And He Wants to Be President

The only humorous part of the very unqualified Sarah Palin being introduced at the Republican Convention was that Tim Pawlenty was standing in the wings expecting to be in her place. Oh, the embarassment - and in his own town too.

I live in Minnesota. I never hear a nice thing said about Tim Pawlenty, never hear anyone say they like him. He has made jokes out of bus strikes, has continually cut social services - including his recent changes that eliminate personal care attendants to parapelegics and disabled senior citizens. He lacks charisma, lacks integrity, and lacks class.

Now he has joined the band wagon to be disrespectful to both our President and the regular, hardworking people of Minnesota. His comment about the Cash for Clunkers program once again shows his complete inability to relate to the people of Minnesota. As quoted in City Pages:

"Gov. Tim Pawlenty's latest money quote to ponder: "There's a joke out now that says the main value of the Cash for Clunkers program may be that we'll get a lot of cars with Obama stickers off the road."

He then goes on to compare President Obama's health care plan to a manure spreader in a wind storm. Way to go, Tim. Laugh at people that are poor, laugh at people that want change, and laugh and show disrespect to our president. Weren't you another one of the guys that kept saying that "we should respect the office" when people were getting disgusted with Bush? The sad thing is that you think you are funny. It is actually quite hurtful and uncaring to people who live in your own state.

You are also pretty clueless - Minnesota is a state with crazy weather, extremely cold temperatures, and bad roads. Most people here - even if they do have considerable money - don't want to spend it on a car that will get beat up. They will drive them until they are clunkers. Between our bad drivers, increasingly bad traffic, lack of decent public transportation, extreme weather, massive amounts of snow and salt to handle it or - best of all - the crater-size potholes we have to try and drive around...if our cars aren't clunkers, they will eventually become just that. You even refuse to fix the potholes because it might raise taxes a little - when the residents overwhelmingly want them to be fixed. (I, for one, would much prefer that to the $450 I had to fork out to fix my car after hitting an invisible one last year).

We know how you handled the bridge falling, and we know how you handled the bus strike - which also affected thousands. It is my hope that for your next bid for higher office you will, once again, be standing in the wings with egg on your face while someone else - who at least pretends to care - gets the nod.