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he be a President of all of the people and with his history of
secrecy, would transparency in government take another hit?
Tim Pawlenty is not really that well-known yet. The governor of
Minnesota is an evangelical Christian who loves rock music and
fishing. Republican strategist Vin Weber calls him an ethical
"Eagle Scout" who has trouble building a political
organization for that very reason. The son of a truck driver
and a housewife, Pawlenty started school to become a dentist
but found the classes too hard.
Quotes
"I have a wife who genuinely loves to fish. I mean, she will
take the lead and ask me to go out fishing, and joyfully comes
here. She loves football, she'll go to hockey games and, I
jokingly say, 'Now, if I could only get her to have sex with
me.'" -- Pawlenty
"Children who are victims of failed personal responsibility
are not my problem, nor are they the problem for our
government." -- Pawlenty, April 2001
"I'm an evangelical Christian. I believe that God created
everything and that he is who he says he was. The Bible says
that he created man and woman; it doesn't say that he created
an amoeba and then they evolved into man and woman. But there
are a lot of theologians who say that the ideas of evolution
and creationism aren't necessarily inconsistent; that he could
have "created" human beings over time." - Pawlenty
"It's like Tiger Woods' wife, we should take a nine iron to
the back windshield of big government spending and smash it
out." - Pawlenty
-- Quote Sources
--------------------------------------------------------------
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Mismanagement of State Government
Pawlenty's only real claim to being qualified to be president
is his stint as governor of Minnesota (which puts him on a par
with Jesse Ventura, except that Tim lacks military or
pro-wrestling experience). His actual record as governor is
not that good.
Most infamously, an interstate freeway bridge collapsed on his
watch, after years of budget cuts and politicization of the
transportation department. Furthermore, two different state
department heads had to quit after stalling state
investigations into health risks of corporate pollution.
Dianne Mandernach, Pawlenty’s Department of Health
commissioner, had to resign in August of 2007 after it was
revealed that she had suppressed a cancer study pertaining to
Iron Range miners for more than a year -- and tipped off a big
mining company a week before finally announcing it. And Sheryl
Corrigan, a 3M executive who Pawlenty named as commissioner of
the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, resigned in June 2006
after a whistleblower lawsuit was filed alleging she
stonewalled department inquiries into a class of chemicals
manufactured by 3M.
There are probably more scandals as big or bigger, but
Pawlenty has aggressively worked to keep government records
secret, let's just say he's not big on transparency.
While Jesse Ventura was open, even with documents that
showed his government in a bad light, Pawlenty applied a
highly restrictive interpretation of the state's open record
law -- declaring that only the final decisions by his
government needed to be made public, not any of the memos,
emails or white papers used in developing that final decision.
Since the government inevitably announces its final decisions
to the press anyway, this decision essentially made everything
in state government, suddenly secret. But as we've seen, there
is no question that he has much to hide, after all he is a Republicon. -- Sources
Secret $50,000 Payoff
In 2003, during his first term as governor, Pawlenty admitted
that he accepted $54,000 in cash from a friend and colleague
named Elam Baer, and could not document any work he did in
exchange for this cash. It may have been technically legal;
there is a loophole in Minnesota donation laws for independent
contracting payments. But it smells to high heaven.
Elam Baer says that Pawlenty was a "consultant" to his
company, and was paid $4,500 per month ($54,000/year) for his
part-time work. Asked what he did, Pawlenty said he couldn't
remember how much time he spent working for Baer, and that his
consulting contract prevented him showing examples of his
work. Elam Baer is actually an owner of 3 companies; Access
Anywhere (which paid Pawlenty), Holdings (which Pawlenty
invested in), and New Access, a subsidiary of NewTel.
New Access, a telecommunications company, has been accused of
unscrupulous actions in 7 states -- including Minnesota --
such as "slamming" - signing up people for your telecom
company without their permission. While he can't say what
Pawlenty did for him, Elam Baer does say: "I think I got good
value for what I paid." -- Sources
Sources
"Pawlenty Tees Off on Tiger Woods," by Tom Scheck, Minnesota
Public Radio, February 4, 2010
Quote Sources -- Back
"The Case Against Pawlenty,", By Chris Cillizza, Washington
Post, June 20, 2008
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty Jokes His Wife Won't Have Sex
With Him by Katherine Zaleski, Huffington Post, May 12, 2008
"Tim Pawlenty Gets No Respect", by Howard Fineman, Newsweek,
December 21, 2009
10 Things You Didn't Know About Tim Pawlenty", by Danielle
Burton, U.S. News and Business Report, May 22, 2008
"Pawlenty Tees Off on Tiger Woods," by Tom Scheck, Minnesota
Public Radio, February 4, 2010
Mismanagement Sources -- Back
"What We Don't Know Can't Hurt Him," by Steve Perry, The
Minnesota Independent, 7/7/08
Secret $50,000 Payment Sources -- Back
"What Hearings? What Scandal?", By Britt Robson, Citypages,
Vol. 24 #1181, pages 20-21, July 23, 2003
"Candidate Pawlenty kept business pursuits in background,"
Minnesota Public Radio, July 17, 2003
Lou
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