Inaugural Blues: Revisiting Pawlenty’s Victory Speech
Now that the holiday season is over (along with my vacation; that’s why my lameness in staying current here) and there’s nothing to do around this great state but mope for the next four months, I keep replaying the heady Republican bash from election night in my mind. I was there at the Radisson South that night, and I’ve warned that I’d dump my notebook here when it seemed fitting (see 12/18 below).
I rubbed elbows with about as many drunken revelers as I could take (and that’s really saying something), and there was a certain belligerence in the air as the night became longer and longer.
So, with Pawlenty being sworn in Monday, I keep thinking about how the governor-elect handled that night. Here’s some of what I wrote two months ago:
After last call is over at one o’clock, the should-to-shoulder crowd from the hotel bar (an oddly nautical-themed joint called “The Navigator”) starts to thin out, and the five cart-bars in the ballroom are closing up shop, forcing most of the GOP revelers to flow from room to room on the second floor, making chit-chat and fresh cocktails. There are high-fives. There are mini-bottles of champagne. There are lots of stogies.
Most folks teetering in the hallways talk about how much Norm has done for St. Paul, and how he brought the Minnesota Wild to the Xcel Energy Center. In fact, everybody starts talking about the hockey factor, and then it’s clear that the one thing that trumps liberalism in Minnesota is hockey. Norm Coleman, NHL-endorsed candidate for U. S. Senate.
Back in the ballroom, sure enough, there are Coleman and Pawlenty signs affixed to hockey sticks, and many in the crowd are thrusting brooms in the air to indicate a GOP “sweep.” As flashy as the evening has been, and as beautiful as many in crowd are (Minnesota Republicans must have access to some sort of gilded gene pool), there’s something so incredibly moribund about all of this. The victory here feels like anything but that; rather a mere defense of a culture that wants to remain unchanged and unbothered, deigned to plod on in an orgy of self-absorption, gratification and misplaced outrage.
And the overwhelming sense of entitlement is starting to show. Clearly the Minnesota GOP has had a great night, but there have been very few victories declared. WCCO-TV declares “Pawlenty wins!” on one of the four jumbo-screens, and a raucous drunken cheer of “U.S.A.!” rears its ugly head for at least the third time.
GOP state chair Ron Eibensteiner is quick to take the microphone, and, in a voice that could best be described as hermaphroditic, warns that “We want Tim Pawlenty to speak, but it won’t be a victory speech because he wants to wait until Roger Moe calls.”
This elicits boos from the crowd and a smattering of “Moe sucks!” shouts.
Pawlenty does come out and give a pedestrian, cautious speech, which pacifies the crowd some, but by 2 a.m. there’s still no official victory in either of the two big races. This seems to be making most revelers positively gooney with unreleased anticipation.
Soon enough Moe’s visage appears on all of the jumbo-screens, and it’s clear he’s giving one bummer of a concession. This turns the crowd on one more time, and everyone starts shouting, “We want Tim! We want Tim!”
At 2:20 a.m., Eibensteiner takes the podium again in front of what’s now more than 1,000 people. His introduction, “It gives me great pleasure to introduce Governor Pawlenty!” receives deafening applause, and Pawlenty comes through a secret back door that leaves the media tripping over themselves to catch up to him. Pawlenty, though looking dazed, seems like a genuinely nice guy, and he still stops to shake several hands on his way to the podium. The reception lasts several minutes.
Carol Molnau, the newly elected Lt. Gov., acknowledges the applause: “You guys are totally awesome!”
Then she introduces “The next governor of the free state of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty!”
After more prolonged cheering, the hockey lover from South St. Paul settles into a rather classy victory speech. He implores the crowd to thank Roger Moe (“My friend Roger Moe, and he is my friend”), Tim Penny, and Ken Pentel for their campaigns, and to applaud and respect their supporters. “Decent, hard-working folks,” he concludes about his opponents. So, Pawlenty is one of the new breed of compassionate conservatives, one that is, no matter what his politics, very, very nice.
Then he delves into the Official Republican 2002 Campaign stump about “God’s grace,” “working together” and “getting things done.” He goes on for more than ten minutes, and the room is filled with a rush of adrenaline release and more foolish chants as he claims his running mate is “The karate-kickin’, sky-diving, stock-car-racing-Grandma-former- legislator.” This apparently appeals greatly to the assembled electorate.
Then there’s some political rhetoric about the future, with one interesting turn of phrase. “We need a leader who’s going to revitalize the economy,” Pawlenty gushes, “Someone who’s gonna bring good jobs into the state and hold the line on taxes.” I repeat that last part into my tape recorder, because it seems to give Pawlenty an out on his most prominent campaign pledge—vowing to not raise taxes.
