Jay Botten says:

June 19th, 2008 at 7:11 am

My Tim Pawlenty Story

I had the opportunity to meet Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty at the Minnesota State Fair in September of 2005. It was four days after hurricane Katrina had struck. The morning before I went to the fair I got my paycheck and went to buy a few cases of water to go on a truck to be sent down there. At that time the people of Louisiana and Mississippi had been failed at every level of their government. Not only was the response to the crisis inadequate but there was a level of chaos and dysfunction that was surreal in its magnitude, with American citizens dying in the floods, dying from exposure and unburied bodies in the street.
In the three days between the disaster and my encounter with Tim Pawlenty I was dumbfounded at the reports that were being made by the press. Neither F.E.M.A. nor the Red Cross, not the National Guard nor even the Army could even get into New Orleans to rescue people, bring order, deliver relief and move people out of the flood zone. On the third day after Katrina I was so shocked that I began to call the offices of my senators, my congressmen and the Governor. I wanted to know what Minnesota was doing to help the people trapped in New Orleans. Each of their offices told me that there would be a statement in the next days press. There was not.
I was angry. I could not even talk about what was happening in New Orleans without starting to cry. It was disturbing and unnecessary and totally out of keeping with what any American should accept as the responsible behavior of the government. When one part of government fails to do its job, in relation to health, safety and welfare of the public other governing agencies and those people to whom we have entrusted political power must be ready to exercise their authority on behalf of the common-weal.
So I went to the Minnesota State Fair that day with a heavy heart. Nevertheless, the Fair always does a lot to improve my mood. I am a fourth generation Minnesotan with great grandparents who settled on the South Side of Minneapolis. I love our culture and traditions, especially our great tradition of volunteerism and social ethics, which demands a genuine accountability from our leaders with the expectation that the government services we pay for actually work and further that they work for everyone. I am a veteran, having served in the United States Navy, Hospital Corps, which was why it was very hard for me to understand how it was that for four days no government agency was able to get through to the people. The message I got out of that was this…no one was even trying. If someone like a general, or an admiral and even some of our more powerful governors wanted to getting something done and move the crisis toward a resolution, those people only need to get on the phone and they can begin to cut through red tape in order to requisition the things they need to accomplish their goals. They are supposed to be good at it. This is why it was hard for me to watch the aftermath of Katrina, I had a sense for the range of things that could be done if someone was only exercising leadership, or even paying attention to what was going on. Furthermore, I have a great deal of civic pride and pride in Minnesota. I am a graduate of the University of St. Thomas, and the School of Theology at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, and I say this just to make my point at how deep my Minnesota roots go. Not only did I pass through these venerable, institutions but those institutions formed my character and both confirmed and affirmed what I should be able to expect from my government.
I met Governor Pawlenty as I was getting ready to leave the fair. My girlfriend and her brother were waiting in line at Sweet Martha’s Cookies and I walked up the hill to get some Dipping Dots. The Republican booth happened to be right between them. As I was walking past I heard the radio host announce that the Governor had arrived and was going out to shake some hands. I just stopped where I was when I heard that and I ended up being the third person in that line.
I shook the Governor’s hand. I introduced myself. I let him no that I was a veteran and I rattled off my credentials much in the way I gave them to you in the paragraphs above. I did this because I was about to be critical of him and I wanted him to know where I was coming from. He heard me. It only took about ten seconds to tell him who I was. Then I asked him how come his office had not issued a statement on Katrina, that morning, as they had told me they would the day before.
He picked up on the critical tone in voice and began to withdraw. At that point the conversation was just between him and I. His response to my question was: “If you want to send relief, do it through F.E.M.A. or the Red Cross.” This told me that he was not even paying attention to what was happening in a major American city. Those agencies were on the fourth day of demonstrating total incompetence. And so, my question was: “What is Minnesota doing about the crisis?” His response was the same: “We are working through F.E.M.A. and the Red Cross.” I guess it came as news to him when I said: “They are not getting the job done!”
