Comments on: Pawlenty: I support Sara Taylor–style focus on voter registration fraud

By: MN guy

MN guy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:40:50 +0000

More evidence that our absentee governor is acting and speaking more like Bush. We know that TPaw has more brains than Bush (doesn’t take very much) so the inescapable conclusion is that Pawlenty is shaping his campaign to appeal to the same group of pea-brained bottom feeders that have come to define the current republican party. It’s rubbish and his appeal to false fears and nonsense issues is insulting to intelligent people and makes fools of believers in this tripe.

By: Eric Ferguson

Eric Ferguson — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:35:10 +0000

The follow up to Pawlenty saying he thought Bush was right to go so hard after voter fraud: did he think to question his assumptions when the Bush DOJ found nothing over eight years?

By: Northlander

Northlander — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:59:30 +0000

“Misspoke” is Republican for “lying and getting caught”. Pawlenty is showing his true colors here and it isn’t pretty.

First he makes up ridiculous statistics for affect. Compares the made up numbers in 06 (instead of 04) to the made up numbers in 08 (off by 1000%?) then he uses code words “grassroots organizations” to raise the specter of outside groups (ACORN anyone?) somehow manipulating the process which was overseen by thousands of local officials and a bunch of his own judicial appointments.

In fact the only groups that did significant absentee ballot work in the last election were the Democratic and Repulican parties…..oh and the Family Council.

And the “problem” with absentee balloting (it’s increasing demand) would be solved by early voting, which Pawlenty vetoed.

Why does Tim Pawlenty seem to hate Minnesota so much?

By: Michael McIntee

Michael McIntee — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:38:42 +0000

here were 146,529 absentee ballots cast in Minnesota’s 2006 election. Not 12,000 as Governor Pawlenty states. There were even more (200,000+) absentees cast in 2004… the previous Presidential election. See the MN Secretary of State’s website here: http://www.sos.state.mn.us/index.aspx?page=452

Why doesn’t anyone in the media call him on his numbers as he tries to see fraud where there isn’t any? This is not the first time he has tossed out numbers that were off by a factor of 10 or even 100. In April 2008 he claimed that 20-30% of the money that the state collects for local governments is eaten up in bureaucracy. This was his rationalization for cutting back on local government aid. Less than 1% of the money goes to bureaucracy. I couldn’t find anyone at the State Capitol who had the slightest idea of what the Governor meant. After months of not returning my phone calls, I finally asked the Governor at a public press conference what he meant by that statistic. He said that he probably “misspoke”.

By: linda

linda — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:24:31 +0000

Interesting. Governor Pawlenty signed the bill in 2006 banning the practice of caging.

linda higgins, senate author SF 3038 (passed in SF 2743, omnibus elections bill)

By: alan

alan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:07:56 +0000

Big Tim has always been willing to trade his soul to advance his personal ambitions. This is nothing new. He was willing to stir up hatred toward gays and lesbians to get the Republican nomination for governor. He’s been willing to stir up hatred toward Indian tribes to get votes and raise revenues. Who knows who it will be tomorrow. Nobody is safe when he’s on the trail of something he wants. It’s evil and ugly.

By: Mill

Mill — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:37:33 +0000

Mr. Pawlenty takes on as an advisor Sara Taylor, who was at the center of the storm over the Bush Administration’s effort to turn the US Federal prosecutors into a partisan operation of the Republican party, undermining faith in the fairness of our judicial system.

And he fusses about a lot of absentee ballots, as though somehow that was some terrible problem. It was not. We had a close senate election in Minnesota because we were not of one mind about who should serve. It wasn’t about absentee ballots.

Sounds like Mr Pawlenty has concluded, like many Republicans, that they can’t win elections if everybody eligible to vote actually does, so they’re going to engage in their anti-patriotic, anti-democracy voter suppression tactics ala Florida 2000. Using police to set up road blocks in poor neighborhoods, hassling people; using private firms friendly to Republicans to “clean” voter registration records; using Secretaries of States as agents of the Republican party rather than elected officials responsible for the integrity of elections in the state, etc.

The more national Mr Pawlenty’s profile becomes, the less I admire him. He seems willing to trade his soul for that Republican nomination, and it’s not worth the price.

By: Rmath

Rmath — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:47:30 +0000

Sara Taylor is a right-wing shill.

Maybe the governor will talk about this subject on his weekly WCCO segment, “Bend Over, Minnesota”.

By: Small Government Timmy

Small Government Timmy — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:22:11 +0000

“Small Government” Timmy proposing we aggressively pursue the possible perception of registration fraud. Gee, T-Paw, wouldn’t that require a lot of government payroll and additional bureaucracies to accomplish? Yes, smaller government and controlling spending is what King Pawlenty is all about. What a fraud.