Pawlenty thinks Minnesota conservatives don't matter

by: Bill Prendergast

Sun Feb 05, 2012 at 14:00:00 PM CST

For the answer they went (of course) to a Republican now despised by the wingers who dominate our state's GOP caucuses--former governor and former presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty.

I don't know why the Hill thought they were going to get any kind of objective assessment from a guy who endorses his former opponent Mitt Romney even as Romney helps to pay off hundreds of thosands of Pawlenty campaign debt.

Pawlenty used to slavishly court the winger activists in the MN GOP and then quite properly ignore them after election time. Pawlenty's concession to them was to avoid pro forma tax hikes--but Pawlenty also spent the state government into billions in debt, which is a hidden but actual tax hike.

Those wingers taught (and were also teaching anyone who would listen) that liberal, establishment Republican Romney is everything a good conservative should despise. Romney's the godfather of Obamacare, ya know, which Minnesota conservatives use present as the penultimate step into some kind of Nazi/Communist "end of American freedom."

And the state's GOP activists had already demonstrated a healthy contempt for Pawlenty, preferring fellow winger Tom Emmer as gubernatorial candidate to some  Pawlenty-like successor.

So Pawlenty's remarks--suggesting that these winger conservatives he used to court aren't really that important--aren't really surprising. Given Pawlenty's decision to pimp Romney and take cash, and the mutual contempt that Pawlenty and the state's conservative activists have for each other, Pawlenty's claim (that the Republicans who run the caucuses aren't really that relevant) kind of makes sense:

Pawlenty, in telephone conference call last week, tried to downplay the importance of (Minnesota's GOP caucuses), The Hill reported.

"It's important, but it's a smaller turnout than a primary system and it's difficult to predict," Pawlenty said, noting the results are non-binding...

Polls indicate Minnesota as one of the only states in February where Romney's opponents could pull off a win this month, The Hill said, a fact Pawlenty addressed...

The UPI article linked to below reports a couple of different poll results that show Gingrich doing surprisingly well against Mr. Moneybags, her in Minnesota.

"The Minnesota GOP caucuses tend to be dominated by strong conservatives, so it is quite possible that Gingrich or Santorum could upset Romney in Minnesota," said political commentator Steven Schier, political science professor at Carleton College in Minnesota.

"Minnesota is perhaps the best place for a candidate other than Romney to 'steal a win' because strong conservatives dominate the caucuses and Romney so far has shown less appeal among strongly conservative Republicans," Schier said.

Yeah, yeah, Professor Schier--but money is what counts in the GOP, and the national media seems intent on making Romney the nominee. Those are two pretty tough realities to beat. If Gingrich or Santorum hand Romney a slight humiliation in Minnesota (as they did in Iowa and South Carolina)--is that really going to overcome the money/professional news media steam roller behind Romney?

I like this story, even though I think UPI and the Hill are kind of stupid to go to Romney staffer Tim Pawlenty for a definitive take on the importance of conservative activists who secretly or openly despise both Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty.

I like the story because it reminds us that the activists who currently dominate the state's GOP 1) are well to the right of most of Minnesota's Republican voters and uncommitted voters and 2) are well to the right of too many of Minnesota's most successful elected Republicans.

I also like the story because it gives Tim Pawlenty a chance to publicly dismiss "what the state's most active conservative activists want"--as largely irrelevant. He never had a chance to humiliate them publicly, when he needed them to rise through state government and into the governor's mansion.

It's healthy for both Pawlenty and the state's conservatives when Pawlenty gets to say what he thinks of them and their agenda. "It doesn't matter what all those right wing yo-yos in my state, think," is his message here.

And in this case, Pawlenty's right. The yo-yo conservatives may make a stand for Gingrich or one of the others, but they're like to get Romney anyway--supporting another liberal Republican against Obama. Nobody in the leadership of their party really believes in or respects what they think. After all, these GOP activist saps spent all those years telling voters to back *Pawlenty," time after time after time...

LINK:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US...