MN Caucus Results Irrelevant to Pawlenty’s Future

Both right wing bloggers and MinnPost’s Gerry Anderson are dead wrong. GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty is not the biggest loser in this week’s Minnesota caucuses. When John McCain
picks his vice presidential candidate, caucus results won’t be part of
the conversation. Pawlenty didn’t invest much, if any, of his political
capital in GOP circles to turn out for McCain because of that fact. Now
that the GOP has picked McCain, the only salient factor is the Electoral College.

The Electoral College calculation is pretty simple: What potential vice presidential
candidate shows promise in helping deliver the 270 or more votes needed
to win the presidency? For Pawlenty, that calculation could shake out
in his favor in two not necessarily mutually exclusive ways. First, in
2004, Karl Rove and the rest of the George Bush
team viewed the Electoral College votes as a block, "Minnewissowa"
[Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10) and Iowa (7).] Minnewissowa didn’t
actually work that well in 2004, with John Kerry prevailing in
both Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Bush winning Iowa, so perhaps the
McCain team won’t work the Midwest trifecta state angle by choosing a
popular Midwest governor like Pawlenty.

If there’s no clear vice presidential candidate who can be expected to
deliver Electoral College votes that McCain can’t deliver on his own,
then the choice becomes who has the broadest appeal to voters. And who
can add depth and breadth to the ticket. Here’s where Pawlenty shines:
Youth (in contrast to McCain), smart and articulate, solid conservative
record, with some cuts to the middle (Pawlenty on climate change) and
no personal baggage.

Working against Pawlenty is that it’s tough to imagine a scenario where both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee
don’t heavily lobby the McCainiacs to be the vice presidential
candidate. Romney getting out early after this week’s results bodes
particularly well for Romney.

Finally, state DFLers’ obsession with bashing Pawlenty as a vice
presidential contender strikes me as bizarre, if not childish. Witness
this snarky, mean-spirited memo from the "Minnesota DFL Party" to "Media, Interested Parties."

No Responses to “MN Caucus Results Irrelevant to Pawlenty’s Future”

1. C Mattson Says:
   February 13th, 2008 at 10:00 am

   How many times in the last 6 months has Pawlenty left Minnesota to go stump for McCain? What do Minnesotans get for this increased travel (besides some of the expense, of course)? When Pawlenty expends his time and energy towards personal interests/gain, on government time, at government expense, why shouldn’t he be criticized? Now, I’m not saying that Pawlenty is expected to be bolted to the floor, never to have personal time, and never be able to leave the state… that’s not the point I’m getting at. The fact is that when Pawlenty is gone as often as he has been, Minnesotans are not getting their full ‘bang for the buck’. I didn’t elect a part-time governor. Does Pawlenty relinquish any of his pay? I thought not.

   Take a look at transportation funding/gasoline tax. It’s the clearest cut example of a use-tax we have in this state. MnDOT’s own analysis shows the metro-area woefully deficient in funding. MnDOT’s own analysis of road-conditions show our roads in a state of neglect/deterioration that is well below their ‘minimum goals’. Despite every piece of information that suggests our transportation needs have outpaced our funding, Pawlenty is still standing on a ‘no new tax’ principle. Is this to appeal to a higher office? Is he putting his personal interests ahead of Minnesota’s? In this case, I think it would be hard to argue otherwise. His proposed solution is to borrow the money. How can borrowing money (paying expense + interest) make a funding deficit situation better?

   Borrowing endless amounts of money & failing to address any relevant issues of today? There’s no question Pawlenty has a future in our nation’s capital as a ‘conservative’.