Almanac: At the Capitol

After Governor Pawlenty's recent photo-op trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, those of us back home in Minnesota are being forced to ask whether he intends to fulfill his commitment, made before the 2006 elections, to serve a full four-year term in St. Paul. Is he burnishing his national and foreign-policy credentials for a shot at Washington as John McCain's running mate?

It's not just a rhetorical question. Governor Pawlenty was one of the few Republican survivors in a national Democratic wave in 2006, leads what could charitably be called a "bluish-purple" state, and would provide geographic balance for the Arizona Senator's ticket. Given that Pawlenty himself has never attained a majority in statewide elections in Minnesota, it's doubtful whether his presence would actually put Minnesota into the "toss-up" category in 2008.

However, there are other practical reasons for McCain to choose him: McCain is old. He will be 72 years old in 2008. Part of choosing a Vice Presidential candidate is finding someone to serve as a political successor, and Pawlenty's relative youth and simplistic speaking style provide a fitting target.

But what about his responsibilities at home? The question is raised every time a sitting official runs for higher office: Should he or she resign from a current position in order to run full-time and make sure their constituents get the attention they deserves? Arizona should be asking this about their senior Senator, who just yesterday missed a vote on implementation of the 9/11 Commission's national security recommendations. Minnesota should be asking the same thing about its Governor.

I don't think it's too much to ask that the Governor keeps his constituents updated on his political plans in a timely fashion. Anything less would be somewhat impractical and more than somewhat disingenuous.

After all, did anyone vote for Governor Molnau in 2006?

Over the past two weeks the Walter Reed Army Medical Center has become more than a simple medical facility located in Washington, DC. Just as New Orleans before it, Walter Reed has become tangible metaphor for the lack of accountability and oversight that this administration has made a central tenant of their modus operandi. But unlike New Orleans, Walter Reed carries with it an embarrassing peek into the plaguing hypocrisy of the Bush administration and the prior Republican Congress. While casting those who question the direction of the Iraq War as unpatriotic, President Bush and his previously loyal Congress cast aside the patriots that come home from Iraq broken and battered by cutting the funding that is to sustain them.

Yet, we would be foolish to lay the blame for this garish hypocrisy at the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and move on. For while the remaining Republican Representatives and Senators have been forced to put on a new face of responsible opposition, many of them were quietly (and some vocally) complicit in the irresponsible actions that led to Walter Reed over the last six years. President Bush may be Commander-in-Chief, but it took many "aye" votes in both houses of Congress to lead us down the path we find ourselves on.

The most embarrassing failure of the previous Congress was its complete failure to carry out its constitutional duty of oversight. Why has it taken this long to figure out that a system that has been widely reported on as broken is, in fact, broken? Why has there been a total lack of investigations into the shady areas of the Iraq war? Why was this past Congress so insistent on cutting taxes while simultaneously writing a check for the full amount requested every time a supplemental funding bill for Iraq came around?

Clearly we need to look for the answers to these questions nationally, but we, as Minnesotans, also need to look closely at our own DC delegation. The answers we're looking for may be found underneath the plaque that reads "Former Chairman, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations."

In what feels like the end of the quickest campaign vacation ever, St. Paul will be meeting for caucuses tonight and, among other things, will participate in the first Minnesota Presidential Straw Poll. Caucusing in presidential years tends to mostly involve party stalwarts and those with vested interests in referendums; in a midterm year the numbers drop drastically. So for a year that involves nothing but school board and city council, the thought that the caucus goers truly represent a full cross-hatch of Minnesota is doubtful. But still, you have to wonder — can a woman win the presidential straw poll?

In the latest polling done by Rasmussen Reports, Senator Hillary Clinton is leading Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards by 8% and 19% respectively, hauling in 34% of the vote for those who have a preference. And if anyone is progressive enough to give a female candidate a chance, surely it's the same group of caucus goers who are, according to the Pioneer Press, likely to take an already progressive city council and possibly make it even more liberal.

Yet that may be the nail in the coffin for Clinton. The same group of politically-minded folks who would be at ease in voting for a women will dislike many of the stands she took to make herself seem more palatable to those who may see a female candidate as weak, especially her positions on the War in Iraq.

So likely we'll find that the caucus is over and Obama or Edwards will walk away crowned King of the Straw poll. And Clinton will find that her first opportunity to score a win will have simply blown away in the wind.

It's not just a cottage industry anymore — being outraged at something, all the time, has become a way of life for many of us political junkies and professionals.

The logic behind it isn't that hard to discern — if you can get a group of people angry at something those people are doing, it will be far easier to get them to write a check, make some phone calls, or knock on some doors for you and your side. But as I discovered in a recent interview with Nate Garvis of the Citizens' League, this "outrage industry" in and around politics is ultimately a destructive one — it will get some people involved for a while, but ultimately it's only going to turn massive numbers of people off to the political process.

