Tag: Pawlenty
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A Pawlenty Vote
Hugh Hewitt sounded off in the WashEx yesterday on two big myths about Tim Pawlenty: First, his critics (who include no doubt backers of other horses) say Pawlenty is dull. Other than Romney, I have interviewed Pawlenty more often than any other elected official over the past 12 years. With great certainty I can say he…
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Chanting Points Memo: “It’s About Rights”
As I’ve pointed out in the past, I’m deeply ambivalent about pretty much everything in the Gay Marriage mix; gay marriage itself, sure, but straight marriage too, and amending the constitution to protect it as well. Yesterday, if you were at the Capitol, you saw a Madison-like outpouring of support for gay rights and opposition…
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Big Announcement
Former Governor Pawlenty is making a “big announcement” on Facebook at 2PM Central (3PM Eastern) today. And you need to “like” his Facebook page to see it… I think it’ll be to announce he’s taking over as head coach of the Wild. What do you think it’ll be?
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Insult To Nonexistent Injury
Yesterday, we noted that Governor Dayton has turned down all of the proposals from regional radio stations for what has become a Minnesota tradition, the governor’s talk radio show. I had initially thought Dayton had a point for turning down the offer (albeit not for his petulant reaction); the audience would be smaller. It’s not…
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Chanting Points Memo: “Piecemeal”
The region’s DFL, media (pardon the redundancy) and the leftyblogs that fill in the very, very few gaps between them have been spending the past few weeks grousing impotently about the Legislature’s GOP majorities’ “piecemeal” approach to tackling the budget, including the $6.2 billion deficit that is not. The chanting point campaign reached its peak…
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State Of The State
I’m reviewing Governor Dayton’s first “State of the State” address. Failure To Meet Me Halfway Is Like The Taliban Attacking Us, Or Something: Dayton kicked off with an invocation of 9/11 , and Bush’s invocation that “we are all united, and the nation has never been stronger”. Curiously, he jumped from there to scolding the…
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The Drumbeat
The DFL’s “Forecast” for this biennium calls for a 37% increase in Health and Human Services (HHS) spending. And the DFL is portraying any spending proposal less than a 37% increase as a “cut”. And the media is, for the most part, carrying that meme without question. Bob Collins at MPR does, in fact, question…
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The Rubber Hits The Road
The Minnesota GOP yesterday put the Minnesota budget – for the current bienniium – up on the hoist and start working: Minnesota House and Senate Republicans today introduced an early action budget bill that takes immediate steps to reduce the budget deficit by $1 billion. The bill reduces spending for state agencies by $200 million in the current…
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More On Those Disastrous Pawlenty Years
Forbes says F the Twin Cities are the number four Job Market in the US: “The Twin Cities, and Minnesota in general, has a much more diverse economy than many other parts of the nation,” said Vang. “While our heart goes out to all those individuals who are unemployed right now, our economy tends not to…
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From Planet Dinkytown
Jeff at MNPublius aims big. After taking his de rigeur shot at departing Governor Pawlenty (trying to portray one of Minnesota’s most significant governors of the past 100 years as “nothing special)”, Rosenberg reviews a list the Governor released of his major accomplishments, and asks: In eight years, what would we like a similar document…
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True Grit
The Saint Paul Pioneer Press‘ Bill Salisbury wrote a valedictory yesterday in the Pioneer Press about the career of outgoing Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. So far, anyway. He left it to Pawlenty to sum up the crux of his legacy: “This is a state that was on a spending binge for a long time with…
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Advice To Our Liberal Friends
With the new session coming up, all you liberals are going to be in for a new experience – being a legislative minority here in Minnesota. It’s never happened, not in the political lifetime of any of you out there. It’s gonna be a whole new feeling for all you libs – not being able…
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Sturdevant: “The DFL Set A Fiscal IED!”
