Pawlenty: I Don't Think Obama Is A Socialist

In an interview just published in Esquire, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) presents himself as a true conservative -- but not too mean-spirited, either.

Pawlenty points to his success as a conservative in a liberal state. "But on the broader issue of Minnesota: This is also the state of Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Paul Wellstone, and now Senator Al Franken. Minnesota has evolved and ebbed and flowed a little bit in its politics, but it is fair to say that, with few exceptions, it's been one of the more liberal states in the country," said Pawlenty. "It's the history, the tradition, the culture here. I'm someone who has confronted that in a way that for some is refreshing and for some is quite dramatic, in a way that is viewed as quite a departure from the normal trajectory here. Most of the Republicans who have succeeded here have been mostly very moderate, Democrat lite. I'm somewhat an exception to that. I'm more of a mainstream conservative governing in a liberal state."

However, he did back away from some key GOP attack points against President Obama. While strenuously disagreeing with Obama's policies, he did not agree with calling Obama a socialist. And interestingly, he also said he would have supported the Medicare prescription drug benefit passed by President George W. Bush in 2003 -- one of the largest expansions of government involvement in social welfare since the Great Society.

From the interview:

Esquire: Governor, you routinely refer to the president's health-care reform as a government takeover. If you had been president, would you have signed President Bush's Medicare Drug Benefit?

Pawlenty: Yes. A version of it. Medicare was started a long time ago, and medicine had changed, having gone from clinical practices and hospitalizations to treating more and more conditions with prescription medicines. So it makes sense to extend Medicare benefits to prescription medicines.

Esquire: So that's a proper role of government? It was an unfunded half-trillion-dollar program. Okay. Do you think the Medicare Act of 1965 would have been consistent with your beliefs and something you would have signed had you been president? Or how about the Social Security Act? Is Social Security a proper role of government? How are those programs materially different from the health-care reform that has been the focus of the president's attention?

Pawlenty: Well, in 1965 I was only five years old. I think if you look at Medicare and Medicaid, the premise was that government needs to provide some assistance to people who aren't able to take care of themselves. I think we all share that goal, Republicans and Democrats. I don't think anybody's gonna go back now and say, Let's abolish, or reduce, Medicare and Medicaid. But as we confront the challenges and the responsibilities of our time -- from here on -- how do we serve more people or different people who are in need of financial assistance? Just forever having the government expand to address all of that seems unwise.

So I can't tell you what I would have thought in 1965. I can tell you I don't favor tearing down those programs, but I do think they can be reformed and improved.

Also:

Esquire: Governor, members of your party have taken to calling the president a socialist with such regularity that the word has become a fixture in the discourse. Is Barack Obama a socialist?

Pawlenty: You know, I don't think name-calling is helpful. I've done my share of that, so I'm not Pollyannaish about how the political process works. But as a general proposition, I think these are serious times, the country's in significant danger, and I think we need people who are thoughtful. We're gonna have sharp differences, but we need to debate those in a way that's constructive and civil. I think President Obama is governing as a movement liberal. I don't think that rises to the level of being a socialist.

Pawlenty also distanced himself from some of the more extreme rhetoric against Obama, saying that he doesn't ascribe evil motives to the administration -- in the way that other people do in calling them Nazis and such -- though he does thing Obama's policies are wrong:

Esquire: Those are rather conventional political differences, Governor. But at dinner, Jon Voight talked about the Obama administration and said that not since the rise of Nazism has he been so concerned for his country. And I don't mean to hold you accountable for the words of other people in your party, but this week Congresswoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said that the president's health-care plan is a greater threat to our country than any terrorist. Help me out here: Is this just politics? Or do you really believe that this administration, this president, is a grave threat to the country?

Pawlenty: I think both sides have people who have genuine feelings and beliefs about what they think the proper direction of the country should be. I just think the other side's wrong. I don't question motives or assign some sort of label. But I think what President Obama and the Democratic Congress are offering is a dangerous direction for the country. Not just because it's gonna cost us more, not just because taxes are gonna go up, not just because it expands government, but because of what it does to the American spirit. As I view it, there is an American spirit that is associated with the kinds of attitudes about taking risk, about taking responsibility, about a sense of respect for the private market and the power that it has in creating and rewarding wealth. The government doesn't do that -- the government redistributes, but it doesn't actually create wealth or prosperity. And the health-care debate is a pretty good proxy for this struggle between these two views. And in the case of the Republicans, what they see and what they're rightly concerned about is that it's another increment down the road toward government taking over more and more things. And it worries people.