That Darn Arne -- The Arne Carlson Blog

For years, the public and the media have been pleading for bi-partisan cooperation.  Sometimes it is well to remember that it may be wise to be cautious about what you wish for.  Bi-partisan cooperation may be splendid provided the objectives are clearly in the public’s best interest.  But, what about when that cooperation is focused on self-serving goals, e.g. automatic congressional pay raises, endless fundraising from interests that have business before the government, and that generous practice of political earmarks.

Here in Minnesota, we witnessed a bi-partisan agreement on the budget.  It won great praise from editorial writers, reporters, and political leaders.  Sadly, all too few questioned the quality of that agreement or inquired about the public good.  Politically, all the players got what they wanted.  Governor Pawlenty can skate through the GOP convention without having to deal with a massive financial shortfall that will be announced after the November election.  Legislators, both Democrat and Republican, can campaign for re-election without having to tell voters about the enormous consequences of a multi-billion dollar deficit.

Politically, all the incumbents from both political parties had a lot to gain by this bi-partisan agreement.  But, what about the public?

First of all, consider the size of the likely deficit and enormity of the necessary spending cuts and/or tax hikes.  John Brandl, a former legislator and retired Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute, estimates the impending shortfall in the $5 billion range.  This may be on the high side, but we can assume it probably will be in the $2 billion to $5 billion range.  Either way the consequences are serious and the true tragedy is that voters will be denied the opportunity to discuss this disaster during the campaign when they have the power to hold the incumbents accountable. 

Again, we should beware of what we wish for.

VP Sweepstakes

Nationally, there has been a significant turnabout in presidential fortunes.  Senator McCain and Senator Obama are now in a statistical dead-heat.  In spite of all the headwinds against the GOP, McCain’s consistent jabs against Obama are effective and now place him in a position to win.  For Obama, he is discovering that what resonated with the more liberal audiences during the primary season is not sitting all that well with a more centrist populace.  Further, those “adjustments” in policy that Obama is making in order to appeal to a less liberal electorate makes him appear to be more like the traditional politician he has criticized.

The result is that the McCain campaign is energized with the realization that they have a legitimate chance of winning and the Obama camp is shaken by the possibility that they could lose.  Assuming both organizations recognize this new reality, it is likely that they are reappraising the vice-presidential situation.

Increasingly, the key states for both candidates are Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia.  Any VP pick must pass the acid test of being prepared and capable of serving as President.   Secondly, they must in a possible close election make a significant political contribution toward electing the ticket.  On the Democratic side, there are many that pass that test including Senators Bayh, Biden, and Dodd along with Governor Rendell (Pennsylvania) as well as GOP Senator Chuck Hagel.  However, there is no one who would do more to help Obama than Hillary Clinton. Her strengths truly offset Obama’s weaknesses and her appeal is with those Democrats and independents who remain unconvinced about Obama.

On the GOP side, McCain’s field is more limited, but it would appear that Tom Ridge, former Congressman, Governor of Pennsylvania, and head of Homeland Security, and former Governor Mitt Romney would be the most helpful.  Ridge could give McCain a real shot at carrying Pennsylvania and Ohio and appealing to a more moderate electorate.  Romney, the best over-all bet, truly helps McCain in his weakest area and that is the economy.  In addition, he has substantial appeal in Michigan and Colorado and helps stabilize the GOP base.

Stay tuned – there will be a number of ups and downs.

By Arne H. Carlson

With Senator Barack Obama’s victory speech in St. Paul, the national Presidential debate has begun.  Contrary to many past Presidential campaigns where the candidates were centrists, this one promises to be a contest of sharp contrasts.  McCain, although not a neo-conservative, represents the more traditional right-wing of the Republican Party while Obama comes out of the left wing of his party.  This creates sharp differences and the resultant debate will likely create more national opinions as opposed to state and regional inclinations.  This could well tend to blur red and blue states and open the door to a possible national landside.

This will likely occur if the broad political middle leans decidedly one way or the other.   Hence, this election will be more about the middle and independents and less about candidates’ strengthening their hold on their political base as occurred during the last two Bush campaigns.  But, we will see……..

Both candidates have been surprisingly light in dealing with global warming as well as the massive federal deficits.  The reason for this avoidance is somewhat understandable since politics like to avoid pain.

