Defending (dooming?) T-Paw Pawlenty.

Tim Pawlenty is my choice for President in 2012. This is not good news for Pawlenty. I’ve always believed in voting for the best Man or Woman, who often times (not coincidentally) turn out to have run REALLY SHITTY CAMPAIGNS. Case in point, my two horses in 2008, George Allen and Fred Thompson. Both I thought were outstanding, and both campaigns were absolutely horrid. Anyway, I have reached out to the Pawlenty Campaign through my people, and didn’t get anything in reply. Actually, I don’t have people, I just have a person who knows Tim who is a friend, and more so has been a mentor to me. I don’t know what my friend’s political stripe is, and without giving too much away on his identity, he’s the only person I ever heard of working for a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent Governor.

Anyway, I won’t hold Pawlenty responsible for not calling a blogger who ekes out his existence in the middle of the milblogs. I know he has important things to do, and I shouldn’t doom him with my endorsement, but there you have it. In fact, I will go one step further and say I would like Mike Pence of Indiana to be his running mate. (Only because Jim Marshall of GA, Chet Edwards of TX, and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin are all Dems.) Tim and Mike: Midwestern Values, Down Home Common Sense. There, I even gave them a campaign slogan.

Pawlenty has proven he can be elected, even in a wacky state like Minnesota. He’s not a purist, and believe you me I want one, but he’s managed to do well by Minnesota, and doing so with a Democratic state House. I know he’s not flashy, but again, I think I have had enough flashy of late, don’t you? Enough Rock Stars and Hope, more Show Me the Money. Some of you will probably say he has no shot, and others that you never heard of him: so be it, long way to go.

Anyway, the point is that VoteVets is already hammering his ass, and as is not uncommon, they didn’t bother to tell the whole story. First, what Dicksmith says about him after the jump:

The difference between Presidential hopeful Pawlenty and the current Commander-in-Chief couldn’t be more stark. Less than five days after the President donated $250,000 to Fisher House to support Veterans and military families, we learn that the Minnesota Governor essentially stole $30,000 from Vets and families in his state.

Don’t worry Tim, we’ll make sure the nation knows the extent of your support of Veterans and military families as the 2012 election season draws nearer.

I’ll get to what he’s talking about in a minute, but if I read on VoteVets that Algore lives on food and water and not Eternium crystals from the mines on Planet Xlocular 7, I would see if the SETI folks knew when the next visit from that planet would occur. And especially on this one, since my mentor knows all the issues involved up there. So, I wrote to him. And (although it took several days) I now have an explanation that makes sense.

First, the charge, as spoon fed to us via the Star Tribune:

When Minnesota motorists paid out $30 apiece for “Support Our Troops” license plates, it’s a good bet they had no idea they were supporting Lee Buckley, a political appointee of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Last year $30,000 from the license-plate fund was used to pay a portion of Buckley’s salary. Buckley worked in Pawlenty’s office as a $92,000 a year special adviser on faith and community services.

This sounded bad. Real, real bad. Could this be that rare proverbial nut that the blind squirrel that is dicksmith stumbled on while making his rounds at Casa de Votevets? Well, not hardly and the response from Michael Pugliese, the Deputy Commissioner of Programs and Services for the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs makes that clear:

Over the past several days, you may have seen news coverage regarding Support Our Troops (SOT) license plate funds being used to partially fund our faith and community-based outreach efforts. We want to assure you, our valued stakeholders, that the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs (MDVA) continues to responsibly allocate the Department’s resources in order to best serve the Veterans of Minnesota.

We decided last year to contract for outreach services, rather than hiring a full-time, permanent employee. The Department was able to tap into the expertise of a person who had established strong partnerships and relationships with one of the key communities with whom the Department partners for Veteran outreach – the faith-based community. This provided a significant cost savings and we feel our effort to reach Veterans this way was important, appropriate, and effective.

OK, so that makes sense. Why pay someone a full salary when you can pay out 30k to someone who can do the job as well. Is that too much to pay? I have no idea. For one thing I don’t know what the salaries are up there. But, if this guy (Buckley) could deliver on what they needed (outreach in faith based communities) then why wouldn’t you pay him? Who the hell else are you hiring for 30k that can do that?

Further Pugliese lists some of the things Buckley brought through for them last year:

Here are a few examples of the outreach efforts and accomplishments specific to the part time faith-based community outreach position:
• Worked with the MDVA Outreach team on public forums and a community Veterans Day event in south Minneapolis.

• Planned and executed a successful VA Faith-Based Forum for a statewide audience.
• Provided added exposure and awareness for Department events and services, including the June 13th Minnesota Honors Vietnam Era Veterans event in 2009 at the State Capitol.
• Provided a Department presence on the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon effort and with community faith-based organizations and churches.
• Coordinated the annual Month of the Military Child letters, a program which has continued to grow and is now in its third year.
• Served as a committee member through NAMI for the Vet-to-Vet support group program.
• Facilitated numerous referrals to the Department, the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans and other Veterans organizations for services.
• Led the Children and Families Work Group for the Governor’s Yellow Ribbon Task Force.

The outcome of this partnership proved to be extremely beneficial to Veterans of Minnesota. It was a good return on our investment. I want to assure you that MDVA carefully weighs all funding options and use of resources available to the Department and will continue to work to provide needed services and programs to the Veterans of Minnesota.

Now, you can look in vain for that update over at VoteVets. Simply doesn’t exist. Dicksmith likes to jump to conclusions based on missives from his other miscreants, and the results be damned. For the love of Spongebob, dicksmith cited to DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND to denounce the VFW.

[As an aside, look at this comment on the Strib site:

“Support Our Troops.” Used early in the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a counter to the growing anti-war movement, this patriotic slogan has since undergone a metamorphosis. As the scores of mentally disturbed soldiers return from the battle fields to their home-towns and try to re-integrate into society, their friends and families are learning that no amount of support can ever heal the psychological wounds that soldiers suffer.

Really? The “scores of mentally disturbed soldiers”? Yeah, well, atleast we have this joker to thank for rebutting the prejudice against us.]

So, anyway, is Pawlenty the Moses I talked about earlier? I have no idea. I’d like to think he could be, but honestly we don’t get enough press on him yet. Someone said earlier Palin. Dude, I love me some Sarah Palin, but as I said above, I don’t really want a rock star right now. Someone else said Jindal. I like Jindal but he can be over the top at times too. I want someone who will roll up his or her sleeves and just move the damn rock, instead of telling us how the government can construct a pully and lever system and…..

And now that I have doomed poor Tim to a lackluster campaign, feel free to give me your feelings on it.

Category: Politics