Pawlenty should be abandoned now

According to KvM Pawlenty is saying that he will not be holding the line on spending anymore.

One of the things that was surprising was how he mentioned his recent interview in which he said that Republicans are on the ropes. He defended and reiterated those concerns. He said that he feels Minnesota is not a Republican state. It is trending that way, but it is not there yet. He brought up how both Bush and Kerry threw everything they had into the last election. Both of them campaigned harder in this state than any Presidential candidates had done ever before, but in the end, it ended up being a 4% margin for Kerry. In fact that was a wider margin than in 2000 with Gore.

I put a lot of blame for that margin on the GOP. They did a lot of stupid things during the Bush campaign. Quick recap of some of them:
1) Forgot that coattails go up the ticket not down...focused too much of the resources on Bush while ignoring the localities. In much of the state the GOP even conceded the localities.
2) Failed to match get out the vote efforts. I got more calls in the 6th from Democrat get-out-the-vote than I did from Republicans (I got NONE as a delegate even from the GOP).
3) Conceded the campuses. Never once did I see on the U of MN campus (where I spent A LOT of time) any CR or GOP get-out-the-vote effort. I saw the DFLers out daily and all day.
4) Refused to INVEST in the campaign. Kerry henchmen were GIVING AWAY Kerry buttons and stickers. The only place that I saw giving Bush buttons away was Students for Family Values and the suggestion of Marty Andrade. It became incredibly demoralizing seeing ZERO pins for Bush and Kerry pins on nearly everyone. This was not unique to the campus. There were more Kerry bumper stickers as I drove throughout the 11-county area (especially in the western part where I thought it might be an even split).

That is just the tip of the iceberg on how the GOP is to blame for the 4% margin that Kerry won Minnesota with.

I digress.

He went on to explain that Republicans in this state go into each election down 4%. He mentioned a race in Bemidji last election in which a Republican got more votes than any Republican had done before, but he still lost. Pawlenty said that he was told that there were no more Republicans in Bemidji. He left the impression that he feels this is the case more often than not in Minnesota, that Republican voters are outnumbered by Democrats.

My answer to this can be found in this posting about the elections yesterday. Open up the friggin' tent or become a small and meaningless minority party that gets nothing done. While you are the majority party you need to act like one. Stop spending like DFLers...otherwise voters have no reason to continue supporting the GOP. They run on "lower taxes", "less spending" and "smaller government" and while they are in the majority they provide meaningless tax cuts, increased spending and bigger government. To me that sounds like a party that breaks its campaign promise.

Pawlenty ended his address with a call for unification and hard work by those in the room. He brought up the 3 main factions of the Republicans: the fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and reformers. By his own admission, the fiscal Republicans were ill-served while the others were pleased.
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In order to continue that streak, Pawlenty says that we will need to find the balance of providing such amenities (with government spending) and paying for it (with taxes).
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In order to continue that streak, Pawlenty says that we will need to find the balance of providing such amenities (with government spending) and paying for it (with taxes). If we can continue to get people to come to Minnesota and see for their own eyes that we are not just a cold dark place with nothing to do, they will stay and in turn create jobs and further economic growth.

Okay, I think just about everyone agrees with that. But Pawlenty then took a shot at David Strom and Mike Wigley. Pawlenty said that he could not fight a 3 front war next year and be re-elected. He couldn’t fight moderate Republicans on marriage and abortion, the fiscal conservatives (his base), and the Democrats.

At the conclusion of the speech Pawlenty was building of his theme of Minnesota greatness and how to continue down that path — by more spending on “fun stuff”. Sounding downright Mondalesque, he even asked that the people in attendance personally sacrifice for it.

I am sickened by this. Though, I am not at all surprised. The moment Pawlenty started talking about a stadium, started backing off of his hold against spending and flip-flopped on gambling I figured it would only be a matter of time before he pulled a G.H.W. Bush and asked his base to fight for him while he would fight against their concerns.

As of this moment I am not voting for Pawlenty in the primary or in the general election. I will write in the name of the GOP member that challenges Pawlenty for the endorsement.

I don't think Sullivan could have won, but he would have been a much better one-term Governor than either Jesse or Tim. I hate to say it, but Jesse's term might be at the same level as Pawlenty's when it is all said and done.

Why would Pawlenty be taking this pessimistic approach? Perhaps he does not want to win next year. Perhaps he does not want to be in a position of resigning from the Governorship to humor the idea of running for President (and I will not vote for him as President...I do not care who is running against him).

That is my hunch. If he loses with a hedging explanation of why then he will (1) not be forced to admit he has higher aspirations and (2) not be harmed as much by a loss next November. Just my hunch.

Can we find someone else to endorse?