Nevertheless, the next President will confront the most extraordinary challenges since Harry Truman assumed the Presidency in April, 1945.  Only a true national effort that transcends the narrowness of partisan politics will allow us as a nation to turn these challenges into positive gains.  Obama has touched on a national effort comparable to Kennedy’s call for a man on the moon, but has failed to give it a comparable sense of urgency.

The simple reality is that the day of happy talk may be over and our language expanded to include the word “sacrifice” particularly if we intend to truly develop alternative fuels and balance our federal budget.  The latter may well include spending reductions as well as tax hikes.  Prayerfully, Washington will also discover words like “competence” and “prudence”.

Nonetheless, history has shown that great challenges bring out the best in us and our leaders.

Jottings……

Coleman-Franken - the polls show that Franken is currently going in the wrong direction if he hopes to unseat Coleman.  The race was closer at the outset than now due to Franken’s tax problems and “pornographic” writings.  This will be a most difficult one to turn around.

VP Stakes – The first responsibility of a potential Vice Presidential candidate is to make certain that there is nothing in his background that could cause any embarrassment to the ticket.  Whether Pawlenty passes this first hurdle in the vetting process is uncertain.

Consider the impact of the collapsed bridge report that was delivered to the public last month.  It portrayed a Department of Transportation in turmoil as a result of politics dominating key decisions.  It was Pawlenty who appointed his Lt. Governor to serve as Commissioner and that decision may well be the one that drives a stake through his national ambitions.

The vetting process will undoubtedly review the extensive series of St. Paul Pioneer Press articles that ran early in Pawlenty’s administration about his hiding income and his involvement in a telecom company that had various brushes with the law.  There is also the suggestion that a key figure in that company played a significant role in picking Pawlenty’s Commissioner of Commerce.

While memories of the latter scandal may have faded, the bridge collapse remains seared in the minds of Americans.

Governor Pawlenty’s supplemental budget designed to correct a $939 million shortfall has significant appeal to legislators from both sides of the aisle and may well be adopted with some minor alterations. On the spending side, cuts total $341 million while “borrowing” and revenue shifts come to $613 million.

Broadly speaking, this represents a political dream because it postpones the real crisis to the next budget cycle which is after the November elections.  This allows Governor Pawlenty to fulfill his dream of going to Washington in some capacity with Senator McCain assuming a Republican victory and allows legislative incumbents in both parties to slide through the next election.  So who loses?  The answer is simple:  We, the people.

For years, our political and media systems have been selling us the politics of conflict, personal destruction and divisiveness under the guise of values.  The result has been political short-term survival at the expense of our future.

Here in Minnesota, we lurch from crisis to crisis while the Pawlenty administration seduces us with spin.  So strong is our desire for good news that we place more confidence in short-term fancies than the warnings of highly competent former Finance Commissioners, John Gunyou and Jay Kiedrowski.  In today’s culture the tragedy is our willingness to sell out the future for temporary survival.

Examine this supplemental budget for a few minutes and you begin to realize the shallowness of the Governor’s approach.  Fully two-thirds of the solution is one-time money which means that the funding stream will not be available next year when a possible Governor Molnau and the Legislature have to develop a new budget.  That creates another deficit well in excess of $600 million in addition to the ramifications of a foolish policy that recognizes inflation in revenues and eliminates it on the spending side.  The bottom line is that next January when the Governor submits a new budget, the overall structural deficit which is the gap between revenues and expenditures will likely reach $1.5 billion.

In the meantime, spending some $20 million for the Republican National Convention and hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase favorable publicity for a scandal-ridden Department of Transportation remains intact while thousands of children are kept off health care. In addition, higher education including the University of Minnesota is saddled with huge cuts that will have a harmful impact our ability to attract top-level faculty and research capabilities which is key to our economic growth.

The challenge will be whether the Democratic leadership in the Legislature is willing to make the difficult choices today so we can better secure our future or whether they will simply yield to the siren call of the short-term.

Arne H. Carlson

Transportation seems to be the thorn in the Capitol that will sim ply not go away.  It is not just about a collapsed bridge or a debate over proper funding levels.  Rather it increasingly represents a collision between politics and substance.  Perhaps my concerns are generational in that the “Greatest Generation” was truly committed to public service and public policy.  Their attitudes were shaped by the depression of the 1930’s and World War II and their character and leadership carried us through the reconstruction of Europe and Asia and the Cold War.  They understood that sound public policy was paramount and ambition and politics secondary.

Unfortunately, and increasingly, younger leaders have shifted the values and thusly have created more distrust and distance from the public.

