While the political adroit will likely observe that the day\u2019s vote was set in motion five years ago with Pawlenty\u2019s appointment of his right-hand gal in MN\/DOT\u2019s head office amid a more closely divided Senate, even the laymen know that whatever weakened clout she may have carried on July 31st, 2007, her tenure collapsed alongside the stretch of I-35 that sat in the Mississippi on August 1st.\u00a0 As the dust settled and the administration\u2019s critics drew blood with ink, most knew nothing could be done to salvage Molnau\u2019s post – not even a record that saw increased construction<\/em> and a willingness to entertain the transportation boondoggles of expanded light rail – given her proximity to the Governor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe DFL resembles a toddler who’d rather smash a toy than share it:<\/p>\n
Removing Molnau had emerged as something of a cause celeb<\/em> among sectors of the local DFL as eager for a head on a plate as any significant legislative accomplishment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnd now, what passes for good news in this story, if you’re a Republican:<\/p>\n
The DFL may\u00a0have finally bludgeoned their transportation B\u00eate noire<\/em>\u00a0but they may regret some of their defenses of their crime of passion.\u00a0 Imbuing the Commissioners of the\u00a0Governor\u2019s Cabinet with an autonomy equivalent to a double-parked UN bureaucrat, the DFL implied the Governor had little right towards appointing authorities to carry out his administrative wishes yet alone share a philosophical view that\u00a0there existed an alternative\u00a0view of\u00a0management of the state\u2019s infrastructure outside of simply increasing the tax burden.\u00a0 Rather, the DFL continued to present a series of false dichotomies\u00a0as, perhaps in keeping with times, \u201cchange\u201d versus doing nothing all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nA practice and dichotomy that is, by all accounts, getting the Republican base as riled as a hive of hornets.<\/p>\n
Saddled with a superminority and few, if any, friendly media outlets, Republican plans to improve transportation or MN\/DOT itself were relegated to a\u00a0shallow grave on the\u00a0back pages of the Metro section at best.\u00a0\u00a0And without an aggressive effort to showcase an alternative, viable or not, the same strategy will be employed by the DFL\u2019s electoral demolition crew\u00a0until\u00a0the margins look less like\u00a0a Minnesota-flavored version of the Bertrand Snell-sized\u00a0Republican minorities of the Great Depression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The solution?\u00a0 Well, Ringer has half of it?<\/p>\n
Armed with an approval rating far greater than his current legislative lilliputians, Pawlenty would be wise to appoint a replacement more willing to do battle with the DFL Senate and even less likely to be approved.\u00a0 Basking in victory, there seems little reason why the DFL would or should accept an appointee even remotely on the young governor\u2019s terms.\u00a0 Perhaps it would be far better to see an endless parade of appointees go before\u00a0the Senate\u2019s\u00a0legislative gulliotine and leave MN\/DOT headless for the duration if only to see one suggest that fixing the\u00a0structural deficiencies of the State\u2019s transportation funding system are necessary to improve roads – not paving them over with pork.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That, and focus all that outrage in the Republican conventions this next few weeks on getting that DFL supermajority escorted out of the building.<\/p>\n
<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are two kinds of things being written about yesterday’s ouster of Lt. Governor Molnau as Minnesota’s Transportation Commissioner. Crap First Ringer’s authoritative\u00a0 takedown of the situation. Let’s go with #2 for now (with emphasis added): While the political adroit will likely observe that the day\u2019s vote was set in motion five years ago with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}