Pawlenty is Done, Part II

While at the Minnesota State Fair last week, I stopped by the State Republican booth. I asked each of the three volunteers working there, "So, who is the Republican party going to run for governor next election?". Despite the Tim Pawlenty posters, literature and buttons everywhere in the booth, each volunteer gave me essentially the same answer: a shrug, and then, "I don't know, maybe Brian Sullivan?".

These are the party faithful, the grass roots, the bedrock of the party. And even they have lost faith in our current governor. In the disastrous 2005 legislative session, we got higher taxes, more restrictive laws, and more business regulation. And we got what in return? Pawlenty broke his pledge to hold the line on taxes (never mind actual tax cuts); the already dreadful business climate in the state was made even worse; road problems weren't addressed; and school choice? That wasn't even brought up.

So, Pawlenty is finished politically. Liberals won't vote for him because they mistake him for a conservative, and conservatives won't vote for him because he's become barely distinguishable from a liberal. It's time for a real conservative to throw his or her hat into the ring and mount a primary challenge to Pawlenty next time around. Maybe Phil Krinkie, maybe Steve Sviggum, or maybe... Brian Sullivan, are you still out there?
- posted by Tom Pick @ 7:05 AM

 
Tim Pawlenty is, Sadly, Done

It pains me to write this about a man whose election I contributed time and money to just a few years ago, but Tim Pawlenty's political future is finished. He was elected on the simple premise that, in the fourth-highest taxed state in the country, there was no need for tax increases; and the simple promise not to raise them.

By going back on his word on this issue (and others; failing to address our roads problem, embracing rail, trying to expand gambling, stadium talk), he has demonstrated a politically fatal lack of spine. His reversal is analogous to Ronald Reagan deciding after his first term that the Soviets were okay after all, or George W. Bush deciding Iraq was better off under Saddam. We elect leaders to lead, not to turn tail and reverse course when liberal elite opinion turns against them.

Do we really need more government and higher taxes in Minnesota? As the Taxpayer's League has pointed out, sales tax revenue is up, income tax revenue is up, even corporate tax revenue is substantially higher than last year. Yet Pawlenty caved in to the worst elements of the liberals and passed a huge tax increase. Further, as the Taxpayer's League points out in this PDF, 20 years ago the four largest employers in the state of Minnesota were Honeywell, 3M, General Mills and Pillsbury (private companies all); today, three of the four largest employers -- the state of Minnesota, the federal government, and the University of Minnesota -- are government entities.

By his failure both of will and of common sense, Governor Pawlenty has wrecked his own dreams of higher office. It's a shame.

PS: Not to get off-topic, but if you work in sales or marketing, please check out this excellent Web site, a portal for online marketers, WebMarketCentral.com. The site includes an extensive directory of marketing resources, a list of marketing-related blogs, and its own associated blog. Thanks.
- posted by Tom Pick @ 6:04 AM

 
`Tis Truly the Season for Miracles

Or at least very odd occurrences. While not exactly pigs flying or the Vikings finally winning a Super Bowl, there was the very odd spectacle this week of a Republican (Minnesota) state legislator being wrong, while the Minnesota Welfare Rights Coalition was right. At issue was state representative Marty Seifert's bizarre and dreadfully wrongheaded proposal that that "welfare recipients should be fined for smoking because the habit increases the state's health costs." (This is also a great argument against government-run healthcare, by the way -- if the government is paying for your care, it will take a much greater say over how you live your life.)

In this case, the Welfare Rights Coalition [Digressive sidebar: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "RIGHT" TO WELFARE! Even the name of this organization is oxymoronic, as well as just plain moronic. But like a blind squirrel, they finally found a nut. Unfortunately, a Republican nut, but clearly a nut nonetheless. Enough bad puns, end sidebar.] was actually correct in fighting the efforts of Representative Seifert, though not clearly for the right reasons. The fact of the matter is that, while it's certainly possible to quit smoking (40 -- or is it closer to 50 now? -- million Americans have done so), it is also very difficult, and can be done only with a great deal of personal commitment, which is to say that the smoker has to really really want to quit, on the inside, in order to be successful. It cannot be forced or coerced by the heavy hand of government. In fact, efforts to do so are likely to be counterproductive, as they compel a stance of resistance.

According to the news report, "Seifert would test smokers on welfare periodically to verify that they've quit" -- can you say violation of civil liberties? And further, that "he'd also like to impose sanctions for gambling and buying alcohol, but said it's too difficult to test for compliance." I like gambling, because it's the only effective way to tax stupidity. And I like booze because, well, I like booze. And it offers a brief escape from reality, and those on welfare can probably use this from time to time.

In other words, Seifert is being class bigot and a classic elitist -- if you don't live your life according to his dictates, then he wants to punish you for that. More specifically, he wants to use the goverment to punish you for that.

