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The Real Pat Awada
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Edited | User 13 Jan 24, 2004 06:29pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | UTC0:0 |
| Description | Is this woman ruining our state? Or fixing it?
It’s late afternoon and State Auditor Pat Awada is negotiating southbound traffic on 35E in her white Jeep Cherokee, one hand on the wheel, the other occupied with a Marlboro Light that she ashes out her open window. She brushes a length of long blonde hair from her deep blue eyes and considers the impact that a fast rise through Republican politics has had on her family. “I haven’t tried to protect my kids from politics. I never tried.” She speaks with an even, calm tone. But her pitch drops noticeably when she describes the reception her children occasionally received during her tenure as mayor of Eagan. “They’ve suffered negative things because some parents don’t like me.”
Pat Awada is 36 years old. She is the mother of four children. During the last four years she has become the most controversial woman in Minnesota political history (with the possible exception of Coya “Come Home” Knutson). Her epic battles with the Metropolitan Council over the development of low-income high-density housing in the suburbs earned her the everlasting enmity of suburb-hating urban liberals. Her activist approach to the state auditor’s office has positively unnerved Minnesota’s local government establishment. The Star Tribune’s editorial board has yet to find an Awada position with which it agrees, and when they are not busy attacking the policies themselves, they provide an astonishing amount of space to anti-Awada letters to the editor, many of which verge on the personal.
Shrill. Aggressive. Inflexible. Tough. Awada smiles when presented with the list of adjectives opponents apply to her. “The bitch factor,” she summarizes, matter-of-factly. “I can’t worry about that. A lot of executive women get that. Maybe not from liberal Democrats, but they get it.” A moment later she smiles and softens, but her voice tightens defensively: “I’m certainly not shrill. Am I tough? Yes. Opinionated? Absolutely.” She pauses, thinks it over. |
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