This is so fitting for a man who left our state with a $5 billion deficit and tried to call it a surplus:

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s exit from the Republican primary was likely hastened by the fact that his presidential campaign was in debt, several sources tell The Huffington Post….

One source suggested the campaign’s debt was as high as $500,000, but another source with closer knowledge of the campaign deemed that figure far exaggerated. The official tally will be revealed on Oct. 15, when Pawlenty must deliver another filing to the Federal Election Commission. [Huffington Post, via Political Wire]

Pawlenty is a typical Republican, lecturing us about “fiscal responsibility” while running the finances of both this state and his own presidential campaign into the ground.

What would be even better than Tim Pawlenty’s humiliation in Iowa? A second Pawlenty humiliation at the hands of Amy Klobuchar. I think that would be awesome, and apparently so does MNGOP chairman Tony Sutton:

“Now that he’s not running for president, I sure hope he’d consider running for U.S. Senate,” said Sutton. “I think he’d make a heck of a candidate.” [MPR, via Politico]

Closed-circuit to Tim Pawlenty: This is a great idea. You should do it.

Well, that didn’t go so well.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination on Sunday, hours after finishing a disappointing third in the Iowa straw poll.

I have a few disjointed thoughts on Pawlenty’s collapse and Michele Bachmann’s ascendance:

Pawlenty’s collapse shows just how damaging a mistake in the debates can be. I can’t help being struck by how drastically perceptions of Pawlenty changed after his failure to confront Mitt Romney in a June debate. That certainly wasn’t the sole reason for Pawlenty’s fall from grace, but it played an enormous role.

I would love to see Michele Bachmann win the Republican nomination. A crazy, unelectable candidate for the general election, plus Bachmann stepping down from the MN-6 House seat? Yes, please.

The Ames straw poll is ridiculous. It’s bad enough that we have decided, for some peculiar reason, that Iowa and New Hampshire deserve such an outsized role in every presidential election. The Ames straw poll is even worse. I have no love for Tim Pawlenty, but when an unrepresentative group of less than 20,000 Iowans can lead a candidate to drop out of the race, that’s just not a healthy system.

On ABC this morning, former Governor Pawlenty said that he was ending his bid for the Whitee House following a “disappointing” third place finish in the Iowa Straw Poll.

Mr. Pawlenty, meet me in Camera 3: “Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?  You’ve been running for years.  You were a strong candidate for McCain’s Veep in 2008.  You are one of the few people in the race who isn’t crazy and has actual experience.  We may not agree on much (ok, almost anything), but at a time when your party is full of batshit lunacy, don’t you see the merit in trying to take a strong stand for a more sane and, God willing, humane brand of conservatism?  I mean, Christ, you bow out because you didn’t win the Iowa Straw Poll?  It’s a non-binding exercise in buying the votes of evangelical Christians who love carnival food!  You’re better than this.”  

Ah, but there’s a catch! 

The New York Times is reporting that Mr. Pawlenty’s campaign was based largely/entirely on a strong finish in the straw poll, and that failing to win imploded his candidacy.  

Wait, what?  Back to Camera 3: “You built your ‘robust’ campaign plan around winning over evangelicals?  You, the quiet fiscal warrior?  You, the Romney lite?  You, the guy who’s good in the room and a darling, of sorts, of establishment Republicans?  You staked your candidacy - FOR THE WHITE HOUSE - on winning over enough people with nothing to do on a Saturday in Ames, Iowa?  You know what, maybe you should bow out.  You might be better suited for something else.”

Alright, folks.  Saddle up.  Minnesota will now be known as Bachmann county for the rest of this race.  Brace yourself for the latest wave of disbelief and inquiry from your out-of-state friends.   

“I have fought against irresponsible spending while Governor Pawlenty was leaving a multi-billion-dollar budget mess in Minnesota.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59770.html

Kick his ass Michele!  Jesus loves you!

