealt with here at home (like honestly balancing the state budget rather than burdening the next Governor with cleaning up the budget mess). Yet, Pawlenty, instead of providing leadership and solutions, is essentially using the time remaining in his current job to seek another job. Most people would at the least have their pay deducted for the days they don’t show up for work. In contrast, the Minnesota media provide Pawlenty with flattering headlines. Go figure.
That is my two cents.
Tim
There seems to be a sort of sycophantic fascination with Tim Pawlenty and his (apparent) pursuit of the presidency. I guess it's sort of like how I get excited seeing the Prairie Home Companion movie that was filmed across the street from my old college, as if that somehow makes me Tommy Lee Jones. We ought not be blinded by the Kleig lights of the national press covering one of our own.
Pawlenty is a two-term Republican governor of a blue state. Thus, he's got bipartisan, crossover appeal. While the former sentence is fact, the latter is pure fiction. Democrats do not like one inch of him. The gridlock he argued would continue were he not elected has persisted nonetheless. His gubernatorial elections were only ever won with a plurality of votes, never a majority. That subtle distinction could be the torpedo in the side of his 2012 battleship. Without the 2 or 3 opponents at once that he's had in the past, his chances could diminish greatly in a head-to-head, 2-way race with the President.
When he tells you about how he cut the budget for his own staff, you should know that they just took money (more than 2/3 of $1 million) from various state agencies to cover the shortages. His canard of a no-tax-increase budget proposal this year relied heavily on federal stimulus dollars - a one-time, quick "fix" that failed to address the long-term problem. He avoids raising taxes by raising fees, as if the difference really matters. Let's remember these things, among all the rest, as he tries to pitch his national narrative as a "reformer" who got things done for Minnesota. Let's not be fooled simply because he's one of our own.
And that, my friends, is my two cents.
Marcus
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