Gov. Tim Pawlenty will hold an electronic town hall meeting Wednesday night on his Facebook page.
Today on the page, he’s promising a “major announcement” on his first-ever “Facebook Town Hall” meetingat 6:15 p.m.
He also says he’ll “seek input from Facebook users on helping Republicans win the 2010 elections and stop runaway Washington spending.”
The governor had 31,507 fans on the Facebook page, as of 3 p.m. Laments one of them in a comment: “Wish I could join you Governor, but we have church on Wed. evenings. I’ll have to catch up on Thursday.”
Another optimistic football fan comments that maybe the major announcement is: “Vikings Stadium!”
Or is it, as several commenters wonder: His official entry into the 2012 presidential race?
He can’t announce a stadium at the same time he’s bragging about unilaterally unallotting almost $3 billion. It has to be the surprise of the political season: that he’s not running for higher office.
Look at all the people waiting breathlessly for the “blank slate” to be more than an etch a sketch.
If he announces he is officially running, using Facebook, this will be the most underwhelming Presidential campaign kickoff. More likely he will announce he is dropping out and going to a job at Norm Coleman’s Washington “think tank.” Two brains are better than one. Can one imagine the big thoughts that will come out of that place?
Given the nature of politicians, the announcement is likely to be not as major as he would like us to believe. It will have more to do with the 2010 elections & helping Pawlenty build a nationwide organization for his 2012 run, though that latter bit will go unmentioned.
Facebook is not the venue for the Governor to make any major substantive political announcement without the evidential or the genuine chutzpah to back it up.
As a person, Governor Pawlently is a guy I could go fishing with and have a couple of MN brews with and feel at ease. As a politician, Governor Pawlenty is not an ideal good old boy I would discuss MN politics with in a civil, cool demeanor, or philosophical manner.
This Minnesotan, and his family like others, is hurting and I would like suggestions to rise above the present predicament. The Governor nor the legislature have been innovating with plausible solutions or dynamic political leadership to help Minnesotans.
Maybe, my personal living frustrations and my old school All-American, mom-&-apple values, and political idealism would get the best of me. His “new-age, new-style Republicanism” doesn’t represent the true core values of what the GOP once stood.
As an old school, but progressive, Democrat, at heart, with more maturer political values, the old school GOP fiscal principles do make sense in these tumultuous times. However, today’s Republicans are playing a politically centrist milquetoast principled game of wishy-washy political roulette. Oh, I also must defer to my critics that the Democrats are doing the same political floundering.
Americans are seeking philosophical, political, and fiscal leadership and stability for the country and in their lives. It’s too bad anyone who wants to nay-say or sooth-say, especially without fact or foundation has a forum in the ether of cyberspace promulgating how to run things or solve the world’s problems.
Whatever happened to that American “lets all get together ethic” [face-to-face] that we are famous for to exchange ideas and/or solutions to make our lives, leadership, and country better?
Unless the Governor is going to announce, on Facebook, some great Minnesota creative substantial political innovation to solve the state’s fiscal needs and budget, then why show cyberspace another candidate for the Oval Office?
Maybe it’s time for the Governor to seek a wilderness retreat and solitude to gather his thoughts on how to better help and serve Minnesota. I’ll finish the local brews and MN eats! They’ll help!