Some may think that's a good thing; I disagree.

I also disagree that it's one side that engages in this encouragement of outrage. The DFL and Republican parties both express incredulity on a regular basis as they demand that the other side submits to their political will. Which, of course, will never happen, and the cycle continues.

In 2007, however, there's an important difference between the things over which the two parties are expressing their eternal outrage. While the Republican legislative leadership in Minnesota waxes rhetoric about not being allowed input on DFL-sponsored bills, the DFL is complaining — rightfully so, I think — about the GOP obstructing an agenda that was pretty clearly endorsed by the electorate last year.

In Congress, Republicans have built years of experience expressing outrage on a litany of topics, including the same "Democrats won't let us have input" whine. On the other hand, Democrats have been outraged at President Bush's conduct of a war, predicated on a lie, that has cost us thousands of American lives and billions upon billions of dollars.

And even in the blogosphere, partisans get outraged with one another — shocking, isn't it? Left-leaning bloggers are outraged at the maneuvers Republican lawmakers engage in to thwart the Democratic majorities, and at President Bush for any number of bungles, screw-ups, mishaps, or demonstrations of gross incompetance. On the other side, righty bloggers rev up their spin machine over minor legislation, Congressional websites not being set up immediately, a popularly-elected Secretary of State's every word, and are aghast that left-leaning bloggers might use a naughty word from time to time. And are fat.

I would demonstrate that I am indeed not joking about these things, but for the fact that I am loathe to link to these travesties. I'm not going to say I'm not a little outraged — that is, after all, part of what we in the political game today do. I can honestly say I'm doing my best to take things in stride and save true outrage for when it's deserved. But it does seem like there's an asymmetry today in the things that cause us outrage, doesn't it? One side worried about a waste of lives and American prestige, the other worried about freedom to poop and fat potty-mouthed liberals.

Interesting.

In "Spring Pools," Robert Frost wrote: "The trees that have it in their pent-up buds, To darken nature and be summer woods, Let them think twice before they use their powers..."

Like those trees, the Minnesota Republican power might want to think twice before pursuing the strategy it has already threatened of dredging up the personal life of candidates who have the temerity to challenge Norm Coleman for his Senate seat next year. There is, of course, the question of efficacy: in the current political climate, do party leaders really believe that sliming Al Franken or Michael Ciresi or any other opponent is going to get Coleman, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the Senate, a second-term? Such classic Rovian dirtball tactics might work in a more complacent time — like the mid- to late-1990s — but the United States today is a country in the midst of a full-scale, multi-dimensional crisis, and it is going to take more than a few juicy guilt-by-association tales of SNL's hedonistic early days to do the trick.

The second, and even more compelling reason, is that the good Senator is now and has for many, many years, been a scandal waiting to blow up. There isn't any reason to believe that in a gloves-off campaign, no enterprising blogger is going to look into the persistent — and, I have every reason to believe, true — rumors about Coleman's personal life. Why little of the dirt on Coleman has yet to come to light is unclear to me, except that there appears to be a gentleperson's understanding on the part of the mainstream media in this town to look the other way (an agreement, incidentally, that tends to validate suspicions that most reporters are liberals; the primary expression of that liberalism is for the press to bend over backward to appear fair and objective toward right-wing politicos). But the bloggosphere is a much more rough-and-tumble place than the newsroom at the Strib or the Pioneer Press (not to mention MPR), and there's no reason to think that the kid-glove treatment of Coleman will persist.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party ought to be worrying about a much bigger problem than trying to slide Coleman back into office. Simply put, if the United States is still bogged down in Iraq in November 2008, there isn't going to be enough of the GOP left to sweep up off the floor on the day after the election. Not that the party of Crony Capitalism and Christian fascists doesn't deserve to disappear — though I'm sure it will continue to thrive in its stronghold of the un-Reconstructed South. Unfortunately, the honorable remnant of the party will be thrown out with the bathwater. It will be a pity if our nominally two-party system ends up as a one-party party. There is a need in this country for a political party that stands for libertarian values, fiscal responsibility (well, that's at least what the Republican Party used to stand for), individual rights (once again, a once and perhaps future GOP value) and other principles once championed by the party of Lincoln. And besides, no matter what the party, one-party rule is inherently corrupting — ask Jim Wright or Dan Rostenkowski.

No, if party leaders were smart, they'd stop plotting dirty tricks and start figuring out ways to bring American troops home from Iraq — and keep the Mad Bomber in the White House from launching a pre-emptive war on Iran. Under Bush, the GOP (with a mighty assist, of course, from the Democratically controlled majority in the Senate in 2002; BTW, no Dem who voted for the Authorization to Use Force should be allowed to run for President — ever) helped open the gates of hell in the Middle East. If they're still open in 2008, the Republican Party, like the spring pools in Frost's poem, will be swept away like "snow that melted only yesterday."