As far as examples of the insipid and meaningless in Minnesota politics go, it's hard to imagine one any more definitive than that provided by Rep. Chip Cravaack's (R-NH/MN) news conference during "The Opener." But another recent announcement comes close.
Former presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said Monday he wants off speculators' lists of potential running mates for presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. He's not even sure a Cabinet post sounds all that appealing...
To be sure, past vice presidential prospects have feigned disinterest before voluntarily submitting to the vetting process later on. At this time last year, Pawlenty was gearing up to launch his own White House bid. He ended that just a few months after kicking it off because of a disappointing showing in an Iowa test vote.
So, what's the deal? Still haunted by memories of being dumped for "Simple" Sarah Palin in 2008? And/or memories of his own farcical presidential campaign? Or possibly already privately settled on a Senate run in 2014? Your knowledgeable guess is as good as mine.
Despite my disdain for Republicans in general and Tim Pawlenty in particular, as a big believer in peace and civility, I actually don't find this amusing or satisfying.
The Oklahoma state Republican convention on Saturday erupted into chaos and a near-brawl when supporters of Ron Paul and Mitt Romney came to blows on the convention floor.
The fight started when Romney backers won the state's 25 delegates on a voice vote, rather than the traditional roll call.
According to NBC affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, police intervened after a 70-year-old Romney supporter punched a Paul supporter in the head after they disagreed over the vote.
Cell phone video showed two women engaged in a smackdown.
On the stage, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin were heckled when they failed to quell the crowd.
Long-time readers of this blog (and we're grateful to all of you) may recall that I used to write a lot about former MN governor and GOP presidential candidate (yes, he really was) Tim Pawlenty, who is now a top spokesman in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Nothing that Pawlenty does is really of any significance, any more, but I guess I'm feeling nostalgic, because I just have to note this.
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, a top surrogate for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, criticized President Barack Obama on Wednesday for the 10-year strategic partnership the United States just signed with Afghanistan.
Pawlenty said that while the Romney supported the president's decision to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, he disagreed with the decision to set a public timetable for withdrawal
We've had to put up with Timmy's tough-guy talk before. If neocowards like him really think that the U.S. should be in Afghanistan, forever, they can get their own butts over there, personally throw down vs. some Taliban, and show us all what they've really got, and how wrong we all are about them.
Back in 2007, Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed a bill so that Minnesota would join the Great Lakes Compact. The GLC would protect the water from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway from getting exported to somewhere like Arizona. Now Republicans in the Minnesota legislature want to pass bills that subvert this treaty.
Quietly, two separate bills that would weaken conservation of Minnesota drinking water are percolating at the Capitol. One would permit the Minnesota Legislature to approve the sale of water across state lines, the other would repeal a 2008 requirement that cities adopt conservation pricing for water use.
Introduced last week, SF 2004/ HF 2434 would allow the Legislature to approve the sale of Minnesota water across state lines. All three of the sponsors (Sen. Gretchen Hoffman, Rep. Bud Nornes and Rep. Mark Murdock) represent the same territory in northwestern Minnesota.
(Cucking Stool)
As Aaron Klemz points out, this would bring about the privatization of MN's water resources. Arizona and California are so desperate for water they would drain all MN acquifers and the Great Lakes in a matter of months (not years).
Furthermore, our rate of use is rapidly increasing, too.
These bills fall under the so stupid they hurt category. And only Gov. Dayton can stop them.
What on earth made him think that he was ever in it?
Here's a non-event, that I'm only noting in order to be thorough. Old habits, especially those of questionable value, die hard.
Pawlenty: 'I've Taken Myself Off the List of Running Mates for Romney'
Tim Pawlenty says he has no interest in becoming Mitt Romney's running mate. He made the announcement in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" Friday.
We've been over this before. VP picks never really matter in practical terms, except when they're unusually ill-advised (Tom Eagleton, Sarah Palin), but the media loves to make a big deal about them, and Timmy would be seen as a "blah," meaningless pick. Even corporate media might have got that one right.
