Monday, August 25, 2008

VP T-Paw?



Will Governor Tim Pawlenty become our nation's next vice president? It's hard to keep track of all the many factors at play. Each week, the VP Pawlenty Meter (TM) provides an odds sheet to ensure you make your best bet.

OK, first a confession: We have no inside dope, so we don't really know for sure that Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty will be chosen by McCain this week. Which means we may very well look just as foolish as the rest of the media when they were prematurely forecasting Obama's pick. But the stars are certainly seeming to line up in his favor.
- City Pages

Minnesotans are struggling between paying attention to the Fried Food on a Stick at the State Fair this week, or wondering if the Gov will be the Veep. (BTW - the paper has a horrid photo of him, he really doesn't look that dorky.) I think the Fair's winning. After all, we won't really be able to avoid the whole thing by Monday, when the Axis of Evil invades our fair cities.

2 comments:

Ted said...

Despite the Dems and the allied main stream media’s desperation to see Romney as McCain’s Veep, Mitt is clearly out, with (1) Obama doubling down on the class warfare theme (McCain’s 7 houses) and (2) McCain doubling down with ads showing the hypocrisy of Biden attacking Obama in the primaries — Romney did way more than that contra McCain.

This leaves only Govs Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty. Pro-abortion Ridge and Dem-Lieberman were never real considerations, despite relentless media goading. Pawlenty’s lackluster TV performances, coupled with Palin pizzazz, the primacy of oil drilling and the ticked off women/Hillary voters, does now portend a McCain/Palin checkmate on the Dems. This is so albeit the Dems and liberal media dare not mention Palin’s name, that is, everyone but…..

And if there’s any question as to Palin being uniquely positioned and able to more than nullify Biden in debate, see the excellent discussion at palinforvp.blogspot.com

Team McCain, well done!!!

Gopher MPH said...

Ted,

I noticed that you have the exact same post on the vote-palin blog. Was there some reason you repeated the post on my blog?

Palin is no more likely to be nominated VP than Pawlenty. No one outside of Alaska or Minnesota has heard of either one, unless they are the minority very closely following the election coverage and betting pools (as the City Pages posits).

If one subscribes to the Whose State Has More Electoral Votes ... we here in MN have AK beat, hands down. I doubt Pawlenty has been that lackluster. He comes across fine in person and on the radio (sorry, don't own a functional TV at the moment). I haven't even heard any DFL pundits wishing for him to be on the ticket.

“How to Beat Biden”, on your blog option, is really irrelevant. The VP needs to be seen to compliment the top of the ticket. And not be seen as a total dork. People are going to vote for Obama or McCain, not Biden/TBA.

Enacting "Change", you claim? For a state with
a population lower than 1/3 of the Twin Cities
where there is no state debt due to oil income,
a median income of $54,627 (the 6th highest in the US - since MN has the 5th highest, I suppose that is a wash)
no state income taxes
no state sales tax
.... give me a break.
What sort of change is it? You can do an awful lot with little opposition form the People, if they never see the bill for it.

How do you expect her to step into the executive branch of a government with a stupefying debt load grossly increasing daily, and be able to lead? What can she lead, besides oil businesses? I don’t see her as having had any particular experiences as a governor which cry out “vote for me on a national ticket”.

If you want to set up a killer VP choice, Palin will be fresh meat for the Dems. They can't stop harping on McCain about his energy policy, especially his policies on drilling for oil. From the Oil Capitol of the USA, with 80% of the state’s income from petroleum, she is going to be painted as the Oil Queen, who will be totally in the pocket of Big Oil and a total toady to McCain's Drill Everywhere Now! policy. ... now, she might not be in reality, I'm simply pointing out that she will be painted that way.

Pawlenty is going to be painted as ... what? The governor of some Midwest state. The greatest political association anyone under 40 has with the state is Jessie Ventura, whom the Republicans can simply point & laugh at. Despite being "blue", the only firmly blue part of the state is in the Twin Cities & he’s pretty popular with the Republicans here. For the rest of the country, he’s a blank slate. He isn’t going to be easily painted into any particular corner. Minnesota is a high-tech/Ag mixture. We have a huge debt, which isn’t being balanced - and which has stupendously increased during his administration. He got the big shot at national, if not international, limelight last August when the bridge collapsed. Despite appointing the idiot @ MnDoT --- oh, I mean his Lt. Governor --- he did all of the right things during & after the disaster.

What he’ll get pounded on by the Dems is his position on a) public transport funding [as in not doing it, until confronted with a transportation disaster of international repute], b) objecting to greenhouse gas control legislature [and similar unenthusiastic environmental policies in a state so heavily dependent upon having a nice, clean environment], and c) the abrupt transformation into a National Republican following his last election from the State Republican of his first administration.

McCain isn’t going to pander to the I-Love-Hilary crowd after the Denver get-together this week. All this I Love Hilary but Am Voting Republican garbage ads will stop after Obama is official nominated and Clinton releases her delegates (after the first roll call vote). The rabid feminists who want her for (apparently) no other reason than her possession of ovaries, will choke on the Republicans’ anti-abortion mantra.

My money in on T-Paw before Palin.