Minn. governor: GOP should recruit in urban areas

Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News

Mackinac Island -- Poor urban areas are the Grand Old Party's recruiting grounds of the future, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Saturday at the state Republicans' biennial leadership conference on Mackinac Island.

People living in traditional Democratic strongholds such as Detroit often hold the cliched view that the GOP is a party of elitists, Pawlenty said.

But the Republican agenda of eradicating joblessness, economic disadvantage and educational disparity should resonate with Detroit parents struggling with unemployment and some of the highest high school dropout rates in the nation.

"The cornerstone of quality of life, whether for Michigan or Minnesota, is whether they have a job," Pawlenty said. "The demand for more government (programs) is in part a function of people not being able to do it themselves.

"We should be storming into areas of economic disadvantage and saying 'Enough!' "

Pawlenty said education is the key to turning the economy around, and said parents in underperforming school districts should be outraged.

"This is about inviting people in to become Republicans and join our cause," Pawlenty said.

The Vikings fan took a good-natured jab at the Detroit Lions, and simultaneously took a swipe at the Obama administration's high-spending economic strategy.

"We have a president with the judgment and the policies of Matt Millen," he said of the team president who was fired in 2008 for his part in making the Lions the worst-performing team in NFL history.

"We cannot have an economy that defies gravity," Pawlenty said. "(Obama's recovery spending) is a house of cards, a pyramid scheme, a Ponzi scheme that would make (convicted New York investment broker) Bernie Madoff blush."