Submitted by Steve Nichols. I don’t care for Bachmann, but she’s certainly right about our budget mess. 

Despite their repeated claims, spending would not go up under the GOP budget. They would have us spend less than we did even at the height of the recession. Not only is the GOP planning to cut state services, it’s actually worse than it sounds. There are a few important things to keep in mind about their budget proposal:

1. The GOP would cut our budget in actual dollars. Accounting for inflation, it’s significantly worse.
2. They want to cut our budget from austerity levels that were already doing harm to Minnesotans.
3. Health care costs are soaring, but the GOP doesn’t want to pay them. They don’t have a plan to reform the system; instead they just plan to cut off 22,000 Minnesotans.

So if they’re planning to cut spending, how can they claim they’re going to increase it? It’s funny, in a sad way. Tim Pawlenty’s fiscal mismanagement and accounting gimmicks have given Republicans a political weapon. You see, billions of dollars of spending in the last biennium came from outside funds, and nearly $2 billion more was “shifted” (read “stolen”) from our schools.

Confused? I don’t blame you. Maybe this will help: Alec at MN Progressive Project has helpfully annotated a chart originally produced by the fiscal staff of the Republican-run House [PDF], which shows what our spending really was when you factor everything in:

Notice the $1.9 billion in school shifts at the top. Like I wrote way back in December, this whole debate comes back to Tim Pawlenty’s school shift:

Read More

One of the most ridiculous tenets of orthodox conservatism is that lower taxes lead to higher revenues. The Bush tax cuts were an excellent example in recent history. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich led to fewer jobs and lower revenues — the exact opposite of what Republicans like to pretend.

But you don’t get to win Republican primaries if you’re not a Believer. So our own Tim Pawlenty has dutifully crafted his economic plan, such as it is, around the Republicans’ Central Pillar of Economic Faith.

I propose reducing the [corporate tax] rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, recognizing that the tax code is littered with special interest handouts, carve-outs, subsidies and loopholes that should be eliminated.

But just changing business tax rates is not enough. That’s because we know most job growth will come from small and medium-size businesses, and their owners are taxed under individual tax rates, not corporate rates. So, pro-job and pro-growth tax reform must include individual tax reform as well.

Five percent economic growth over 10 years would generate $3.8 trillion dollars in new tax revenues.

Wow, sounds great! But why stop there? After all, if low taxes produce more revenue, lower taxes will produce even more, right? I say, eliminate the corporate tax altogether. That should generate about $7 trillion in new tax revenues, right?

Hmm. There seems to be a flaw in this logic somewhere.

Ben Smith points out Pawlenty’s first gaffe on the Presidential trail:

REPORTER: U.S. foreign policy towards Iran [unintelligible] how would you address contradictions in the U.S? On the one hand we are opposing Iranian policy, but on the other hand by U.S. reconfigurating that part of the world we made Iran dominating Iraq and now we are pinning it on dominating of Pakistan. How would you address this contradiction in our foreign policy?

PAWLENTY: You’re talking about Iran?

REPORTER: Exactly.

PAWLENTY: Yeah, well I think the situation now in Iran is such that Secretary Gates is negotiating with whether the United States military will be there beyond the end of this year. And they’re looking to the Iranians to see if they invite the Americans to stay, invite us to stay. And if they do invite us to stay at some very reduced level I think the United States will be wise, until we make sure that they get to the next level of stability, to accept that invitation. So if Iran makes that invitation by the end of the year, leaving a residual force, a greatly reduced force, but a residual force that would be there for a temporary amount of time. Until they could establish much better air security, until they can develop their intelligence —

REPORTER: You mean Iraq not Iran, because Iran —

PAWLENTY: I’m sorry, Iraq, yes, yes. You said — did you say Iran or Iraq?

I love that he confirms that the question was about Iran, then screws it up anyway.  I know everyone makes mistakes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t chuckle when TPaw screws up.