As far as welfare, its goal should be to provide temporary help for those down on their luck, and help them return as quickly as possible to a job and self-sufficiency. And once they have a job, the government should stay the heck out of their workplaces in terms of smoking policy (or any other excessive, intrusive regulation) -- that's up to the employer, the entrepreneur who risked his or her own money to launch a business and help grow our economy.

Representative Seifert, please -- leave the assaults on personal and economic freedom to the liberal, socialist, class-bigoted, elitist Democrats who are the experts at this. You are a Republican -- we're the ones who are supposed to be on the side on freedom and the rights of the individual and private businesses against the jackboot of government intervention and intrusion. If you've forgotten that, please switch parties, we don't want you. When you make the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union look like they are on the side of the angels, you've really screwed up.

- posted by Tom Pick @ 2:12 PM

 
Smoking Bans: Time to Tell the Government to Butt Out

On January 1, 2005, the latest example of exessive intrusion of the government into the rights of private businesses and citizens will take effect in Bloomington, Minnesota -- a city-wide smoking ban. Think this is just a matter of getting rid of that nasty, smelly cigarette smoke in bars and restaurants? Wrong -- this is about more, much more. It is about how we allow ourselves to be governed. Will we stand idly by as the government encroaches more and more on our rights, like the probverbial frog in the pot of water slowly brought to the boiling point? Or will we firmly (figuaratively) slap the fingers of our elected representatives when they over-reach, putting them back in their proper place as servants -- not masters -- of those they represent?

There is no medical justification for such a ban. The largest study ever conducted on the issue, by the World Health Organization (hardly a tobacco industry front group), concluded that "while smoking in public may be annoying to some non-smokers, the science does not show that being around a smoker is a lung-cancer risk." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency even released its own, deeply-flawed, study, proporting to demonstrate the risks of second-hand smoke, but the report was so deeply flawed that it was later thrown out in court.

Such bans can't be justified on a public interest basis either. If there were such a strong demand for smoke-free bars and restaurants, more bars and restaurants would voluntarily go smoke-free. If fact, bars realize that 1) smokers are some of their best customers, and 2) there are non-smokers who will occasionally light up when they are drinking. Most restaurant owners have found that they can maximize their own business by accomodating both smokers and non-smokers, e.g. with separate eating areas or smoking permitted only in a bar area. In other words, the free market can deal, quite well, with the preferences of various individuals and groups.

In fact, if exposure to smoke were the real issue, there would no need for banning smoking in separately-ventilated smoking areas within buildings or within X number of feet of doorways or "anywhere on the property" as some establishments have been forced to implement, or even in (outdoor) public parks. The issue isn't about exposure or health, it is about control and bigotry.

This is a blatant grab for power by people who, quite frankly, want to control your life. They are the ideological descendants of the supporters of Jim Crow laws, of those who forced Jews to wear the Star of David, of those who posted "no dogs or Irish allowed" signs. They aren't allowed to hate you anymore for your skin color, religion or ancestry, so now they hate you for more politically correct reasons -- you smoke, you drink, you eat the wrong things, you don't exercise enough or properly, whatever. They are bigots of the worst sort, wrapping themselves in concern over "public health." They hate what you are and they want to control your life.

And you know what? In a free country, they have the right to hate. But they do not have a right to act on it, to make the government a tool of their bigotry. Whether you smoke or not, it's time to tell the government to butt out when it comes to smoking bans. There is no medical or scientific justification for them, and the free market can take care of addressing the preferences of differing groups.

You can start by contacting the Bloomington City Council. Or you can reach the author at libertariantom-at-gmail.com.

- posted by Tom Pick @ 8:15 AM

 
Still More Post-Election Good News

According to CBS MarketWatch today, "U.S. consumer sentiment improved...in early November...The UMich consumer sentiment index rose to 95.5 from 91.7 in October. It's the best reading in three months. Economists were expecting the index to rise to 93.8."

Everyone seems happy about the election outcome -- except for die-hard lefties and global elites. The red states were right -- we rejected the pessimism and hate-mongering of the left, and re-elected the right man.

I've been pondering how the left is a mystery -- in their misguided mind-set, everything is our fault collectively (as in the U.S.A.), yet nothing is our fault individually (as in blaming criminal behavior on one's childhood or "society"). Conservatives are much more clear-headed about this: collectively and individually, we are imperfect, but such imperfection should not dissuade us from striving to improve, and, as November 2 showed, both collectively and individually, we make the right decisions more often than not.



- posted by Tom Pick @ 9:51 AM

 
More Good News on Jobs that the Lamestream Media Won't Report

CBS MarketWatch just reported that "U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by a surprising 337,000 in October, about double the expectation, the Labor Department reported Friday...In addition, payroll gains in August and September were revised higher by a cumulative 115,000." The unemployment rate now stands at 5.5%.

