The Wrong Tree

The most obnoxious, channel-knob spinning commercials on TV today are the ones where the D-list comic (name eludes me) dressed as a beer delivery guy goes to a bunch ostensibly hoity-toity locations – trackside at a horse race, an “exclusive” club – and makes a big show out of removing the “honest” beer (Miller, aka “your cat has diabetes”) for all the regular people to drink.

Which means times must be tough.  It’s the closest our society gets to Woody Guthrie anymore.
One of the ugliest sides of “progressivism”, especially in tough economic times, is the cynical faux-populism that wafts out from the bathrooms and basements of the “progressive” movement.

Dave Mindeman at mnpACTed mines that same ugly vein – and does it pretty badly in this piece from yesterday:

Tim Pawlenty says he has no set plans for the future, but it is becoming pretty clear what he wants. He wants to be President.

This gives the DFLers vapors; as if a young, talented, ambitious politician is supposed to just say “maybe I’ll go into call center management” after spending years at the brink and years more working his way toward that point.  (Unless he’s Walter Mondale, of course).

The last 4 years of his tenure as Governor has been a cold hearted calculation about positioning himself for the big show. And, he has been mildly successful at it…. at least in perception.

I wonder if even Mindeman knows what that sentence means?

Pawlenty’s full phrasing on his sloganeering is…”We need to be the party of Sam’s Club, not just the Country Club.”Pawlenty assumes the Country Club crowd will stay. And why not? The Sam’s Club Governor continues to promote polcies that benefit them with little help for the rest of us.

This is actually brilliant messaging – or, if you prefer Mindeman’s treatment, “calculation” – on Pawlenty’s part.  Ronald Reagan, after getting many of the same criticisms Pawlenty’s gotten for not a few similar stances during his stint as Governor of California, built his entire national message on the idea that government is supposed to get out of peoples’ way; that, left to their own devices, the American people will build the prosperity they want and that their merits can earn.

Mindeman:

The real Pawlenty message is ..’Come on you Sam’s Club people. Join us. Aspire to make it to the Country Club. See what we can do for you if you do?’

I guess this is the reason people like Mindeman are liberals and DFLers.  The “real” Pawlenty message (actually conservative message) is “Come on; join us.  Aspire to make it wherever you want to make it – country club, your own business, a home in the ‘burbs or a condo downtown, putting your kids in college, getting out of poverty, building a new life in this new land, ; we will get out of your way.”

Nothing was made more clear in that regard, than the 2008 Legislative Session. Pawlenty’s policies have certainly affected those Sam’s Club people. He put them out of work [Really?  Pawlenty caused the mortgage bubble to burst?  Pawlenty started the recession?  I doubt even Pawlenty would want to be that powerful… Ed.], took away their health care [Again – really?  How many actual families without means of support got cut off?  Ed.], forced them to pay more for care for relatives [Er, no – he passed on more of the cost of state-funded care to those who could – and, rightfully, should – pay more of it – Ed.], raised the taxes on their homes [Good lord, Mindeman – now you’re saying Pawlenty is on every single county commission in Minnesota?  The counties are in charge of property taxes!  If they are spending money on something, why should the county’s residents be less obligated to pay for it (or more unwilling to do without it) than people in Thief River Falls?  – an ever-more-tired Ed.], and then, on top of all that, tried to force their kids to pay for it all.

Now, if they perservere and can overcome all of the obstacles that Pawlenty has burdened them with so he could protect his Country Club crowd…if their perserverance pays off and they manage to get that membership upgraded to Country Club status,….then they will find a Republican Party that can keep them happy and secure in their new lifestyle.

Conservatives?  You all wanna answer that one?

None of us depend on the party to make us happy or give us a lifestyle.

Of course, while the Sam’s Club crowd is working their way against the grain, they need to vote for those GOP candidates that are protecting their “future” way of life. They may not make it and probably won’t.

“It probably won’t work?” 

Dave Mindeman?  The American people called, and left a message; “Thanks for the vote of confidence.  Kindly speak for yourself”. 

And what would a son of a meat-packer who became a lawyer, and then governor, know about that?