Speed Gibson

I am looking forward to the NARN's local coverage of the Republican convention, by blog and by airwave. I am curious to see if Prime Minister Pawlenty will feel any heat from the delegates, with or without Sue Jeffers stoking the fire.

Columnist Jeff Jacoby's "why bother" attitude to Republicans this fall applies to Minnesota as well. From Radioblogger's transcript:

JJ: Hugh, I'm looking at this lovely, very fashionable and stylish T-shirt that you're promoting. Win the war, confirm the judges, cut the taxes, control the spending, secure the border.

HH: Yup.

JJ: All great sentiments, and I agree with all of them. Leaving aside win the war for the moment, since that's more an executive branch than a legislative branch function, who's fault is it that the other four haven't taken place? There's a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican President. Why haven't the taxes been cut permanently? Why hasn't the spending been controlled? Why is a Republican President spending...increasing spending at double the rate that it increased under the Democratic President who preceded him?

Here in Minnesota, we could substitute words like "fee" and "stadium" and "bonding" and "minimum wage" and "Canadian drugs" in the above, and reach much the same conclusion.

Like Jeff Jacoby, I also have no hope of seeing my Legislative district going Republican. I can and will sit this one out as far as Pawlenty is concerned. Pawlenty will certainly be the lesser of evils, but his price of "trust me, not principle" is too high.