Apparently Bush's "appalling" record on job creation isn't so bad after all. Looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for the last 10 years, the average unemployment rate for the first 10 months of 2004 is lower than the average rate for 1994 or 1995, and only slightly higher than 1996 -- yet I don't recall the lamestream press complaining about "the worst job market in 50 years" during the Clintonista era. The worst month for unemployment during W's administration was June 2003, when the jobless rate peaked at 6.3%; unemployment was higher than that during the first four months of 2004, yet again, I don't recall that level generating the same type of headlines and handwringing under Clinton that it has under Bush II. It's also important to note that since the June 2003 peak, the unemployment rate has been falling steadily; payrolls have now expanded every month for 14 straight months.

Think that kind of positive news might have swayed a few more voters to the Republican side on November 2? Of course; that's why the lamestream media didn't dare to report it.

- posted by Tom Pick @ 6:58 AM

 
How Can Anyone Possibly Consider Voting for Kerry?

Seriously -- how can any thinking person comtemplate a vote for Kerry? How can this election possibly still be close at this point?

I know, you probably don't like some of the things that George W has done -- that's a universal feeling. He's human, he's made some mistakes. But his instincts are right, and he's gotten the policy right on the big issues, and most importantly, he's NOT KERRY.

Let's take just three of the many issues available: taxes, healthcare and terrorism.

Bush has cut taxes for everyone who pays them. This is stimulating the economy. GDP growth was at 3.7% last quarter and unemployment is now below 5.7%.

Kerry will raise your taxes. He has to; he's promised more than $2 trillion in spending over the next 10 years, and smaller deficits, and proposed to pay for all of this by "rolling back" Bush's tax cuts for those earning more than $200K annually. However, this "rollback" will only produce about $700 billion over the next ten years using the most optimistic estimates; so there's no way to make this math work without significant, across-the-board tax increases. His promise of a "middle class tax cut" is hogwash; he's voted over and over again, consistently and repeatedly, to raise taxes on the middle class, and against middle-class tax cuts -- why would anyone believe this promise? Every taxpayer will face increased taxation under Kerry.

Next, healthcare. Yes, it's screwed up. Too many people don't have coverage, and the coverage is too expensive for those who do. Bush wants to use the power of competition and the marketplace to increase availability and decrease costs. Kerry wants to use a massive new government program. Deregulation works every time -- we deregulated long-distance phone service and got innovation, lower costs, and higher quality. We deregualted airline travel and got safer, cheaper, more convenient flights. When has a monopoly -- particularly a government monopoly -- EVER decreased costs and improved service? This has never happened. There's no reason to believe it will happen with healthcare. Bush is getting this right, Kerry is trying to lead us down the wrong path.

Finally, terrorism and national security. The Bush administration has gotten some of the details wrong, but it's got the big picture right. President Bush realizes that we need to take the fight to the terrorists, where they are. We can never defend every nook and cranny of America from every conceivable threat. We can't wait to be attacked again before taking action. Bush has the moral clarity to recognize evil for what it is, and the strategic insight to know that we have to go on the offensive against terror if we want to keep our country safe. That's why 80% of active U.S. military personnel AND veterans support him. They get it. Too many civilians, apparently, don't.

Kerry has said that he wants a return to the days when terrorism was a "nuisance." This is incredibly dangerous, bizarre thinking. Terrorism wasn't a "nuisance" when more than 240 of our Marines were blown up in Lebanon in 1983. It wasn't a nuisance when six people were killed in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or when 17 U.S. Navy personnel were killed in the U.S.S. Cole attack, or when 19 U.S. service personnel were blown up in the Kohbar Towers, or when more than 200 people were killed when two of our embassies in Africa were bombed. It has never been a "nuisance," and the use of such a term by the man who wants to be our commander in chief is beyond irresponsible. Summits won't stop terrorists. Neither will U.N resolutions. Neither will the French or Germans, neither of whom have any intention of committing troops to aid in the war on terror. Bashing our existing allies while daydreaming of grand alliances won't keep America safe. George Bush gets that, John Kerry, terrifyingly, doesn't.

This shouldn't be close. I'm praying for a last-minute epidemic of mass sanity.

- posted by Tom Pick @ 2:58 PM

 
Democrats, Drunks and Denial

I once knew a guy -- I'll call him Fred -- who was an alcoholic. Drank himself into oblivion with alarming frequency. Amazingly, all of the problems in Fred's life (according to Fred) were someone else's fault: lost his job (again)? The boss was a jerk. Wife left him? She was a -- well, as they said about Leona Helmsley, "rhymes with rich." Kids didn't want to be around him? His ex-wife, the, uh, witch, turned them against him. And so on. Fred lived a miserable, failed life because he could never look himself in the mirror and admit that any of these problems might be of his own making.

