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First-year Gov. Tim Pawlenty already was earning a reputation as an energetic type, but he has lit the afterburners this fall. Two or three times a week since Labor Day, he's been appointing task forces and commissioning study groups and launching headline-making proposals. Those policy plans range from big bonuses for "super teachers" to expanded environmental protections to a landmark plan for buying prescription drugs from Canada to taking away driver's licenses of high-schoolers who drop out or miss too much school. This morning, he'll announce another initiative dealing with school innovation. Pawlenty is setting perhaps the most frenetic pace of policy-proposing by a Minnesota governor since the energetic DFLer Rudy Perpich held office. Gov. Tim PawlentyStormi GreenerStar TribuneAnd while he's been getting mostly positive reactions, his hyperactivity also is drawing fire and ire from the left and right. The environmental and prescription drug proposals have irritated conservatives and traditional Republican allies in the corporate sector. His DFL critics charge that many of the proposals are superficial and designed to soften the image of a conservative GOP governor who has just imposed unprecedented budget cuts and severe pain on many Minnesotans. Pawlenty waves off these criticisms and says he is following through on his oft-stated desire to be much more than a budget-balancer, to "take seriously the role of being the vision-caster. My response [to critics] is, where are your ideas? People get sick of these predictable responses. "It's a privilege to have this job, whether it's for four years or eight years, and I don't want to waste many days, any days." Chronic problems such as runaway health-care costs and economic decline in rural areas demand dynamic and nonideological thinking, Pawlenty says. And while his administration's first big role was "to be the accountants for the Democrats, the adults who had to rein in the reckless kids from spending all their allowance money," he's not shy about ticking off the ways in which he has parted company with conservatives on both social and economic issues. Pawlenty notes that he was one of the first Republicans in the nation to ask for Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., to step down as Senate majority leader after Lott expressed sympathy for Sen.
Approximate Word count = 1448
Approximate Pages = 5.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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