Tim Pawlenty's Politics of Hate

[Minnesota Raindog]

This is an excellent summary of Tim Pawlenty's campaign against the human rights of BLGT people. It's an ugly story, and one that deserves to be told wherever Timmy the Tool campaigns for president.

http://mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/6271/#12000

By State Senator Scott Dibble (DFL-Minneapolis)

In his bid for the presidency it will be interesting to see if my Governor, Tim Pawlenty, will try to perpetuate the air of a hip, young-ish, Bruce Springsteen fan, and infer that he is in step with the growing acceptance of LGBT people and families. To do so would be profoundly misleading, having achieved political success by emphasizing his hostility to LGBT people and many others.

His latest salvo is the veto of a common sense measure that would have allowed us explicit legal rights to carry out our partners' final wishes, make funeral arrangements and to be able to recover from those liable for our partners' wrongful death.

These are perhaps the most sensitive decisions someone will ever make regarding the one they love. But LGBT Minnesotans, our friends

When first elected to the Minnesota House in 1992, he was your run of the mill, suburban moderate Republican, corporate law firm, up-and-comer. In his first year he voted for a successful amendment to Minnesota's Human Rights Act to bar discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens. In his first interview after becoming a candidate for Governor, he found it important to announce that his only regret as a legislator was having cast that very vote. Clearly gubernatorial candidate Pawlenty knew that any ambitious Republican politician had to up his anti-gay quotient. He refreshed that tactic, calling these protections "overbaked" in a recent Newsweek interview profiling his presidential ambition. On the Sunday morning talkies, he has asserted of late that Don't Ask Don't Tell is not "broken" and doesn't need "fixing".
Since deciding he was statewide, now national political material, Tim Pawlenty has never missed an opportunity to pile on. As majority leader and Governor-aspirant he was at the forefront of eliminating health care for the domestic partners of state employees extended by then Governor Jesse Ventura. In a speech to the Minnesota Republican endorsing convention, he couldn't refrain from characterizing his Democratic rivals as "gay-marriage-loving" in a litany of sins of which they were guilty.

Pawlenty has yet to support even the most modest, most humane changes to policies that affect our lives, twice vetoing bills to allow municipalities to extend health care to domestic partners of employees. He forced a change to a bill in order to exclude us from the ability to use our own sick time to care for our ill partner, or even take time off to bury them. He vetoed a bill in 2009 (after having explicitly agreed to sign it) that would have provided protection from bullying against LGBT kids in our schools, despite the shocking suicides of two very young bullying victims just weeks prior.

The Minnesota legislature successfully beat back efforts by then State Senator Michele Bachmann to place an anti-marriage constitutional amendment on the ballot, no thanks to Governor Pawlenty who signed a pledge to support the effort and appeared in television ads promoting its passage.

He has had no success in electing state legislators on his platform of anti-gay, anti-marriage rhetoric. Despite throwing everything they've had at defeating anyone who has voiced notions of fairness, the forces of the far right have only managed to lose a number of their most extreme legislators. Those who support our community are now a strong majority.

I suspect young voters won't be so hip to Pawlenty's vibe in 2012. And it will be pretty clear that he doesn't actually listen to the Boss' lyrics.
------------------
The third openly gay legislator elected to the Minnesota legislature, former community organizer and city council policy aide, Scott Dibble, Democrat, was first elected to the House in 2000 then to the Senate in 2002, to represent a district in Minneapolis. He serves as chair of the Transit Subcommittee, and in addition to civil and human rights, has provided legislative leadership on in the areas of taxes, energy, environment, housing, transportation, public health, jobs, arts and culture.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Phewlenty hasn't a snow ball's chance in------

[saltpoint]

2. Springsteen ably contributed a tune to the soundtrack of PHILADELPHIA,

so there's kind of a cultural context there that Pawlenty is missing outright, or is gambling that nobody knows or cares exists.

The Minnesota posters on this site have generally suggested that Pawlenty could not carry his own state in a general election against Obama, assuming the president wants to run for a second term.

In order for Pawlenty to get the Republican nomination he evidently feels he has to out-bag the Baggers, or whatever strategy he's adopting. Maybe also he's trying to agitate the national conservative donor base. I have no idea.

But I'm not seeing any presidential candidate carrying a national ballot without significant support in states with fairly large LGBT voting populations, and as a result, if this current position helps him get the nomination it might not be a nomination worth having.

[Bosso 63]

3. Pawlenty is punching way over his weight.

Beneath his "average joe" smirk is a vindictive thin skinned worm of a man, whose best quality is his capacity for ruthlessness. If he is the "best" the republicans have, then they are in a world of hurt, because even his supporters are only lukewarm about him. Palin has people who are crazy about her; emphasis on the "crazy", but the typical republican response to Pawlenty is "meh".

[FBI_Un_Sub]

4. I-35 Bridge

This governor also vetoed the long overdue repairs on the I-35 Bridge.

[starroute]

5. Is Pawenty's transformation typical of many GOPers?

The description of him in 1992 as "your run of the mill, suburban moderate Republican, corporate law firm, up-and-comer" reminds me of a lot of yuppie types I knew in the 80's and early 90's. Reagan-loving, free market-defending, but generally liberal or even distinctly alternative when it came to social attitudes.

None of the ones I knew went into politics -- but if they had, they would presumably have been forced to do a Pawlenty and twist themselves into social conservatives if they wanted to get elected. I wonder how many like him there are in the GOP, and what they really believe today in their heart of hearts.

[malaise]

6. He's on Candy Crowley now

:puke:

[glinda]

7. Here is why TP is so dangerous:

1) Appeals to people because he looks like a "good normal guy" with a midwestern swagger
-reality is he refuses to work with the other Party as well as has a reputation for being mean and conniving and a liar. He thinks the power rests with him only.

2) Cloaks his self in the myth of "moderate"
-reality is he has attended many events on the extreme right and praises Palin a lot. He is a huge sell out and will do anything they tell him to do.

3) Common speak with a twist of "slightly intellectual"
-reality is he is not well informed nor does he care. Only those paying attention will catch his consistent lying pattern.

4) Patronizes and compliments.
-reality is he is in constant mode of manipulate. There is no rest for him. He is on all the time.

5) Repubs have no one that seems "normal" to run except him.
-reality is he is very far from normal. He is a phony. A mean one.

[felinetta]

8. Rachel Maddow will due him in.

[Odin2005]

9. This asshole has been a disaster for my state.