Minnesota Models the Partisan Divide

By Kevin Diaz, Star Tribune

08 July 11

Analysts on both sides see Minnesota's political paralysis as a sign of a national trend.

s Congress lurches toward a debt showdown that threatens to push the nation into default, Washington lawmakers can see a new model for gridlock in Minnesota's government shutdown.

Once seen as a model of good government, Minnesota - along with neighboring Wisconsin - increasingly is cited as the harbinger of a new era of partisan division and political paralysis. Analysts on both sides say ideological lines are hardening from St. Paul to Washington, reflecting the growing rift in a nation wracked by economic uncertainty.

"I can definitely see a trend happening," said Sara Imhof, Midwest director for the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan anti-deficit group. "If people in the Midwest can't get along, good Lord help them in Texas and Florida and all those other places where they're not always known for being friendly folk."

Much like the Washington standoff over raising the debt ceiling, Minnesota's budget impasse springs from partisan differences over budget cuts and tax hikes for the wealthy.

In an editorial titled "Antitax Extremism in Minnesota," the New York Times on Wednesday held up the seven-day-old government shutdown as a "sobering" reminder of what's at stake in Washington, faulting Minnesota Republicans for sheltering millionaires from tax hikes.

On the campaign trail, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said that Democrats' desire to spend is at the heart of the stalemates here and in Washington.

He has bragged that Minnesota's 2005 shutdown produced a "win" for him and that Republicans in Washington, faced with similar choices, should not shy away from similar action.

In Minnesota, as in Washington, policymakers have looked to neutral third parties to broker a deal. But Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission came largely to naught. In Minnesota, it remains uncertain whether results can be expected from an ad hoc budget group formed this week by former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson and former Vice President Walter Mondale, a Democrat.

'Unrelenting Rigidity'

"I never remember a time when we had such deadlock, paralysis, almost unrelenting rigidity," said Mondale, a veteran of the epic civil rights battles of the 1960s. "We were able to work across the aisle and shape what I call American solutions to big issues."

Mondale said he's at a loss to explain what happened in the ensuing years. "Something happened to shatter that essential ability to compromise and build for the future," he said.

The roots, he said, reside not in Minnesota but in the increasingly polarized national political arena. "I'm worried that this fever that's seized Washington has been nationalized," he said.

Mondale traces part of that fever to a growing emphasis on conservative social issues even within the Tea Party, which got its impetus as a fiscal reform movement.

"Some of it began when we started converting political issues into religious questions," he said. "Once you get into that mode, compromise becomes a sin, not a necessity."

Minnesota Republican Jim Ramstad, who retired from Congress in 2009 with one of the most centrist voting records in the US House, says the new era of political brinksmanship has little middle ground.

"Party allegiance trumps bipartisanship, and compromise is seen as heresy," he said.

Some point to an anemic economy which, only three years removed from a near financial collapse, has left Americans distrustful of large institutions - particularly government.

"People are genuinely frightened, and it affects the political class as well," said Washington lobbyist Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota. "The response of many of them is to dig deeper into their ideological positions."

Minnesota's storied history as a progressive state, where Republicans and Democrats worked together, was the product of a bygone era, Weber said, marked by greater prosperity and faith in government. Weber is now an adviser to Pawlenty, whose presidential campaign has adopted the same no-new-taxes platform that defined his two terms as governor.

Sharpening Minnesota's budget showdown, Weber said, is the new political dynamic in St. Paul, where the first DFL governor in 20 years is up against the first Republican Legislature in 40.

Two parties came into office believing that they could, "at long last, enact their agenda." Unfortunately, he said, "they have to cope with each other."

In Washington, Obama and Senate Democrats are in a similar prolonged standoff with the Republican House, which has transformed the typically routine act of raising the debt ceiling into high-stakes drama.

"They're playing chicken with the debt ceiling," said US Sen. Al Franken, who joined other Senate Democrats Wednesday in pressing for an end to what they called tax breaks for millionaires.

US Rep. John Kline, a Minnesota Republican closely allied with Speaker John Boehner, said that any tax increase is dead on arrival.

"I know the mood of these guys in the House, and there is no appetite for raising taxes at all," he said. The showdown, he said, is "our opportunity to change the way the federal government spends money."

US Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., says the dynamic is the same in Minnesota, with one major difference: "The catastrophic consequences of failure here are going to magnify what happened in Minnesota."

Kevin Diaz is a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau.

Bachmann, Palin and a New Season for Sexism

By Deborah Siegel, CNN

05 July 11

es, it has already begun: The comparisons between Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin - one declared as a presidential candidate at this point, the other in a prolonged state of suspension. Their hair. Their jackets. The fashion face-off.

