Speed Gibson

First, I will not be voting again for Pawlenty, for the many reasons I have stated many times. Neither will I vote for a DFL, Green, or any other urban socialist candidate. The Impaler has some unfinished court business, so that leaves Independence Party Peter Hutchinson and Libertarian Sue Jeffers. Being realistic about Jeffers' chances, I was hopeful that Peter Hutchinson would, yes, probably get a lot of things wrong, but would get our State spending under control. He has long arguing for a hard prioritization of spending by category and purpose, fully funding the important, and eliminating what isn't. He claims to have done this in Washington State.

In Tuesday's Minneapolis Star Tribune, Peter Hutchinson was too honest for his own good in giving Governor Pawlenty some advice on his State of the State speech. I read it, then I read it twice more, once as a liberal and again as a conservative.

Reading it as a liberal, I saw nothing I didn't like. There was no talk of sacrifice or either-or. All programs will continue and many will significantly increase. Consider just these two points:

• Doubling the odds that our ninth-graders will become college grads -- that, more than anything else, will fire up our economic engine.


• World-class health at the lowest cost in the nation; better health, better care for every Minnesotan -- that will get this job-killer off our backs.

Reading it as a conservative, I saw plenty to disagree with, including the above points. Most ominous is this simple conservative-baiting:

• Don't raise the 5 G's: guns, gays (marriage), God, gambling and gynecology. You would raise these things only if this were a political campaign speech and you wanted to get your "base" riled up.

That the word "base" is in quotes erased any last thought that Hutchinson was truly above it all.

Other bloggers have already written off Hutchinson as just another lefty. I did my best to keep an open mind, hoping for a real leader with real management skills and the sense to use them properly. But the bloggers were correct. Hutchinson is just another lefty, whose first act of real honesty should be to get in the DFL race with the others of his kind.

So as of now, I am left with Sue Jeffers. There must be a better way to say that, like, I would be supporting her now if she were in the GOP race, if there were one.

But Peter Hutchinson, you're fired!