I can't help but think of Fred when I look at today's Democratic party. They've now lost the White House, congress, the Senate, most of the nation's governorships, and why? Because mainstream U.S.A. is rejecting their high tax, big government, extreme pro-abortion, radical environmentalist, excessively regulatory, terrorism-is-a-law-enforcement-issue policies? No, because Republicans are mean. Republicans are relentless with their dirty tricks, that's why they keep winning: it has nothing to do with the public's embrace of a positive, ownership-oriented economic plan and confidence in our war on terror. Or the failed policies of tax-spend-regulate-sue. No, it's just nasty campaigning.

In recent Newsweek piece, Jonathan Alter decried what he called the Democrats' "toughness gap." According to Alter, Democrats lose because they are unwilling to engage in the kind of dirty tricks the Republicans are so good at. "The toughness gap is the Democrats' own fault. Because liberals are temperamentally self-critical, they tend to see more grays than black-and-whites" Ah, that nuance thing. "Republicans offer 'red meat,' a sense that they share the resentments of their audience. Democrats, schooled in political correctness, tiptoe around...ever anxious not to offend." Oh really?

The Dan Rather forged memo affair, covered so comprehensively by Powerline and Hugh Hewitt, wasn't a counterexample, surely. Democrats just don't do this sort of thing. It would just be so out of character for them, and the Republicans are so good at it, that the Democrats are now blaming Memogate on...Karl Rove!

And the "discovery" of George W. Bush's 1976 DUI arrest in Maine, just days before the 2000 election -- that wouldn't be example of Democrats practicing the partisan dirty tricks they now decry, now would it. Nah.

Any notion that Democrats lose because they are much too nice, and Republicans win because they're mean, should be obvious bunk to anyone with an IQ above room temperature. Two recent posts from Michael Moore's web site demonstrate this quite clearly. (Wait, you object, Moore is on the fringe -- he's not representative of the party! Okay, both parties do have their fringe elements; on the Republican side, we had the Clinton-ran-drugs-through-Mena-before-he-had-Vince-Foster-killed ranters -- but we never allowed the party to be infected by this. Republicans keep their fringe element on the fringe, not in the center of the party. To the Democrats, however, Moore is no fringe element -- he is emblematic of the party. Scads of powerful Democratic elected officials, and their major donors, attended the opening of Moore's propaganda screed Farenheit 911. Tom Daschle hugged him. Moore sat next to former-president Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention.)

In this posting by Moore, he writes that "They (Republicans) are never finished -- they just keep moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying...It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet." He actually makes the claim that polls are misleading because they rely on "likely voters." And he closes with an entreaty to "defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face." Don't you just love the civilized, intellectual tone here?

In another post on Moore's site, Garrison Keillor (author, National Public Radio personality, and liberal sage of Minnesota) is even more high-minded and philosophical: "The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk...Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of." (Find yourself in there? I think I'm a "misanthropic frat boy" aspiring to become a "Lamborghini libertarian.) Like Moore, Keillor also uses the e-word, as in Republicans have become "the party of Newt Gingrich's evil spawn." Ronald Reagan (the "Evil Empire") and President Bush (the "axis of evil") used "evil" to refer to autocratic, mass-murdering regimes that subjugate their own people and menace their neighbors; Moore and Keillor use it to describe a guy whose public policy they disagree with. Clearly, an indication of the nuance and discernment of the Left.

The name-calling and refusal to address real issues remind me of alcoholic Fred. But remember, it's Republicans, not Democrats, who are mean.

Keillor would seem to be at home with this type of sentiment: "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States;" and to be duly appalled by a President who would say about war, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it," and about income inequality, "Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The first quote above is from the Chicago Sun-Times -- November 20, 1863, referring to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The second two quotes are from Lincoln himself. Perhaps we are not so far from the "party of Lincoln and Liberty" as Keillor suggests?

Keillor himself gets to the real reason the Democrats will once again lose in this fall's elections, when he writes "it's 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn't the 'end of innocence,' or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security." A lapse of security. If airport security at Logan had just stopped those box cutter-wielding terrorists from getting on those planes that morning, we'd be just fine, back in Clintonian nirvana. All nineteen of them would have just told Osama that it didn't work, and they were going back to their old lives. Al Qaeda would have just thrown in the towel. The Left is in la-la land on this, and the voting public knows it, and that's why they are doomed again this November.

In his Newsweek piece, Alter did get one thing (almost) right: "If Kerry loses, the Democratic establishment may be done, too. Fire-breathing liberals, mirror images of the ideologues on the right, will take over the party, likely dooming it to yet more defeat in a country that is fundamentally moderate." Too late; the fire-breathers already rule their party. Keillor and Moore are the Democratic party, and they aren't losing because they're too nice.

- posted by Tom Pick @ 10:10 AM