There have been few political operatives as combative and ornery as Tony Sutton. He eviscerated political opponents and lambasted those in his own party who didn't follow every line of the party script. He once called major donors to the Republican Party "quislings," a reference to World War II traitors.
In many ways, Sutton became a caricature of himself, a localized version of Karl Rove or James Carville. For a City Pages profile, Sutton posed with a baseball bat. It was an image he relished, the tough guy who liked to tell everybody to suck it up and take responsibility.
Sometimes it takes a hard fall to humanize somebody. Whether it will also humble Sutton is hard to say. As reported Monday, Sutton has filed for personal bankruptcy, owing creditors more than $2 million. This comes after running his party into a $2 million hole.
My gut instinct is to have sympathy for Sutton and certainly for his family. He is likely a guy in a lot of pain right now. If he's like most people who get into a bad place, it's partly self-inflicted and partly circumstantial.
But as the top spokesman for the Minnesota Republican Party for several years, Sutton was the voice of its philosophy. That philosophy is contained in scores of Sutton's rants over the years. If you search the newspaper database for the words "Sutton" and "financial responsibility," you get scores of references. If you search Sutton and "compassion," you get zero.
In reading his personal bankruptcy file, I learned that Sutton had a dog and owned a trumpet, drove a 10-year-old Lexus, gave money to his mom. But it's also clear he lived a life completely contrary to the life he preached.
Once, at the State Fair, Sutton staged a bit of street theater, putting people in long lines to symbolize the impact of the new health care act. In other words, providing health care to everybody was bad.
In going after Tim Walz, Sutton once remarked: "We're going to wrap the public option around his neck."