I began to raise my voice, mostly to ensure that I be heard, but also because my ire had been kindled. The governor had stepped back from me about a foot. Some people in the crowd immediately next to us began to sense that there was some tension in the air. This is when Tim Pawlenty said to me: “What can I do, I am just one man?”
It is easy to empathize with him because those were my very own feelings. However, I am not the Governor of Minnesota. As he pulled away from me farther I said: “You are the Governor of Minnesota! You represent over three million people! You have one of the most powerful gubernatorial seats in the nation! There is a lot you can do! You can organize with our congressional delegation so that Minnesota speaks with one voice on this issue. You can organize with the captains of industry to find a creative solution to the problem!” I told him that he should have Grumman, or Alumnacraft give him one thousand canoes because if he flew them down their and dropped them in the flood zone people would use them to get out of the water!
At this point we had been talking for less than a minute and he was doing everything he could to get away from me and the crowd had begun to cut us off. I was outraged.
“What can I do, I am just one man?”
What kind of a response is that, when one man, if he is the right man, can do so much?
Needless to say I ruined his event for him. But that is okay, because he should have been working toward bringing resolution to an American catastrophe instead of glad handing at the State Fair.
As the Governor got more distance from me I resorted to simply shaming him. “Shame on you!” I shouted (and I have a really loud and clear voice). “Shame on you for your lack of leadership and shame on you for your lack of imagination!” I carried on like this for another minute as I was being pushed by the crowd, shoved, kicked and called all kinds of foul names. Though I myself, never used crude language. I always spoke in full sentences and though I spoke loudly, I spoke clearly with never the tone of anger in voice that I was feeling in my heart.
I ask you, what else should you say to a governor who has no sense for either his power or his authority. “What can I do, I am just one man?”
One beautiful thing that happened before the State troopers told me to stop pestering the Governor was that the crowd tried to drown out my cries of “shame,” toward the Governor as he walked away from me, down the hill. But the crowd was easily led. There effort to drown me out was nothing more than a great big cheer, soon with little effort and a change in the cadence of my voice, my shout of “shame” on the Governor, was followed by the cheer of the crowd.
I still think that I may have tapped into a subconscious desire of the crowd to validate me rather than support their own man.
Anyway; immediately after my meeting with him the Governor went on all the local news stations to talk about Katrina. He may have been planning on doing this already, I don’t know. His office had said that there would be a statement in the paper that morning. Going on the 5:00 news is not the same. He let me down and every Minnesotan who would have liked us to do more, sooner, in that crisis. To his credit, Tim Pawlenty put together a lot of aid for those distressed and displaced people. His efforts were not too little but they were too late.
What troubled me most and was the cause of my shaming him was his first response to my criticism. “What can I do?” This is not a man who is cut out for leadership. He should know, much more than I, what is within his powers to do. He should not need me to tell him. But the evidence also shows that he was disconnected from the events that were surrounding him. He clearly did not know or even understand the implications of the total failure of the Red Cross and F.E.M.A.
The rest of his time in the Governor’s chair has been marked by the same indifference. He plays a kind of slogan politics which accomplishes little and serves few. His ideological commitment to no taxes flies in the face of both honesty and reason. It flies in the face of honesty because his administration has tried to make up for the budget shortfalls by raising fees for services rather than taxes, and has left the tax raising up to the counties and the school boards as property taxes and levies. It flies in the face of reason because it goes against the basic rule that you must invest in your infrastructure, maintain it and expand it at the same time if you want to be prepared for growth. Simply by ignoring the state of Minnesota’s infrastructure in favor of a commitment to ideology the Governor’s administration has dismantled or let fall into disrepair significant programs and services and even things like bridges, with each thing causing its own calamity.
The Governor’s true lack of leadership, natural leadership, and his lack of vision for the one State he has been entrusted with, should rule him out as a candidate for any higher office.

http://mytimpawlentystory.blogspot.com/