The old “take a theatrical look in the dictionary to set up today’s column” trick is an old favorite for writers who’ve hit bottom in the idea bag but still need to crank something out. I am, of course, nowhere near the bottom of the barrel – and I’ve always found the whole “Hey, lookit…
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100 Reasons I’m Voting For Tom Emmer
As I do before every important election, I’m listing the top 100 reasons I’m voting for the top of the ticket. Of course, I became an Emmer supporter long ago. The GOP started the campaign early – right around State Fair time in 2009 – with a crop of great candidates and rumored candidates. Paul…
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Backing And Filling
The DFL starts to work on its damage control from its viciously anti-Catholic attack piece. Blois Olson – who is not “the DFL”, per se, but has a history of working for DFL candidates – in his “Morning Take” MN GOP will push to find controversy with a direct mail piece in SD40. GOP operatives…
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Chanting Points Memo: 2+2=Fudge, Winston
MNDFL chair Brian Melendez sent this out to the faithful yesterday: The more Minnesotans hear from Tom Horner, the clearer it becomes that he is just another Republican insider, and his only plan is to continue Governor Pawlenty’s failed policies. Insider? A guy who hasn’t darkened the doorstep of a GOP caucus since Arne Carlson…
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Why Does The DFL Hate Gays?
I have a quick question for the Twin Cities’ leftyblog buildup. Since gay marriage has emerged, at least for the DFL, as the most important issue in the gubernatorial election – at least as re the perceived record of the GOP’s candidate – I think it’s only fair to ask “why has the DFL been…
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Chanting Points Memo: I Accuse
Conservative have been claiming for decades that the press is biased toward the left. It’s hard to look at the Twin Cities’ media’s record of mangled context, selective reporting and generalized ennui this past three months and reach any conclusion other than this; the Twin Cities media has an agenda. Let’s go over the past…
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Chanting Points Memo: The Alliance For A Deceitful, Sloppy, Not Very Bright Minnesota
The “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” – an astroturf group sponsored by a consortium of DFL-linked pressure groups – has been behind much of the smear-mongering against Tom Emmer so far this campaign. They’ve occupied themselves with a klutzy false-flag website, a couple of twitter accounts (one of baldfaced propaganda, and one, “StuffEmmerSays”, that tried to…
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Who Do Minnesota Liberals Hate?
As noted last week, my pal and radio colleague Ed Morrissey made it onto the list of the top 100 conservatives the left loves to hate. Morrissey earned his #49 spot, beating out Governor Pawlenty (#86) and Ted Nugent (who cares). Glenn Beck was the winner, naturally, with the usual suspects – Limbaugh, Rove, Hannity,…
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Victory
It’s hard to look at the MN House of Representatives’ own wrapup of the 2010 session (WARNING: PDF How can the first paragraph of this press release be read as anything other than a complete and total vindication of Governor Pawlenty’s budget stance last year? Despite court challenges and ceaseless partisan attacks, he held firm…
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Around The Horner
In the 2000 Presidential election, it’s entirely possible that George W. Bush was put into office by Ralph Nader, who stole just enough votes from the radical fringe of the left to make it close enough for the freakish electoral college result we got. And it’s very likely that we dodged the spectre of “Governor…
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Chanting Points Memo: “LGA Cuts Are Destroying Minnesota!” (Part IV)
In the first three parts of this series, I showed that the example of government fiscal starvation Jeff Rosenberg used in his plaintive plea for more Local Government Aid (LGA) – Brainerd shutting off some of its streetlights – was not borne out by the numbers. I also showed that the DFL’s claim that cities are…
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Chanting Points Memo: “LGA Cuts Are Destroying Minnesota!” (Part III)
There are a little over five million Minnesotans. About 4.3 million of them live in “cities” of widely-varying sizes and government types, from plucky Montevideo up to metropolitan Minneapolis, from conservative Mound to neo-Wobbly Duluth. These cities have a few things in common. They levy property taxes to pay part of their municipal bills –…