The formal capitulation took place yesterday, and signals an end to Gov. Dayton’s ill-conceived, ill-timed, and ill-executed attempt to dominate the Minnesota legislature in the same way that predecessor Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R, MN) did during his term in office. The very short version, for those not following along: Minnesota Republican legislators wanted a $34 billion dollar, two-year budget with no new taxes; Dayton wanted $3 billion in business-killing tax hikes. Republicans told him no, and sent him a budget, which Dayton vetoed. The Minnesota government shut down – which meant, among other things, that Minnesotans were in critical danger of running out of beer and not being allowed to fish. Faced with such proven evidence of abject incompetence and idiocy on Dayton’s part, eventually the Governor was brought to heel like a whipped dog; his formal capitulation soon followed. Final score: $35.7 billion over two years with no tax hikes – and legislators in Minnesota have to pretend that Gov. Dayton was not savagely politically beaten. No, seriously… apparently this is supposed to be framed as being a ‘compromise.’

Interestingly enough, post-capitulation news articles on this don’t seem to mention Pawlenty nearly as much as they did, pre-capitulation. Although that may just be a sort of terrible pity towards Dayton, who did turn out to be a very slender, and trivial to break, reed…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: No Democrat should be surprised at this outcome – or that Gov. Dayton is contemptibly weak. Remember when he took counsel of his fears and fled Washington in October of 2004?

One reason why our disappointment at losing Minnesota’s governorship was slightly muted: the GOP has the legislature, and that’s all we need to break Dayton whenever we need to. Or want to, frankly.