Of course, Palin doesn't even have to be running for president for this sloppy sexism to get under way. But should she decide to run, make no mistake, we are headed for some long, hot months of "Which woman gets it more wrong?"

Just as the 2008 Democratic primaries offered us a chance to examine the way the media and others in the popular culture frame a race between a woman and an African-American, the Republican primary season is giving us an unprecedented opportunity to watch what happens when two attractive women with brown hair are sharing the spotlight during a campaign.

To be clear: I'm no fan of Palin, and like many women, I can't stomach Bachmann's opposition to reproductive rights, environmental policies and gay marriage, to name just a few of the reasons I'll never vote for her. But what I also can't stomach is another primary season in which women in politics are subjected to treatment that men would only very rarely run into.

We've seen this before: Hillary Clinton was called a "worthless bitch" (by Ted Nugent, in a clip that ran on Sean Hannity's show) and "stereotypical bitch" (by Glenn Beck on his radio show ). Nancy Pelosi has been praised for looking "smashing in that mint green," by no less an illustrious journalist then Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson (he was trying to be nice). The late Geraldine Ferraro was referred to as "a f*ing whore" (by Air America's Randi Rhodes).

Palin, of course, has been characterized for some time now as ambitious, devious and none-too-bright. Bachmann takes hits for her brightly colored attire and "unhinged" statements. Such charges just don't stick to men in the same way.

Have we not moved beyond this? It is depressing to consider that it comes from both sides of the political spectrum, liberal and conservative. The only thing consistent is the target: Women.

To be sure, there are doubts - many - to be raised about Bachmann's stance on policy matters. And like many male candidates flubbing lines while running for office, the serious, repeated factual errors that come out of her mouth demonstrate that she's either careless, factually challenged, or, as women's advocate and author Gloria Feldt notes, living in an alternate universe.

But why, so immediately, these questions about her brains? Perhaps one of the reasons fewer women run for public office is that they see how women are portrayed.

There are some hopeful signs the paternalistic labeling might not fly as easily this time. Bachmann picked up on it recently and hit back, reportedly telling a voter on Wednesday that the media would like her to dive into a "mud wrestling fight" with potential presidential rival Sarah Palin.

She may be wrong on some of the most fundamental rights of women, like abortion, even in the case of incest or rape - the very rights that allow ordinary women to become "empowered Americans," as she likes to put it - but she's spot-on in sizing up the way female candidates get publicly framed.

While pundits may enjoy "Palinizing" Bachmann, reducing her to her gaffes, Bachmann is forcing the media (both mainstream outlets and her liberal antagonists) to rewrite this script. She went into the first Republican debate painted as "nuts," she emerged as a contender.

And while I should not have to even say this, though the two women may have the same length hair and like red blazers, they are different - and certainly no more alike than, for example, Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty.

One major difference between Palin and Bachmann so far is their responses to criticism. I'm sickened by Bachmann's apparent inability in a recent appearance to differentiate the macho movie star John Wayne from the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. But when Palin botched the story of Paul Revere and was given a chance to say "whoops," she stood by her version, then characteristically blamed the media for her mistake. At least Bachmann, unlike Palin, can own up to her errors. "People can make mistakes, and I wish I could be perfect every time I say something, but I can't," she said. But this was not the part of the story the media focused on.

Traditionally, there has been little recognition by members of the press and, ultimately, the campaigns, that any kind of sexist bias exists - unless, of course, you're Fox News and you think strategically crying "sexism!" will help win women's votes.

Fox News' unsuccessful attempt this week to appropriate the rhetoric of feminism in Bachmann's defense was laughable at best. "So you think they'd get away with these kind of verbal attacks if the candidate in question was, say, Hillary Clinton instead of a conservative congresswoman?" quipped Sean Hannity on Tuesday.

"The last acceptable form of prejudice in this country is misogyny against conservative females," added Andrea Tantaros, who appeared on Fox News' "Your World" with Neil Cavuto earlier that day. A bit of amnesia for the network, here, about its stunningly sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary season.

Let's just agree: sexism transcends. The double standard is not about political parties, but about women and men. Even so, these reductive comparisons of two female candidates mark a new low for women in politics. We're simply not seeing similar comparisons between, say, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. How ridiculous it would seem to point out their proclivity for wearing a certain pattern on their tie or a 1950s-style hairdo.

History will prove whether either of these female prospective candidates has what it takes to run a country. But in the meantime, let's not lick our lips for a catfight, nor reduce Bachmann prematurely to "a flake."