He’s done absolutely nothing to stop the ethanol plague. About a million acres of South Dakotan grassland managed by the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) went up in smoke this year - ALL OF IT piled into corn - I can’t imagine what the numbers are here. I find it ironic that one of the main reasons the corn is being planted is because of ethanol, yet the planting of this corn is causing huge damage to a lot of wildlife which ethanol improves (supposedly). Ring-neck pheasant populations in the areas where CRP grass has been transplanted into corn are expected to be completely decimated - some estimating that it will be roughly 1 - 2% of their former populations.
Pawlenty also got swept up into the great Minnesota infrastructure heist because of the I-35W Bridge Collapse. One of the two major heists that were caused by this collapse was actually in my city (Saint Cloud MN) - the DeSoto Bridge, which shared a similar design to the I-35W Bridge, was closed indefinitely and is expected to be completely replaced by 2009. And guess what? It’s all paid for by the TAXPAYER. What a joke.
Other than that, Pawlenty has great stances on all of Minnesota’s social issues. He’s extensively pro-life and other than his little infrastructure adventure after I-35W, he’s really started to decrease the enormous bureaucracy around Minnesota.
I’m just glad I live where I live - any further south and you get swamped by rabid Minneapolis liberalism and progressivism.
I'd heard the St. Cloud area had gone completely left. Not true?
From your description, he sounds like a Huckabee without the Elmer Gantry slickness and religious bigotry.