A Study in the Power of Self-Reliance

“[He] can take a complicated issue and turn it into a message of the day. That’s hard to do,” says Chas Anderson, deputy commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Education, who first met Pawlenty when she was a young staffer in the House. Anderson is sharp (anyone who served as a committee administrator for former legendary Rochester Republican representative Dave Bishop when he chaired the powerful Ways and Means Committee had to be sharp). She was Pawlenty’s sole campaign staffer for three months in the 2002 campaign and became a key adviser in both the 2002 and 2006 campaigns.

Anderson rightly observes that Pawlenty acquired his “message of the day” skills as House majority leader because that’s who orchestrates the floor debate on every issue. Anderson credits Ventura for honing Pawlenty’s tactical skills. “When Jesse wasn’t bashing the media, he was bashing the legislature,” she says, and as House majority leader, Pawlenty had to negotiate with Ventura on behalf of the caucus.

“Pawlenty never let Ventura rile him, and figuring out how to respond to Jesse was sometimes very difficult.” No kidding. Ventura, by the way, refused to be interviewed for this story. (A story not about him, surprised?)

Finally, because Pawlenty had a top legislative job at a time when the Republicans actually had a say on what became law, he had a major hand in crafting the kinds of laws Republicans loved, slowing the rate of government spending while at the same time increasing funding for education and transportation. (Those days, when, in the words of then-finance commissioner Pam Wheelock, the state had “boatloads” of money, seem very long ago.)

In 2002, ambitious Republicans had two statewide opportunities: running against Ventura (who everyone assumed was going to seek a second term) or challenging incumbent U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone. Pawlenty chose Wellstone, in part, because his state legislative work made him a more obvious fit for the Senate. The problem was that Norm Coleman also chose Wellstone.

Pawlenty began organizing a U.S. Senate campaign in the spring of 2001. The beginnings of that organization were to culminate in a formal announcement at a press conference, a staple of the modern campaign era where the rules are that the media gives you positive, solid coverage. Pawlenty had Room 500 North of the State Office Building packed when he got to the podium (I was there) and delivered what Dane Smith, then senior Star Tribune political reporter and now Growth & Justice think tank president, remembers as “startling and stunning news.” Pawlenty told the crowd that about an hour earlier he had received a call from vice president Dick Cheney, asking him not to run for the Senate.

Pawlenty was shell-shocked. It was the only occasion I recall that he rambled at a podium. He said that ever since he had worked for Durenberger, running for Senate had been his life’s dream, but that if the vice president—conveying the sentiment of President George Bush—thought that Coleman was more likely to beat Wellstone than he was, well, then, for the good of the party, he wouldn’t run.

Much has been made of the Cheney call, in the blogosphere and in print. The New Republic (not a conservative-friendly publication to begin with) got it flat out wrong, saying “the call, according to people close to the situation, was engineered by Pawlenty himself—and that there were no plans for an announcement.”

Talking with Pawlenty over coffee prior to his weekly radio show in mid–July, I asked him to set the record straight. He said he received several calls from lower-level people in the White House in the days prior to his announcement, asking him not to run because the President wanted Coleman. He doesn’t recall the substance of those conversations. But he wasn’t buying the idea that the President was messing with a measly U.S. Senate race (my words, not Pawlenty’s). Apparently, the lower echelon realized he wasn’t buying it either, so the night before the scheduled announcement Pawlenty got a call from Karl Rove.

He vividly remembers this call because he was in Anoka County, conducting a town meeting on education with Representative Jim Abeler (R–Coon Rapids). Even more vividly, Pawlenty recalls what he said when Rove told him the White House preferred Coleman. “I remember exactly what I told Rove,” Pawlenty says, “because I knew it sounded smart-alecky and I knew that [some of my detractors] liked to mention that I had a smart-alecky style.”

He told Rove, “If the President feels that way, have him call me.”

Smart-alecky? Maybe. Smart? Absolutely.

Having worked the political side for Durenberger, Pawlenty recognized that he had no way of knowing whether the President was truly involved or not. It’s common practice for lower-level politicos to assert that the boss wants things a certain way, when, in fact, the boss is in the dark. Pawlenty simply didn’t know whether Coleman and his staff were engineering a candidacy coup or not, until Cheney called.

Pawlenty bit the bullet and got out of the race on the spot.

Over the years, I’ve asked Norm Coleman, along with his various key staffers, about how and who they worked over in the White House to clear the field. Neither Coleman nor his underlings will discuss it.

Today, Pawlenty takes the attitude that the Cheney phone call “worked out well for both of us.” What Pawlenty didn’t say, and doesn’t have to say, is that it worked out best for him. For months Pawlenty has been the subject of glowing national vice presidential selection gossip; Coleman has not.

Shifting gears for a run at the governor’s office meant bucking wealthy businessman Brian Sullivan, who had seemingly preempted the field. Sullivan had money, but his only political experience was writing checks to Republican candidates and causes and serving on the board and as the spokesperson for the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

While everyone in Republican circles was still talking about the Cheney phone call, Sullivan’s campaign sent out a letter listing who was on the Sullivan for Governor Steering Committee. The top Republican party leaders in each of Minnesota’s eight congressional districts were all on board. Sullivan looked like a shoo-in. That letter was followed by a barrage of others and expensive four-color glossy brochures mailed to delegate, alternate, and party activist lists.

Recall that Pawlenty had an “up or out” view of politics. If he didn’t run for governor in 2002, he wouldn’t be running for any office, including the legislature, ever again. So he started talking to people, who told him what he already knew: Given the choice of having a cup of coffee or a beer with Pawlenty or Sullivan, the vast majority would choose Pawlenty. He had worked his tail off for years to run for statewide office, only to have the party establishment reject him twice, in 1998 and in 2001, both times in favor of Coleman.

Pawlenty declared his candidacy for governor at the Croatian Hall in South St. Paul. Key people helping him make the decision were his wife, Mary, and Ron Eibensteiner, who was then chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota. Pawlenty says Mary told him that she wasn’t interested in spending the rest of her life with a man who regretted not running. Eibensteiner thought Pawlenty ran circles around Sullivan in people skills, which would help him not only woo delegates, but woo general election voters in 2002.

The battle for the endorsement between Pawlenty and Sullivan was a minor epic. Sullivan raised about $680,000 in 2001 and $2.1 million in 2002 (much of it his own money). Pawlenty raised $274,000 in 2001 and about $2.58 million in 2002, none of which was his own. Despite allegations in delegate mailings, Pawlenty and Sullivan were ideologically interchangeable as social and fiscal conservatives. At a time when the prevailing political winds were blowing against career politicians, Pawlenty embraced his career. The Sullivan campaign was fond of noting that it would take an outsider to beat Ventura, who was still in the race, and cited other successful outsiders such as Ventura, Rod Grams, Durenberger, and Boschwitz.

The Republican establishment continued to scorn Pawlenty. The worst hits came from Eibensteiner’s party chair predecessor and former chairman and CEO of TCF Bank Bill Cooper.