Andy Birkey in the Minnesota Monitor:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty used his line-item veto on Monday to shred a portion of the capital investment bonding bill that hit his desk last week. He cut $208 million out of the $925 million bill, with a large amount coming out of requests for St. Paul. Pawlenty told reporters Monday, “It’s not about being a Democrat or a Republican. It’s about setting the right priorities for the state and living within our means. There’s no personal messages in here for anybody in particular.”

Yet the investments [Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahaaahaaaahaaa – Ed.] Pawlenty deleted create the appearance of political game-playing.

Gosh.  D’ya think?

Let’s take a trip back in time:  Margaret Kelliher standing around giggling like a schoolgirl after overriding the veto.  The DFL fracturing the GOP over the light rail subsidy “transportation bill”.  Larry Pogemiller grunting that the peasants were too stupid to spend their own money.

The Governor is doing what he was elected to do.  He’s telling the districts whose representatives were dancing in the streets last month (and possibly even puking on Dave Thune’s lawn, although we don’t know for sure) that the sheriff ain’t dead yet.  He’s giving his party something around which to rally.

Damn straight it’s a political game.

And Pawlenty is better at it than your people are. Oh, the DFL has the numbers – for now.

But Pawlenty, playing to the autumn, is showing that there’s an alternative to Larry “the peasants are stupid” Pogemiller, to Cy “when we win, we keep your money!” Thao, to Lori Sturdevant.

And it’s in November that it’ll count.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 7:04 am and is filed under Minnesota Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.