Of course, that was before the seriousness of the budget shortfall had been sussed, before it looked like an impossible promise, and before it was obvious that Pawlenty would win the campaign.
The results aren’t even finalized yet, and it seems he's already backpedaling.
Now, as he becomes governor, it’s still the pressing question: Will Pawlenty raise taxes? Or, more importantly, would it be such a weakness, such a crime, such an awful thing to break a campaign promise in a time of crisis? I would submit that the only foolish thing Pawlenty has done so far is making the promise in the first place--breaking it would rectify that.
Of course, none of the people thrusting hockey sticks into the air that night would think so. Sacrificing social services is one thing, but personal sacrifice, well, that’s quite another.
Last night, I watched a special “At Issue,” a public-affairs show hosted and produced by KSTP political reporter Tom Hauser. The Ventura Years was the theme, and it was a relatively comprehensive, if somewhat shallow and mean-spirited, look at the outgoing governor through the camera lens. (Hauser, to his credit, has written a more thorough book about covering Ventura.)
After Pawlenty’s relatively subdued and nice swearing in earlier in the day, I started to miss The Body already, especially during a montage of his bickering with the media. “I’m entitled to change my mind,” he growled at one press conference.
And, at one point, making the case for his last budget, which was criminally ignored and even ridiculed by the legislature, Ventura took a wad of cash out of his pocket, explaining why he was proposing to raise some taxes, imploring the press corps to go ahead and take his money. “We’re at war,” Ventura argued. “The legislators don’t understand. Taxes and personal sacrifice are part of the price of freedom.”
Finer Point
Anybody see the footage of Senator Coleman leaving Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Saturday? Norm was boarding a Northwest plane, bound for Washington, ready to get all sworn in.
It struck me right away that he had some weird condensation under his eyes while he faced a Channel 5 camera. Is it sweat, I wondered, or weird precipitation, or is he just misting up at the prospect of leaving the state he so loves?
Then I noticed something: Those charming bags under his eyes are gone! Our junior senator must have caught up on his sleep over the holidays! Too bad, I was always a fan of the hangdog look he’d acquired over the years. We’ll see if those famous circles return after a few weeks in the Beltway.
Shout-Out
While we’re all dealing with my severe attention-deficit problem at this point, it’s worth noting the departure of Ted Mondale from his position as chair of the Met Council. Mondale, sensing the very real hostility toward him from the Pawlenty administration, tendered his resignation to Ventura, the man who appointed him four years ago. Good for him.
Mondale took a wasteful bureaucracy and made it do something, all the while tackling difficult issues as the metro continues to sprawl. Eons ago, when it was clear that Twin Cities growth in the next 20 or 30 years was the most crucial issue facing the state, I did a story on Mondale’s victories and struggles with the council.
Mondale would be the first to admit that he made mistakes. And he was more than willing to acknowledge that some cities that took issue with the Met Council’s agenda had valid reasons. Sure, it’s hard to shed a tear for Ted, and no doubt he’ll return as a political animal someday.
Still, Mondale was more than willing to negotiate over any local issue, no matter how large or small--stadium debate, affordable housing, road infrastructure, sewers. It all meant the same to him. Still, the right painted him as a dictator, set on bending personal liberties to his socialist agenda.
“They say Mondale’s a commie and all of this,” he said to me nearly two years ago, just after the legislature decided to slash funding for Metro Transit buses. “But the fact is, we’ve been dawdling for 40 years on issues like public transit and how to develop without destroying green space and farmland. We can’t control traffic. We have no affordable housing. These are not partisan issues. It’s reality that we have to deal with right now or never.”
Despite his wrangling with several Republicans around the state, it seems in retrospect that they picked the wrong target. In many ways Mondale--a suburban hockey dad, a former motocross racer, a venture capitalist in the private sector, son of a farm boy, albeit a famous one--could have been one of them. If ever there was someone interested in the “uniting, not dividing” centrist politics spoken about so often by the GOP today, it was Ted Mondale as chair of the Met Council.
Instead, he became a lightning rod for talk-radio antipathy, and Pawlenty had no choice but to bag him, I guess. This is too bad, because nobody understands the region better than Mondale. And the Met Council “Blueprint 2030” will probably be scrapped as well--despite input from countless growth experts, legislators, mayors, city councils, contractors and various citizens of all stripes. Hardly the work of a fascist, the Blueprint is the result of a stunning amount of input and consulting over four years.
Why scrap it now and start from scratch? What could be more political? And, really, what could be more wasteful?
Anyway, now that Norm’s sworn in after what local television stations are trumpeting as the “the state’s most memorable election ever,” I can’t help to think of advice Ted told me that his father offered him, which Walter then repeated to me: “We Mondales just get appointed. We don’t get elected anymore.”
5:49:55 PM 
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