Plenty of local political pundits are trying to predict how the failure of the Legislature and governor to agree on a budget (Doug Grow has a terrific article in MinnPost describing the end-of-session collapse) will affect the next round of state elections. Probably not much. November 2010 is in the distant future, politically speaking, and most voters have short memories. As long as kids aren’t packed into classrooms like tuna fish and people aren’t dying en masse in emergency rooms, the vast majority of people won’t give much thought to the deep cuts that Pawlenty plans on making in the next few weeks. And even if they do notice, it won’t be Pawlenty’s problem. He’s burnishing his conservative credentials for a presidential run.
The DFL got outplayed. They were planning on doing the hard negotiating during a special session, but the governor changed the rules, making them look irrelevant and confused. There’s still a chance they might be able to undo some of the cuts during the next session, but for right now, it’s Tim Pawlenty’s world and we’re just living in it.
And so ends my last entry on the 2009 legislative session. Time to shift my blogging attentions to the more pleasant things in life, like comic books and women in summer dresses.
