On Jul 21, 2005, at 7:35 AM, gemgram wrote:
They [RT's staff] do a great job of running a campaign,
Not this year, at least so far.
but they suck at running the City.
The performance of RT and his staff has been very uneven. They deserve credit for addressing the budget issues, although they've dropped the ball on the number one obligation of any elected city official - public safety.
The problem with RT is that he's caught between his substantive obligations as mayor, and the rather shallow political rhetoric that drives his base. This is why RT flip-flops so much.
Take the stadium, for example. As mayor, he needs to be a player in the stadium debate and he can't do that in opposition. But at the same time, RT has to send anti-stadium signals to his base to reassure them he's still with them in spirit.
A similar dynamic is at play with the NRP issue. RT's base wants traditional, top-down liberal agenda setting when it comes to allocation of NRP resources, but it's quite impolitic to come out and oppose decentralized neighborhood decision-making. The result is plenty of pro-neighborhood rhetoric on the surface, but a behind the scenes an effort to reallocate both decision-making and resources back to City Hall.
The crime issue is a bit different. It wasn't on the radar for RT's base, and consequently he was way too slow in reacting to it. RT's comment about victims of crime engaging in risky behavior did not pop out of thin air. That's the sort of opinion that many well-off, south Minneapolis liberals would express themselves. Isolated from the "bad" parts of the city, RT's base sees crime as an abstract policy issue, not a short-term public safety issue.
And when RT blames the crime problem on Pawlenty, the Republican legislature, and the Bush Administration, he is simply channeling the opinions of his supporters. RT's not entirely wrong - Pawlenty and Bush are responsible in part for the present crime problem. But people who are dodging drug dealers and prostitutes on a daily basis are not interested in waiting for the next election cycle. They want answers now.
RT's reply to these people -- a dressed up variation of "It's Not My Fault" -- just isn't going to cut it.
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