One thing about actually being vice-president, is that it's historically been a springboard to a run for the top job. In the context of Tea-Paw not being a player, make of that what you will.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Friday endorsed Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), his former rival for the GOP presidential nomination, for reelection.
"I am thrilled to accept the endorsement of Gov. Tim Pawlenty in my race for reelection to Congress," Bachmann said in a statement released by her office. "Gov. Pawlenty and I will work together to make Minnesota 'red' in 2012."
Well, "The Hill" blog wanted to get the scoop on how significant the Republican caucus system in Minnesota was. How important are the opinions of our state's conservative activists, in the grand scheme of things?
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...
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is back in the state today, with his new buddy.
Attention, one percenters -- Mitt Romney will be in Eagan tomorrow.
The GOP presidential frontrunner will appear in the St. Paul suburb Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the headquarters of the Freightmasters trucking company.
If that isn't enough to get you excited, perhaps this will -- Romney will be appearing with none other than Minnnesota's favorite son, former governor and 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty.
The linked article includes a note and link regarding speculation that TBag could be Willard's vice-presidential pick.
I'd call Timmy a long shot for VP, at best. First of all, when it comes to national politics, he's an established loser. Also, it's not as if Timmy's presence would help Mittens win MN; Republicans never do, and Gutshot's standing in these parts isn't such as to change that. Romney will likely pick a conservative evangelical from the south, to try to shore up his very shaky standing with that crowd. Not that VP picks ever really make a difference, when all is said and done.
Life imitates art: the other day I wrote a piece about how Gingrich wanted to found a mining colony on the moon, staffed by his ex-wives and mistresses and mistresses who later became ex-wives.
And just yesterday, he got serious:
Newt Gingrich Vows to Establish Colony on Moon
-Associated Press
January 26, 2012 RSS Feed Print
And Romney offered to pay for the trip, if Gingrich really will go. (Just kidding.) But for years, Michele Bachmann and the tea party have been telling us the US is flat-broke. What is their reality? We got the money for this, or no? Do Republicans really need another place to export American manufacturing jobs?
In any case, former governor and prez candidate Tim Pawlenty wants Newt gone, too. Look:
'Stop-Newt' Republicans Confront New Base
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Jan 25, 2012 11:00 PM
..."The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handing the election over to Obama," former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told reporters on a Jan. 23 conference call. "I think that's shared by a lot of folks in the Republican Party."
Pawlenty's comments echoed those being uttered publicly and behind the scenes by elected Republicans, party activists, fundraisers and pundits, who represent a portion of the party establishment -- a "stop-Newt" caucus -- populated largely by people who have known the former U.S. House speaker for decades.
You see...it's the people in the party who know Gingrich best and up close, who are trying to put him under the bus.
(CONTINUED)
Cast, if you will, your remembrance of past time to late 2010, when the almighty conventional political wisdom was that things were looking awfully bright for then-Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. He was a two-term governor who had pretty well had his way while in that office. (Minnesotans got screwed as a result, but many political types, especially Minnesota's corporate media, couldn't be bothered with the facts about that.) The Villager punditry positively drooled over the guy as an all but can't-miss candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. (So did another, far more important, faction.) Moreover, there was even a possibility that a drawn-out recount in Minnesota's gubernatorial election might let him leave the state in a, from his perspective, blaze of glory, as he'd be able to sign off on extremist legislation from the newly-minted Republican-controlled Minnesota legislature.
Has the stock of anyone in American politics fallen so far, since then? I can't think of one. (OK, maybe Glenn Beck, but he's a media hack, not an elected one.) Is any American political figure more deserving of such humiliation? I can't think of one in that context, either, though I agree that a great many are equally deserving.
I wrote about Pawlenty's fall, when he was run out of the GOP race. I enjoy blogging in general, but that post was easily the most fun thing I've ever had occasion to write, online.
