A Study in the Power of Self-Reliance

A few weeks before the all-important precinct caucuses, Cooper formed a new committee, the Conservative Council. Cooper wrote a letter to party activists, asking, “Are you fed up with Republican candidates trying to pass themselves off as conservatives in order to gain our Party’s endorsement? . . . After numerous elections I got tired of these self-proclaimed conservatives.” The Conservative Council had a goal of exposing “these candidates as the ‘Republicrats’ they truly are, instead of the conservatives they claim to be.” Cooper signed his letter, “Conservatively yours, Bill.”

Eibensteiner responded with his own letter: “In my opinion, Bill erred in initiating this group because it is perceived to be dividing the party, not uniting it . . . The RPM is a ‘big tent’ party.” He also reminded people to observe Ronald Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment” to speak no ill of fellow Republicans. About 16,000 Republicans voted in the gubernatorial preference poll in March of 2002, and Sullivan beat Pawlenty, 51 percent to 37 percent with 11 percent undecided.

Eibensteiner leaned over a lunch table at Zelo earlier this summer, grinned broadly, and said, “And that’s when we started to have the real fun.”

When the eight congressional conventions were held that spring, delegates got to see Pawlenty and Sullivan in an apples-to-apples comparison, standing at podiums as potential governors giving speeches. “Pawlenty blew them out of the water,” says Eibensteiner.

Sullivan was stiff in front of a microphone and, according to Eibensteiner, even worse one-on-one. Would you rather have a beer with an East Coast patrician? (Sullivan grew up in Maryland and went to Harvard). Or that guy from South St. Paul with the mullet and Golden Gophers sweatshirt? Pawlenty’s asset was the personal interaction he applied in one-on-one meetings with several thousand delegates.

At the state convention, Sullivan led on the first ballot, Pawlenty the other nine. The candidates spoke after the fifth and tenth ballots. Of the last speech, Sullivan is the first to recognize that Pawlenty nailed it. “As I went to that podium,” he says, “I had no idea what to say . . . . Pawlenty, on the other hand, did.” Back to Chas Anderson’s “message of the day” skills, crafted day after day on the Minnesota House floor.

I asked Sullivan today what he thinks are the secrets of Pawlenty’s success. His answer? “He’s a smart, personable guy who impresses those he works with and motivates them to support him.”

Pawlenty won the general election, albeit with a plurality of 44 percent to DFLer and former state senate majority leader Roger Moe’s 36 percent, with Tim Penny, former First District congressman and DFLer, who ran as the Independence Party candidate, getting 16 percent. If Penny had not run, Moe may have won. But when those three were on the same dais, Pawlenty invariably won the “Who would you rather have a beer with?” contest.

Pawlenty detractors are fond of noting that Pawlenty got lucky twice. In 2006, he faced another Democrat-turned-Independent in Peter Hutchinson, along with the very formidable DFL candidate, former attorney general Mike Hatch: Pawlenty, 46.6 percent; Hatch, 45.7 percent; Hutchinson, 6.4 percent. Pawlenty disagrees with that, noting that his internal polling showed him winning starting in mid–October of 2006. “What we learned was that the more people learned about Hatch, the less they liked him,” he says.

Trite but true, close only counts in horseshoes, not politics. Pawlenty won two terms. Only political insiders talk about pluralities. Regular people remember those messages of the day.

In office, the work of actually governing comes easy to Pawlenty, even when faced with a massive, historic budget shortfall of $4.5 billion in his first term. As a legislator, Pawlenty had learned how the complicated business of state government money works, with a zillion different funds allocated to a zillion different places. “At the time,” he says, “I went carefully through every account the state has, many times.” True, as governor, he got cute with raising cigarette distribution fees. But in his legal mind, he stayed true to the “no new taxes” pledge he made as a candidate because the statute specified that money was a fee, not a tax.

I asked Pawlenty how he learned to take complicated issues and make them simple. He said he tries to imagine himself explaining stuff to people at the South St. Paul Croatian Hall. No stretch there.

When I sat down with Pawlenty mid–July, before I told him a word about what anyone else had said about the reasons for his success, I asked him what he thought his “secrets” were. Without batting an eye, he answered, “I’ve been blessed by God. Sure, I’ve worked hard, but God has given me gifts, including connecting with people and reading people.”

“People” also includes the press, a vital component of any politician’s long-term success. With the people scrutinizing you 24/7, it’s easy to become a caricature or a villain. Pawlenty avoided both.

“Any estimate of his assets,” says Dane Smith, “has to start with the fact that Pawlenty sets the standard for how to deal with the news media. He could write the textbook. He is far and away one of the best in the business at this part of the game, and it’s why he was viewed by some Minnesota news media almost from inauguration day as a potential major-leaguer. He tends to be accessible, reasonable, professional, straightforward, seldom hostile or argumentative, but not overly familiar or chummy either.

“He doesn’t complain frequently, and he treats reporters and editors with respect, almost as if they were responsible adults—not all of them actually are—who have a job to do.

“He’s not a cut-up comedian, but he has an intelligent sense of humor that comes through in any conversation with him. I remember him being disarmingly open at times, in personal asides, about minor concerns with his daughters, explaining his musical tastes and stuff. He remembers his last conversation with you and expresses a normal passing interest in your general condition, without pandering or prying.”

One of the only bad raps on Pawlenty, from even his closest advisers, is that when it comes to making political decisions he’s a one-man band. He hasn’t always been that way. Some of these close-in people say Pawlenty’s go-it-alone style dates back to the final crucial event in the 2002 campaign.

The Independence Party filed a complaint with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board alleging that several pro–Pawlenty television ads were not “independent expenditures” of the state Republican party. Minnesota law allows political parties to spend money to promote a candidate; but the promotion—the TV spot in this case—cannot be created with the express or implied participation of the candidate. But a Pawlenty political consultant had sold video taken for the campaign to another political consultant working for the state party and the party used it in ads. Weeks before the election, the board ruled that the ads were not an independent expenditure because of the use of the original video. Pawlenty could have appealed the ruling, which he should have won because the video exchange was made unbeknown to him or his campaign. Or he could accept the ruling and take a huge hit to his $2.2 million publicly financed campaign.

There was passionate disagreement among his then-closest advisers, including campaign manager Tim Commers and longtime friend and professional associate Elam Bauer, who both argued in favor of fighting it. Those in the other camp were saying, “Accept it and move on. There’s no way to fight it, legally or PR-wise.”

In the end, Pawlenty decided to accept the ruling, and the final determination was a $600,000 loss to the campaign treasury. The clincher was that Pawlenty, while disavowing knowledge of what had transpired, apologized for the mistakes of staff and consultants.

He had let his band play. They screwed up, and he could have lost the election over it. In the aftermath, Pawlenty’s rap became one of not delegating any serious political decision-making. Pawlenty naturally denies this, noting that he tells his commissioners that “they are CEOs of their agencies, only rarely do I micromanage.”