Tag: tim pawlenty

RS Q&A: Gov. Bobby Jindal, on the Medicaid expansion.

I was on a conference call today with Governor Bobby Jindal and former Governor Tim Pawlenty; they are both currently on a bus tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio for the benefit of the Romney campaign.  We had an opportunity to ask questions; and, seeing as these two states are both Republican-controlled (due at least in part to the 2010 backlash against Obamacare), I asked Governor Jindal about whether he had some advice to the state governments about signing up for the proposed expansion of Medicaid, now that it would be voluntary on the states’ part.

Governor Jindal’s advice was, essentially: don’t. Audio below:

Download audio here

To summarize the Governor’s response – and with the caveat that Jindal doesn’t actually want to tell other states what to do – Louisiana will not signing on to the Medicaid expansion, for three reasons:

  1. It will add a 3.7 billion expense over first ten years for Louisiana taxpayers alone.
  2. It will remove 100, 000 people from private insurance and putting them into Medicaid.
  3. It will not in fact even create jobs; it will just create a new entitlement program.

Continue reading RS Q&A: Gov. Bobby Jindal, on the Medicaid expansion.

#rsrh Breaking: Pawlenty endorses… Romney.

You know who this helps?  Mitt Romney, that’s who.

Mitt Romney is running for president, and I am proud to endorse him.

The general reaction among the blogosphere*?  Rapid blinking of the eyes.  Lots of people didn’t see this one coming.  Including me.  Personally, speaking as a former Pawlenty guy… no, sorry, Tim.  I’d have followed you to the nomination, but I won’t follow Mitt Romney.  He gets the nod, that’s one thing – I’m a good Republican, and better him as President than Obama by far – but Romney’s not my first, second, or even third choice.

Nothing personal.  And nothing personal for Romney, either: him getting the endorsement is good news for Romney’s campaign.

Moe Lane

*As well as, I’m hearing, from Pawlenty’s own former staffers.

#rsrh Perry/Pawlenty 2012?

I could get behind that.  I was a Pawlenty guy until he dropped out after Ames, so obviously I think that he’s qualified – and Perry could use Pawlenty’s core team, who were and are some of the best of the business.

Early days, of course: first Perry has to survive the September debate gauntlet.  If he does – and, if nothing else, we can expect that Romney will not be keeping the low profile at future debates that he did in past ones – then we can revisit the subject at a later date.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

#rsrh Pawlenty for MN-SEN?

The word is that the Minnesota Republican party is going to approach Tim Pawlenty to challenge freshman Democrat Amy Klobuchar; which is something that Ed Morrissey of Hot Air and Erick Erickson of RedState would likely get behind.  And myself, for that matter; like Erick, I respect that Pawlenty knew when to make a clean break of things.  And I think that I am correct in thinking that Ed & Erick would agree with me that replacing Klobuchar – who, after all, supported the ‘stimulus,’ cap-and-trade*, & Obamacare – with Pawlenty would be a definite step up for both Minnesota and the nation.  I mean, I hear that Klobuchar is supposed to be personable and everything, but since when did that become an adequate substitute for voting not-stupidly?

I also note with some interest that Tim Pawlenty’s site is not yet reflecting the change in his campaign’s status; for that matter, there’s been no rumors on what’s happening to Pawlenty’s staff.  Neither is precisely predictive of everything, but there are some heavy hitters in the political world working for Pawlenty.  You’d expect to hear more about what they were planning to do, even this early.

Moe Lane

*And unlike Pawlenty, Klobuchar declines to learn better.

Tim Pawlenty repeats call to hang tough on debt ceiling.

It’s hardly a surprise – Pawlenty has been arguing since January that automatically raising the debt ceiling without exhausting other options (read: spending cuts) first is a bad idea – but the video below shows that the former Governor of Minnesota continues to want Republican legislators to not back down on this issue:

As GOP 12 noted, this statement by Pawlenty…

Now is the time. The hour is late, and these problems are big, and the only way you’re going to get people to do something tough is to put their backs up against the wall.

