pawlenty-maddow-klobuchar-princeAnd on the fourth day they rested? Minnesota’s top two elected officials spent the last three days talking economic stimulus on the airwaves and cable lines of two supposed bastions of liberal media, MSNBC and National Public Radio. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Tim Pawlenty appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” on successive nights, while Pawlenty played the representative Republican governor Sunday on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

Videos and audio link after the jump, with Pawlenty missing a chance to promote Duluth and Klobuchar missing a chance to make a gratuitous Prince reference (we help her with that). 

Pawlenty, on NPR, had some discouraging words about the stimulus package’s prospects but volunteered that Minnesota has a list of transportation projects ready to go in the next 90 days, including Hwy. 610 in the northern suburbs.

By now, Pawlenty is eschewing his formerly wholesale rejection of the stimulus package for piecemeal pooh-poohing. On NPR you could hear him spit out mild contempt for decadent projects proposed for the state’s recreation and related tourist industries:

We had cities requesting snowmaking equipment, and that was Duluth, for something called Spirit Mountain outside of Duluth.

(Ahem, Governor? This is where you make a brief aside for the national listening audience about how great it is to visit Spirit Mountain and Duluth.) Anyway, back to the bad fun:

We had another community requesting funds to rehabilitate a country club at a golf course. We had another city that wanted to build some tennis courts. So those aren’t the kinds of things in this time of crisis that would be priority measures.

Pawlenty recently joined the chorus warning that the stimulus could result in a revival of that dread 1970s trend, stagflation:

You could see the whiplash effect of this being inflation, or stagflation even, in the intermediate term, so if people are going to rewrite the history, I would suggest they look at it not just one year out but three and five years out as well.

Tuesday was Pawlenty’s second appearance on Maddow’s show. The first time, Nov. 3, he opened with the announcement “I’m available, I’m available” (to go on the show, he meant, although the context of the ensuing interview was also his availability for higher office in the future). This time he greeted Maddow with the Goldie Hawn-ish endearment, “You’re funny.”

Here is the video clip of Pawlenty’s appearance on Maddow’s show Tuesday night:

Maddow’s online video archive indicates three previous appearances by Klobuchar (Sept. 17 and Oct. 8 and 31). A highlight of this one was the DFL senator’s prediction about how long it will take for Minnesota’s Senate delegation to be complete.  Here’s a brief transcription and Monday’s video clip:

KLOBUCHAR: My prediction, Rachel, is that we will have a new senator by the time the ice melts on Lake Minnetonka, which that is predicted to be April 11.

MADDOW: Is that the sort of thing where you guys throw a cinder block into it to really help things along?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, oftentimes people dive into it to show how tough they are in the cold. But anyway, hopefully we will get this done in a month or so because the trial’s been going on. It could be even sooner.

That may be the first time in 25 years that jumping into Lake Minnetonka has penetrated the nation’s consciousness. The last time, of course, was Prince’s “initiation” of Apollonia Vanity (that’s a character’s name, not a character flaw) in the movie “Purple Rain.” Here’s a transcript of that scene (a variation on the dog-bite routine from “The Pink Panther”):

PRINCE: You have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.

APOLLONIA: What?!

PRINCE: You have to purify yourself in Lake Minnetonka.

[APOLLONIA disrobes and gets ready to jump in.]

PRINCE: Hey, wait a minute that’s– [splash!] Uh, hold it.

APOLLONIA: What?!

PRINCE: That ain’t Lake Minnetonka.

YouTube has a video clip of the scene but it is not safe for work and not – repeat: not – safe for re-enactment by Norm Coleman or Al Franken, nor indeed by any of their attorneys, notably Joe Friedberg, Ben Ginsberg, David Lillehaug and Marc Elias.

But if they do, The UpTake will carry it live.