In a sense, this difference in approach to governance is at the heart of the on-going debate between the Legislature and Governor Pawlenty.  The latter understands that the national test for core Republicans is taxes and, therefore, will not support a gas tax increase.  While it is true that he has increased “fees”, made a financial adjustment for tobacco, and signed a sales tax enhancement for the Twins Stadium, the hope is that the national convention focus will be on his veto of the gas tax increase of 2008 and the dramatic use of the veto pen in his State of the State speech.

At first blush, that may sound like good politics.  A little theater accompanied with spin and the result may well be national prominence.

Unfortunately, politics often finds itself anchored in realities and the fundamental reality is that a discussion on transportation cannot take place without invoking the mess at the Department of Transportation.  It started with a political decision and that was to place the Lt. Governor in the Commissioner’s chair.   This direct introduction of politics into a professional department almost always results in short-sighted decisions, poor management, and self-service.  It is a prescription for scandal.

We are aware of the warnings before the bridge collapse and professional evaluators will render their judgment this summer on how well the Department handled those warnings.  But, we do know that the Department’s Director of Emergency Management remained absent during the aftermath of the collapse and apparently her supervisors in the Commissioner’s office and the Governor’s office did not notice.

Then we have the internal audit of 2007 which MN Dot refused to make public on the grounds it was not yet completed.  However, when the Star Tribune obtained copies via the Data Practices Act, the cover letter of the audit stated, “We have completed an audit.”  So much for truthfulness.

More troubling is the failure of MN DOT to properly protect the financial interests of the taxpayer.  Losses to overruns and contract mismanagement have averaged some $20 million per year.   The Star Tribune notes, “The 2007 audit…attributes the problem to ineffective management and insufficient controls.”

Sadly, this saga will continue.

The bright spot is that the author of the Transportation Bill in the House is a member of that Greatest Generation.  A WWII veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Rep. Bernie Lieder of Crookston embodies the values of that generation.  He like they understands that good public service creates good public policy and that generates good politics.  How refreshing!

A few months ago, this station inquired about my willingness to participate on their website by producing an occasional blog commenting on political events and my thoughts relative to questions that seem to be overlooked by the broad media.  The more I thought about the idea, the more delightful the challenge became.

The column is named after a rather cute ad ran by Senator John Marty when he ran against me in 1994.  The title implies a sense of outrage and that is entirely appropriate considering the current political climate.   After 30 years in public office, I have deep respect for elected officials, but firmly believe in accountability and high expectation.  Incompetence, corruption, deceit represent assaults against democracy and significantly contribute to the growing cynicism of the public.  For partisans to defend their mischief on the grounds that the other party does it represents an insult to intelligence and contributes to the growing notion that public service and self service are intertwined.

Finally, I very much respect the media and bureaucracies, but again believe they should be held to high standards. 

During the past 7 years, we have witnessed a national tragedy in the handling of our economy.  Business greed, the sub-prime mortgage scandal, trade deficits, a declining dollar, along with ballooning government deficits, wasteful spending, and bi-partisan opposition to any form of fiscal discipline is moving us toward a recession and placing our financial future in jeopardy.

My next blog will go into more detail on these matters.

Right now we are all focused on the Presidential race.  Frankly, I was delighted that no candidate won both Iowa and New Hampshire because this gives more of the nation the opportunity to participate and ultimately, take ownership of the final decision.

Some believe that February 5th will leave one or maybe two candidates standing in each party.  That could very well be the case, but there is an increasing possibility that at least one party will have to make that decision at their national convention.  What a delightful prospect.

My view is that on the GOP side, Romney, Thompson and Huckabee will struggle for the more right-wing vote of the party while McCain and Guiliani vie for the more moderate slot.  At this point, I would not place any bets.

The Democrats for all practical purposes are down to a two person race with both sides increasingly sharpening their elbows.  This one promises to come down to the wire unless February 5th gives a solid bump for one candidate.  Right now I would give Obama the edge but would suggest that Hillary’s focus on the economy will strengthen her position.

Having said that let me raise the issue of vetting.  This is a process that is usually divided unevenly and could ultimately provide the tipping point.  Right now, we all know pretty much everything about McCain and Clinton.  But it is a fundamental law of politics that with success comes more vetting and tougher questions.  As long as this process is accurate and non-personal, we all benefit.  Rest assured, if a thorough vetting of all candidates does not take place before the convention, it will inevitably be raised during the general election.

Again, that is as it should be.

Stay tuned – next issue – Congressional pork.