A gentleman does not exult in the humiliation of others; I get that. But, in the case of Tim Pawlenty's ignominious early exit from the 2012 presidential campaign, I'm not prepared to even try to mind my manners. After twenty months or so of covering him for this blog, I have come to truly, profoundly detest everything that the sorry runt represents.
And now, he's reduced to a role as one of Mitt Romney's toadies. Sweet!
Timmy will be back, of course; his hubris presents no alternative. My guess is that he'll run for a U.S. Senate seat, for Minnesota, in 2014. Here's looking forward to another disgraceful episode, in the career of one of the most abhorrent figures in Minnesota's political history.
39 percent have a favorable rating of (Pawlenty), compared to 50 percent with a negative one. His favorability rating matches the percentage of Minnesota voters who say they would vote for him for a statewide office, while 61 percent say they definitely would not.
The time is coming when the president of the United States will have to decide whether to use military force to set back Iran's nuclear program, former 2012 Republican presidential contender Tim Pawlenty said on Tuesday...
Asked explicitly by moderator Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institution scholar and FPI board member, whether military force will be necessary if sanctions and covert actions fail to stop Iran's nuclear progress, Pawlenty said the option should certainly remain on the table.
"In my view that option has to remain on the table. No question," he said.
Everything we know about Iran's nuclear enrichment program points to it mainly being for civilian purposes. There is no known nuclear weapons program as such. Whatever computer simulations or other measures Iran has taken would be consistent with seeking nuclear latency as a deterrent against an invasion.
But the propaganda will say otherwise...
We've seen this picture before. Let's not fall for it again, this time with regard to Iran.
The chickenhawks won't listen to Prof. Cole, of course. Any more than they'd ever put their own butts on the line, in any of the wars that they're always looking to start.
displacement (German Verschiebung, 'shift' or 'move') is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects effects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe or acceptable.
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty spoke at the Gridiron Dinner on Saturday night. Pawlenty shared the stage with Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker. In what I can only gather to be an attempt at humor, Pawlenty is reported to have said the following:
This is a classic case of displacement.
Pawlenty blames Michele Bachmann for his loss and insults Sarah Palin in the same breath? Sure, I can see why his attempt at a joke might seem funny. But not for the reasons he'd prefer.
Pawlenty's failure couldn't have been his lack of charisma. His campaign's failure couldn't have been because they had absolutely no discernible strategy.
Shifting the blame from yourself to Bachmann, now that's funny.
Politics has not been kind to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty since he left office. He had grand designs. He was going to write a book and run for President. His dream probably envisioned him as the candidate that the GOP would embrace as a conservative who kept taxes low in a liberal state, could speak in complete sentences and didn't look insane.
Sadly, his campaign never took off but ended up in the trees when the runway ran out.
1. Tim Pawlenty Every election season produces a number of hilariously pointless candidates who have no chance of winning. Some of them have value as novelty items. Look! It's Alan Keyes, the token black Republican! And over there! It's David Duke! He's a racist! These are the fun, fringy candidates. The Sharpton Sector, if you will. Then there are folks like Pawlenty, who fail to register even as novelties. T-Paw (as he calls himself) spent much of 2011 as a six-foot-tall paperweight, an aggressively forgettable fellow perfectly suited to the role of debate filler. The $1 million he spent to lose the Iowa straw poll might as well have been burned in front of a group of orphans.
From a rational perspective, no way, because he'd be a disastrous president. But in the land of politics junkies, some are speculating that Tim Pawlenty should have stayed in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.
Should we spend some time wondering about what might have happened with Tim Pawlenty if he hadn't bailed on the 2012 race? Probably not, but whatever. Over at The New Republic, Isaac Chotiner ponders an alternate history in which Tim Pawlenty stayed in the 2012 race, and speculates that some stuff might have happened, unless it didn't happen, in which case it wouldn't have happened...
The thing is, even when Timmy was in the race, the hard realities were generally pretty brutal, for him and his (relatively few, outside of Beltway and MN corporate media) fans. That's still the case.
Even if Pawlenty had been willing to go even further into debt after the straw poll, Des Moines Register polling shows it may not have made a difference to actual Iowa voters.
