Elephant Dung #36: The Bachmann-Pawlenty spat

Tracking the GOP Civil War 

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.) 

Sorry, haven't done one of these in ages...

Not that there haven't been many, many instances of Republicans attacking fellow Republicans...

For example, as you may have heard, Tim Pawlenty, running well back in the GOP presidential race (and seeming more and more desperate), recently used the news of Michele Bachmann's migraine problem to suggest that the Minnesota congresswoman might not be up to the job of president. It was a cheap shot.

Bachmann quickly put concerns about her health to rest -- yes, I'll take her at her (and her doctor's word), and migraines, even serious ones, shouldn't be a disqualifier -- and, to her credit (even if one disagrees with her views), has fought back, slamming Pawlenty's record as governor of their state (criticizing him from the extreme right). She just wasn't going to take his shit lying down.

Now, I'd take Pawlenty over Bachmann any day. As her statement suggests, he's not nearly the right-wing conservative he's been trying to make himself out to be, while she's the real deal, a bona fide nut. And he's fighting back as well, with a spokesman noting that while he was "scoring conservative victories" as governor she was "giving speeches and offering failed amendments, all while struggling mightily to hold onto the most Republican house seat in the state." Ouch.

Pawlenty is so far back at this point that this hardly seems like a meaningful fight. Bachmann has emerged as the clear #2 behind Romney while Pawlenty has failed to generate much support at all. I suppose he still has a shot at emerging as the compromise candidate between Romney and Bachmann, but there may yet be Perry to contend with, and, thus far, he has done nothing to suggest that he could actually pull off a victory.

Still, with most of the Republican candidates falling all over themselves to prove their conservative bona fides and casually trying to outdo one another in their extremism, all while remaining mostly civil and directing their fire at President Obama, this little Bachmann-Pawlenty spat is about as interesting as it gets.

Minnesota running out of booze, chaos expected

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Things are getting worse in Minnesota:

Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes -- a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown.

In the days leading up to the shutdown, thousands of outlets scrambled to renew their state-issued liquor purchasing cards. Many of them did not make it.

Now, with no end in sight to the shutdown, they face a summer of fast-dwindling alcohol supplies and a bottom line that looks increasingly bleak.

"It's going to cripple our industry," said Frank Ball, executive director of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, which represents thousands of liquor retailers in the state.

The Ugly Mug, a popular bar near Target Field, doesn't have enough beer to get through the baseball season.

And how will Minnesotans possibly get through the upcoming Vikings season without beer?

This is the sort of thing that could lead to riots in the streets. One suspects that the first party to bring home the booze will be heralded like Caesar returning from one of his victorious campaigns and handed power for eternity by a rapturous populace.

As Homer Simpson once said, "alcohol is the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." We don't quite know what to do without it.

And, in Minnesota, it, or rather its absence, may just bring the entire state to its knees.

Into the abyss

By Greg Prince 

And so the shutdown begins. The GOP controlling the Minnesota legislature has demanded complete capitulation to their agenda and if they don’t get it they’re perfectly willing to drive off the cliff. This should be viewed as educational given current goings on in Washington D.C. as things portend badly both for the ongoing debt limit discussions, and the next budgetary cycle in general.

Yesterday, Monica Davey wrote in The New York Times about how Minnesota may be ungovernable. University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs is quoted:

It’s a very sad day for Minnesota. It’s a state that had a well-earned reputation for being well governed where, at the end of the day, politics were done in a fair and efficient manner. And it’s now on the cusp of ungovernability. There’s a new ethic here that compromise is weakness.

Well… let’s be clear about a few things. The GOP has not come to govern, they have come to burn down the house. With billions of dollars separating the legislature from the governor in final budgetary negotiations, they offer $200 million in adjustments as a compromise while demanding it be deducted elsewhere, and pretend they have given up the keys to the ranch. Meanwhile Governor Dayton has reduced his budgetary request by over $2 billion and wisely refuses to go any lower.

MNPublius has a good graphic which shows what’s really going in with the respective negotiating positions and how much each side in the debate has offered. The Minnesota GOP refuses to allow even the smallest tax increase even upon those making over $1 million a year – despite the fact that the wealthiest pay a significantly smaller share of their income in state taxes than do the poor and middle class.

As it became apparent a compromise would not be reached the “cone of silence” over negotiations collapsed and the details of competing offers are not pretty. The Star Tribune reports part of the GOP offerings included over $700 million in deferred payments to Minnesota school districts – this on top of the roughly $1.5 billion in “deferred” payments we know the schools will never see, and issuing “tobacco bonds”, adding to the state’s debt without clear benefit as with infrastructure, etc.

Talks also broke down because of Republican insistence on inserting policy provisions – voter ID requirements, abortion restrictions, etc. – into what should be clean budgetary bills.

Presidential wannabe Tim “hard times in the land of” Pawlenty presided over Minnesota’s desperate race to the bottom. He kicked the can down the road time and time again, unwilling to demonstrate the leadership and political courage necessary to undo the damage he initiated as majority leader in the Minnesota House. Minnesota used to be a national leader in health, education, job creation, innovation – now we’re middle of the pack, and only because the GOP hasn’t turned us into Mississippi. Yet. But they’re still trying.

Kudos to Governor Mark Dayton, who’s turning out to be a lot stronger and smarter than any of us anticipated, on standing firm and protecting Minnesota’s heritage of effective, responsible government.

The state government is now running with a skeleton crew – just a few essential services such as prisons and the state patrol are operating. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts, but let there be no confusion. Negotiation and compromise require two parties EQUALLY willing to participate. Thus far the GOP proposals have been a joke. They must do better. Minnesota demands no less.

(Cross-posted at Greg Prince's Blog.)