Who Lost? My Two Cents

Last post, I stated why overall, the Republicans won the 2011 Minnesota Legislative Session.  Their mandate to stop the mindless, endless spending in St. Paul was clear.  The GOP takeover of the Senate alone is proof enough.  But as the Democrats repeatedly found with Tim Pawlenty, the Governor can be an almost immovable bulwark against legislative agendas.  Add demonstrably incompetent coverage by most of the media and I even now further admire what the GOP accomplished this year.

So much for the victors.  Who were the losers?

Certainly not the media.  If you throw progressive pebbles in a liberal pond, do they make waves?  One could hope that some of their followers are smart enough to question the questionable.  Hey, wait a minute - this number is the larger of the two.  That's clearly not what he meant.  They tried that in another state.  Why do I get a different result with my calculator?  Why the secrecy?  No, they'll just keep on keeping on.

I don't think the Governor really lost either.  He's too set in his ways, oblivious to the changing world around him.  He's got his resume updated and won't be running again.  Besides, it was a lot more work than he thought, even after avoiding as much of it as he could.  He has retired once again for the balance of his term and few should be surprised if he decides to step down early.

Some pundits that I otherwise follow and admire are matter of factly saying that there will be change in the GOP leadership next session, primarily the House, primarily the Speaker of the House, Kurt Zellers.  Some go further, saying that anyone who was part of "first, best, and last offer" strategy should be replaced, meaning more Conservative primary challengers need to be found.  I view this as both premature and unfounded.  Given what played out, does anyone think a $32 billion budget could have survived for long given the Governor and his friends in the media?  Don't forget, Dayton didn't have to fold because his spending was too low.  It was the absurdity of our over-regulatory state government that his interests could not afford to see further exposed.  There was no way to anticipate that outcome in setting dollar targets.

And let's not forget that, say, the Kurt Zellers that emerged from this session is not the admittedly inexperienced Kurt Zellers that opened it.  There is a learning curve, and I have no reason to think he won't further improve with experience.  Furthermore, at every point along the way he was much better than the flustered, blustering Margart Anderson Kelliher in her first year.  I therefore say to my more excitable friends, we can always dream of drawing more perfect candidates and leaders but I'll play these.  I say again, overall, the battle was won.

So who did lose?  The DFL leadership.  I'll excuse their rank and file at least one year, for their Governor and their leaders somewhat unexpectedly left them out the loop.  The Governor in turn left the DFL leadership out of the loop.  In a rare point of agreement, even Mark Dayton could see how absolutely useless Senate Minority Leader Tom Baak and House Minority Leader Paul Thissen were.  This actually surprises me, for more than once in the past, Baak in particular looked much more the leader than his Senate Majority Leader boss Larry Pogemiller.

All these two did was whine, and not very well at that given how even this left-leaning media largely ignored them.  It was the Governor's show all the way.  It was like Baak and Thissen were fearful of retribution should they oppose the Governor, even on an obvious reform like technology consolidation.  They contributed nothing and wouldn't let their members contribute anything.  Is it possible that Senator Linda Berglin's retirement has as much to do with her party's hopeless leadership as it does her minority party status?

The DFL remains a potent political force, arguably still the most powerful yet with their union and media alliances.  We in the GOP have a short window to produce the results to finally reverse that.  We have no time for foolish, unnecessary leadership changes and more than we can assume that the current vacuum atop the DFL will continue.

Comments

[Hiram]

"I'll excuse their rank and file at least one year, for their Governor and their leaders somewhat unexpectedly left them out the loop."

I wasn't all that surprised that DFL legislators were left out of the loop. In terms of power, they had absolutely none, so they had nothing to bring to the table. And Mark Dayton has always operated outside the the legislative and party structure. He simply did not know those people.

[Hiram]

"I view this as both premature and unfounded. Given what played out, does anyone think a $32 billion budget could have survived for long given the Governor and his friends in the media?"

Republicans had they reached that deal, could have made a 32 billion dollar deal stick. Speaker Zellers and Sen. Koch did agree to a 35.5 billion dollar budget, the increase to be paid for by the poor and the middle class. They were able to protect the high income earners, all of whom, are presumably now using the money they saved in taxes to create jobs for the rest of us.

[just saying]

"I view this as both premature and unfounded. Given what played out, does anyone think a $32 billion budget could have survived for long given the Governor and his friends in the media?"

If you give into $34 billion before you even have the threat of a shutdown, you have already lost. They should have said $32 and when Dayton said no, they should have countered with $30 billion. Instead, Dayton pretty much got the spending he wanted except it is going to be paid for by another generation.
The GOP didn't protect the rich as the rich already pay more than their fair share of the income taxes in this god forsaken state. If people actually read the Tax Incidence Study instead of relying on the media to read it to them, they'd know that. If I were rich, I wouldn’t create one single job until the political climate favored job creation instead of the uncertainty that currently exists with the tax the rich mentality of the state and federal leader, leader used loosely.

[Speed Gibson]

This was a situation where logic and the assumption that you're dealing with honest brokers do not apply. Remember Wisconsin?

[Hiram]

The Republicans didn't want to go to 30 or even 32 because they didn't want to go back to their districts with cuts. They had no problem at all with 35.5 billion just as long as they could maintain the fiction that it wasn't their voters who are paying for it.

[Speed Gibson]

More specifically, they know how hard it to first unlearn the BS the media taught them, so that their constituents can actually grasp the reality of ballooning spending.

[Dennis]

Truth is, Dayton didn't get the spending that he wanted--he got the spending that Minnesota needed to survive.

The Republicans will be removed in November 2012 and Dayton and a new, more intelligent legislature can begin the task of fixing the problems caused by those Republicans.

There will be some pain in the meantime.

[Speed Gibson]

Survive? When Pawlenty closed the $4 B "Mega Honking" deficit in 2003, the DFL wailed about all the consequences - that never showed up. Here, we raise spending still further to another historic high, and it's still not enough?

[Hiram]

Looking back on things, the governor, in his negotiations with Minnesota's Republicans, seems to have done significantly better than the president did in his negotiations with Republicans on the federal level. It might be interesting to think about why.