The Hatchet Job

Leave it to Democrats to find the dark lining in the silver cloud. It wasn't enough that the Democratic Party swept control of both houses of the US Congress, both houses of the Minnesota Legislature and all but one of the constitutional state offices. Now we have the public hand wringing over Tim Pawlenty's victory over Mike Hatch in the governor's race. Fingers are being pointed all over the place, but mostly at Peter Hutchinson, the Independence Party's candidate for governor. Hutchinson allegedly "stole" (I use this loosely) enough votes from Hatch's liberal/progressive urban supporters to give Pawlenty the margin of victory.

It's time for some rational talk about the failure of yet another DFL gubernatorial candidate to win the state capitol. Here are some of my observations:

1) Hatch's agressive personality didn't sit well with some folks. While Hatch has been an effective attorney general, as long as a snarling bulldog is your model for an effective attorney general, governors need to play well with others. However, that has never been Hatch's strong point. Not that Pawlenty has been peaches and cream, but compared to Hatch, he's Mr. Nice Guy. People want a governor who has a certain presence that suggests that he or she could rise above the fray. Hatch seems like he would be the first guy into the mosh pit. And don't get some former employees of the AG's office started on some of Hatch's antics. There were quite a number of folks who were eager to see Hatch take a fall.

2) Many urban progressives have long been suspicious of Hatch and either either sat on their hands, held their noses or voted for Hutchinson. For all of his populist rhetoric, Hatch could never be considered a progressive thinker on most issues. Just look at his position on abortion. Listen to his waffling on tax policy, particularly the gas tax. Could you really trust the guy to do the right thing in a clutch if you cared about these issues? Hutchinson articulated positions that made sense to many urban progressives and they left the room. Also, let us not forget Hatch's past history of thumbing his nose at the DFL endorsement process and Becky Lourie's spirited candidacy that energized a significant number of urban progressives. These factors did not endear Hatch to a significant constituency whose support he needed.

3) Hatch lost it in the last week and confirmed some folks' worst fears about him. Sure, Judi Dutcher made a big mistake with her E-85 comment the weekend before the election. But Hatch made things much worse by completely losing his cool in front of the media. Hatch started to act like the kind of paranoid hothead his opponents had tried to make him out to be. Whether or not that was a fair characterization, the damage was done too close to the election to repair and probably convinced some fence-sitters to look elsewhere.

4) Love him or hate him, Pawlenty is a pretty darned talented politician and kept his himself afloat while the rest of his party colleagues went down with the ship. The stiff anti-Republican headwind of this year's election made it much easier for Hatch to gain traction against Pawlenty. But Pawlenty never really lost his personal popularity, even as his party was tarred with all of the ills of the day. And the main issue that motivated voters to vote Democratic -- opposition to the Irag war -- was not all that relevant to the governor's actual job. Besides, when you get down to it, between Hatch and Pawlenty, who would you rather have a beer with? And compare Pawlenty's numbers to Mark Kennedy's numbers in the Senate race -- the governor was doing something right.

5) Many people actually don't have a problem with divided government. Pawlenty outperformed many of his Republican legislative colleagues on Election Day. In addition, there were a significant number of Klobuchar/Pawlenty ticket splitters, far more than than the reverse. Perhaps folks sensed that having a DFL legislature with healthy majorities would be enough of a counterbalance to a Republican governor. We'll see if that's right starting this winter. Already, Pawlenty has started to get religion on universal heath coverage for children in the state, after he gutted programs during his first term.

Personally, I'm not pleased that Tim Pawlenty is coming back for Act 2. I disagree with him on most issues and find his "aw-shucks" demeaanor to be a paltry mask to his mean-spirited policies. But Mike Hatch's inability to knock him off this month is more of a reflection of his own failings than the presence of Peter Hutchinson on the ballot or Judi Dutcher's ethanol blooper. In a year when Democrats were flying high across the country, Hatch should have been able to ride the prevailing winds to victory. He fell short because enough folks had doubts about him to vote otherwise.