Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC hits up his home state second

Gov. Pawlenty’s new Freedom First political action committee held its first local fundraiser tonight at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. About 250 people — the same size crowd Pawlenty drew at the PAC’s considerably more affordable pretzel reception in Washington, D.C. last month – paid $1,000 each to attend a reception on the hotel’s third floor, with a $5,000 per person dinner to follow.

The Minnesota Independent stopped by the PAC’s swanky reception and saw one friendly face wandering through the crowd: Tony Trimble, familiar from his months of service as recount attorney to former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

Trimble cut a slightly more rumpled figure than the Freedom Firsters around him dressed mostly in crisply glamorous black attire.

Standing alone were several banks of computer monitors displaying the Freedom First web site.

Polinaut has audio of Pawlenty’s dinner speech.