Pawlenty's problem with phones
First there was the last-moment phone call from Vice President Dick Cheney in the last election cycle urging Tim Pawlenty not to run for the U.S. Senate as he'd planned. Now there's a spate of news stories about how Pawlenty is supposedly caught up in telemarketing improprieties (middling and obscure as those improprieties are). I'm tempted to say the governor should swear off having anything to do with telephones for a while, and that everyone else involved with the story should put theirs on mute. But since serious allegations have been made, let me respond in kind, more or less. I've thought about running for office myself a couple of times. What ultimately persuaded me to stay out was the simple fact that I'd have had to take leaves of absence from my job in order to campaign. Yet if I did that, the biggest question surrounding my candidacies would not be about the great issues of the day, but rather how I'd support my family and pay my mortgage from the time I announced to the time I won or lost. How do other men and women manage to run for reasonably high office? Well, some are loaded (not just Republicans) and have no problem at all. Others are forced to dive or belly-flop into their life savings or perhaps remortgage their homes. Some already hold public office, and they cut back on the hours and energy they devote to their current jobs while seeking new and more powerful ones (while continuing to get paid, of course, as if nothing has changed). Or office seekers sometimes pick up temporary, part-time gigs that pay reasonably well. All these routes are taken by politicians of all parties all the time, and there's nothing illegal, wrong or even smelly about them. Personally, I'd have loved a retainer that involved vetting contracts, but not being a lawyer, none was likely. Presuming that all is adequate and kosher in bringing home your bacon, what else do you need to do to run for office? Or, more precisely, what do you need to avoid by a million antiseptic miles if you hope not to get smeared or dashed? As a contestant for a major post, chances are you've earned the respect of enough people to have served on the boards of various for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Pray for two things here: First, that you've always asked acutely apt questions of staff (no matter that most directors can't be expected to know what's going on in the bowels of any enterprise). And second, that employees were always wholly forthcoming in their answers. Likewise, on those occasions in your career when you've sought paid work, or have been interested in investing in something lucrative, hope that you've had the strength to resist signing up with anyone who actually knew and liked you (i.e., a "friend"). True, your chances of being invited by a friend are usually better than being invited by someone who doesn't know who in blazes you are. But having the foresight to take the latter, if chancier course, mostly immunizes you to future charges of cronyism. And in whatever you have done, hope that you've always been surrounded not just by upright people, but folks who'd score a perfect 1,600 if there were an SAT for squeaky clean. I believe without hesitation that Tim Pawlenty is a public servant of principle and decency. He's a first-rate, stand-up guy who, I trust, is pained deeply by the aspersions thrown at him. Add the fact the skies above can barely limit the good he can do on earth, and "special" is not too strong a description of his talent and potential. But the current phone mess is the second time in less than a year in which his integrity has been questioned, the first having to do with a campaign funding violation. In each instance, he has answered accusations openly and with honor. Still, another episode or two like these (no matter how slim or stretched they may be as "scandals" go) will subtract from the gleam and do damage to his good name, and that would be a pity and a loss. Of those limitless skies, here's hoping the governor and everyone around him -- which is to say, everyone he's obliged to trust -- bore so relentlessly straight through them that no one in the administration ever again will rate even a P.S. by C. J. -- Mitchell B. Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. |
Star Tribune