…sounds a lot like what Erick Erickson was saying this morning: Continue reading Tim Pawlenty repeats call to hang tough on debt ceiling.

#rsrh The Code Pink Glitter Harpies sparkle at Tim Pawlenty.

I wouldn’t have bothered to put this up – short version; CodePink threw glitter at Tim Pawlenty because Pawlenty opposes same-sex marriage.  Speaking as a supporter of same-sex marriage, I personally don’t care overmuch one way or the other about empty gestures like these, but having CodePink join the cause… well, let me put it this way…

[pause]

Actually, let me not.  That might have earned me a libel suit.  Suffice it to say, I’m not a fan.

Anyway, Jim Geraghty had a good line:

During the Bush years, no administration official or Pentagon official could finish a sentence of testimony on Capitol Hill without some aged activist whose physique strangely suggested a great deal of inactivism leaping out of her chair and screaming some incoherent chant as a tired Capitol Police officer dragged them away, oh so slowly.

Which reminded me of a bumper sticker that I saw yesterday: the ‘classic’ “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”  Given the way that the Obama administration – who the bumper sticker owner proudly voted for, judging from the other bumper stickers* –  has gutted school choice and expanded our war footprint, it’s a good thing that irony isn’t actually a living thing; these days, it’d be on the Endangered Species List.

Moe Lane

PS: One of these days, somebody is going to taser a CodePinker for pulling stunts like this.  Given the anthrax scares of the previous decade, I’m kind of surprised that nobody has, yet…

*Twenty or so.  Yes.  One of those.

#rsrh Romney to skip Ames poll.

Wait.  What?

Mitt Romney will skip a key early test for Republican presidential candidates by forgoing the Iowa straw poll in mid-August, a decision that could recast the contest in the nation’s first presidential nominating state.

This is roughly like competing at the Olympics, only you’ve just publicly announced that you’ll be blowing off the opening ceremonies.  The Ames straw poll is when the GOP Presidential primaries start: you don’t have to win it to get the nomination, but it’s… the Ames straw poll.  Weird.

Moe Lane

PS: You know who this helps?  Mitt Romney Tim Pawlenty: this is just the latest break that the former governor of Minnesota has gotten in this contest.  Although if Rick Perry changes his mind about staying out of the race…

Two good pickups for Tim Pawlenty.

In the endorsement wars, we have one formal one, and one all-but-one. Both were probably about equally welcome to Pawlenty.

The formal one was Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina: it’s notable both for the person (Rep. Wilson is rather well-liked in conservative circles for pointing out for the record that President Obama is a liar) and the location (South Carolina is an early primary state).  I don’t know if Pawlenty expects to win Iowa or not – there’s currently a good bit of discussion over just how important ethanol is to Iowans – but he certainly needs to win either New Hampshire, South Carolina, or both.  Depending on which politicians show up to the RedState Gathering in August, I may have some interesting answers as to what they think Pawlenty’s chances are in that state.  I’m certainly going to be asking the Governor herself that. Continue reading Two good pickups for Tim Pawlenty.

Tim Pawlenty calls Barack Obama a doofus.

It’s amusing how casually this was tossed out.  Tim Pawlenty, in an ABC interview – and in the process of restraining himself from rolling his eyes at Christine Amanpour’s bipartisan* fetish:

I think that any doofus can go to Washington, DC and maintain the status quo or incrementally change things…

[snip]

‘Doofus’ would mean someone who was relatively low-performing.

It’s also amusing that there’s a thoroughly cross-spectrum consensus out there that Pawlenty was specifically calling President Obama a doofus, there. Then again, the average Lefty blogger would – public protestations to the contrary – privately admit (after three or four drinks*, and a quick check for uncontrolled recording equipment) that to call the President ‘relatively low-performing’ would be an example of ‘Minnesota Nice‘…

Full video after the fold.  Including a definite smack at the President over school choice.

Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading Tim Pawlenty calls Barack Obama a doofus.