The recent poll found that only 5 percent of voters would now choose Pawlenty as their first choice, with only 12 percent liking him on their second choice.
"Of course, had he continued to campaign, he might have moved the needle," pollster J. Ann Selzer told the Des Moines Register. "But as of now, few are longing for him."
It seems at least as likely that the reason no credible establishment alternative has emerged to Mr. Romney is that having the establishment's support is a bug rather than a feature for many Republican voters and is therefore Mr. Romney's foremost flaw as well as his biggest advantage. That is, being the anti-Romney candidate is tantamount to being an anti-establishment candidate; hence, efforts by the establishment to seek an alternative to Mr. Romney are doomed to fail.
Tim Pawlenty still owes, substantially, in the wake of his embarrassing fizzle of a presidential campaign.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is out of the race for president - but still deep in debt.
A fundraising report covering July through September shows the former GOP candidate owes $453,000 for the campaign he ended in August. Fundraising consultants, building landlords and equipment rental companies, all have five-figure debts owed to them.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty wants a $25,000 primary filing fee refund from South Carolina as he pays off bills from a cash-strapped and defunct presidential bid.
There's been speculation that Mitt Romney, who Timmy has endorsed, could help him out, and I think that that will probably happen, if this drags out too long, and creditors start talking about legal action or something like that.
I know that it may seem unseemly, for me to continue to mock the guy, like this. Force of habit, I suppose. That, and the fact that I see no reason to believe, that he's out of politics for good, or even for long.
Not that it would probably matter, in practical terms, given what a humiliation his first national campaign was.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty says it's "highly unlikely" that he'll run for the White House again or that he'd accept a high-level post in a Republican administration.
He's used this excuse before, implying that modern politics has no place for his seriousness and profundity.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Tuesday that presidential campaigns are encouraged by a political-media-entertainment complex to be "cartoonish."
Pawlenty did not rule out a future campaign. Asked if he might return to politics someday, such as a 2014 U.S. Senate race against incumbent Democrat Al Franken, Pawlenty said he really doesn't know what the future holds.
A number of factors combined to render the Pawlenty campaign a farcical dud - Timmy's own phoniness, wussiness, and none-too-brightness, to name a few - and he clearly still has no idea, what really happened.
In case you forgot, plenty of Village pundits pretty much had Tim Pawlenty penciled in as the next POTUS, for a while. And now:
Just three weeks after dropping out of the 2012 presidential race, ex-Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty tried to score a job as a Fox News commentator, according to Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast. But network president and Republican power broker Roger Ailes reportedly turned him down, apparently perturbed that Pawlenty was on the verge of endorsing Mitt Romney for president.
"I'm not sure I want to sign you as a paid spokesman for Romney," Ailes reportedly told the erstwhile Republican contender.
I happen to think that a state planning agency would be a good thing to have, too, as long as it's not just a jobs program for dogmatic hacks. Timmy eliminated Minnesota's, in 2003. In fairness, it had been targeted for a while, by factions on both sides.
Of the photos presented in this post, number 4, is my favorite.
As far as examples of the insipid and meaningless in Minnesota politics go, it's hard to imagine one any more definitive than that provided by Rep. Chip Cravaack's (R-NH/MN) 
Long-time readers of this blog (and we're grateful to all of you) may recall that I used to write a lot about former MN governor and GOP presidential candidate (yes, he really was) Tim Pawlenty, who is now a top spokesman in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Nothing that Pawlenty does is really of any significance, any more, but I guess I'm feeling nostalgic, because 
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is back in the state today, 
Cast, if you will, your remembrance of past time to late 2010, when the almighty conventional political wisdom was that things were looking awfully bright for then-Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. He was a two-term governor who had pretty well had his way while in that office. (Minnesotans 
1. Tim Pawlenty
Tim Pawlenty 
Not that it would probably matter, 
In case you forgot, plenty of Village pundits pretty much had Tim Pawlenty penciled in as the next POTUS, for a while. 
