Coleman offered the comment outside a Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) luncheon in Washington, D.C., where Pawlenty was the featured speaker Wednesday. The RJC employed Coleman as a consultant this year during his legal challenge to Sen. Al Franken’s narrow 2008 election victory.

Coleman is “Pawlenty’s main man in the Jewish community,” reported the New York Jewish Week this week. In Coleman’s own words from that story, the governor has qualities as a thinker and uniter that are lacking in the GOP:

He is thoughtful and smart, he understands that our party has to unite and reach out rather than divide.  He knows how to get things done. The qualities he has I wish more in our party had.

A “Pawlenty for President” sign in Coleman’s lawn would be a new milestone in a storied political relationship between the two Republicans.

The Star Tribune’s report on Wednesday’s event, which was closed to the press (but exposed to Twitterers), includes this account of the two men’s intertwined political careers:

Coleman’s ambitions have sometimes intersected with Pawlenty’s over the years, most notably in 2001, when both men intended to run for Senate and the White House asked Pawlenty to bow out to clear a path for Coleman.

That doesn’t quite gibe with a more nuanced version Pawlenty offered last year in response to a national magazine story. The New Republic had Pawlenty soliciting a call from Bush Administration higher-ups (Vice President Dick Cheney, as it turned out) to add a patina of dignity to his retreat to the governor’s race in 2001. Pawlenty acknowledged he sought the call.

Elsewhere in Minnesota headlines this morning …

ST. PAUL: Bachmann hard on ACORN, easy on birthers. She asks Gov. Pawlenty to investigate the community-organizing group but won’t diss people who doubt President Obama’s American birth. [Associated Press; CNN]

SAUK RAPIDS: Did he need a photo ID to file? Then how do we know it’s the real Republican state Rep. Dan Severson who is eyeing DFLer Mark Ritchie’s secretary of state post? [St. Cloud Times]

ST. PAUL: Mayoral rivals debate. Republican Eva Ng attacked Mayor Chris Coleman on taxes and fees, which she’d freeze “right now.” [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: “Nothing like a pissed-off woman.” That’s how city council candidate Lennie Chism explains away an assault charge as a setup. [Star Tribune]

ST. PAUL: One in five, baby. A state report agrees with Jim Morrison of the Doors: That’s the proportion of Minnesota banks and credit unions on a watch list for failure. [Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal]

MINNEAPOLIS: “It’s like the Metrodome is an obsessed girlfriend, refusing to let the Twins leave.” Sports-romance analogies: You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live without ‘em. [WCCO-TV; @DeRushaJ]

Despite how Newsweek frames it — she “won’t hear of” a 2012 bid — Bachmann’s statement doesn’t definitely diss the buzz about her possible Oval Office ambitions, though:

“I am focused 100 percent on serving my constituents.”

Earlier this week, Bachmann didn’t make The Daily Beast’s top-10 list of 2012 GOP presidential contenders — Gov. Tim Pawlenty did, at number two, right behind Mitt Romney — but she did get a parenthetical “longshot” mention. Still, the “improbable” designation given for Bachmann by Beast writer Mark McKinnon has her ranked higher than Dick Cheney, whose presidential chance is listed as “impossible.”

The blog Conservatives with Attitude! recapped Bachmann’s 45-minute call:

…Congresswoman Bachmann gave her thoughts on the speech, saying she thought it would backfire and that the content of the speech were filled with fabrications and falsehoods. She talked about the voting process for the Bill and about the Public Option being the deal breaker for many from both the left and the right, but for different reasons.

Video after the jump.

Pawlenty’s first comment to Hannity out of the gate was this clearly prepared line: “In Minnesota we don’t have term limits but we do have common sense and good judgment, and we’re also good about taking turns.”

There are several ways to interpret that statement. On the surface it’s simply about knowing when to quit and give someone else a chance.

But here’s another context in which to consider it. Pawlenty famously had his turn at running for the U.S. Senate taken away in 2002 when then-Vice President Dick Cheney and Bush advisor Karl Rove leaned heavily on him to switch to the governor’s race, making room for favored son Norm Coleman to run against Sen. Paul Wellstone.

So “good at taking turns” could refer to Pawlenty’s stepping aside then — and possibly taking his turn to run for U.S. Senate at the next good opportunity.

Another way to hear it: The guy who took Pawlenty’s turn in 2002 (Coleman) isn’t good at taking turns or knowing when to quit.

The former senator’s prolonged election dispute with Al Franken has put Pawlenty on the spot: It’s his job as governor to issue and sign an election certificate to the winner.

Pawlenty has vacillated on when and if he’ll do so, milking suspense from what might otherwise have been a routine (if distasteful in a partisan sense) anointing of Franken and ratcheting up his own political cachet in the process.

Still another more far-fetched read on the remark might take the turn-taking as a knock on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who came from behind to oust runner-up Pawlenty in the GOP veepstakes last year.

She had her turn on the national ticket and should step aside as a 2012 presidential frontrunner so Pawlenty can have his chance. Minnesotans are good at taking turns — are Alaskans?

In another revelation during his Hannity appearance, Pawlenty confided that he’d spoken with others who had served three terms as governor and counseled him not to run for re-election. (He wouldn’t name them.)

Hannity pressed Pawlenty on whether he’s contemplating a presidential run. Pawlenty repeated he’s not ruling anything in or out.

Here is the video of Pawlenty on Hannity’s program:

Pawlenty, who’s in the midst of a media flurry not seen since he was in the thick of the vice-presidential slot, also appeared on local TV. In an interview with WCCO’s Pat Kessler (video), the governor wasn’t any more forthcoming about his White House hopes than he was with Hannity: “Three years out, I don’t know what I’m going to be doing.”

But T-Paw was unabashed about still dancing to Cheney’s tune. When Kessler asked about the former vice president’s statements that the country is less safe under Obama, Pawlenty had a ready reply: ”He’s worth listening to.”

[Via Minnesota Public Radio's Polinaut blog]

Peterson was the last man standing at last week’s 2009 Congressional Shoot Out, held at Prince George’s County Trap and Skeet Center in Glenn Dale, Md. He won “Top Gun” honors at the contest, and his team of Democrats bested the GOP team in sporting clays, skeet and trap shooting. Peterson’s team, led by Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus co-chair Dan Boren (Okla.), included Reps. Mike Ross (Ark.), Leonard Boswell (Iowa), Russ Carnahan (Mo.), Christopher Carney (Pa.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.) and Jim Marshall (Ga.). Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kline was on the losing team, which included GOP sharpshooters Reps. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Adam Putnam (Fla.), Bob Latta (Ohio), Paul Broun (Ga.), Rob Wittman (Va.) and Don Young (Alaska).

Photos: C-SPAN, Lauren Victoria Burke, CBS

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann may have started it last fall with loopy comments on national TV about her congressional colleagues’ “anti-American” views. Last week, she again tried to “out” fellow lawmakers, this time for supporting AIG’s bonuses, while a widely quoted (but anonymous) banker termed the U.S. House of Representatives’ bonus tax “anti-American” — helping Bachmann (who likewise opposed the tax) close the rhetorical noose around her targets’ necks. Until, that is, Sunday’s “60 Minutes” show on CBS, when President Barack Obama repatriated the term while chiding former Vice President Dick Cheney for fomenting actual anti-Americanism abroad. Quotes and video after the jump.

Bachmann’s original remark on MSNBC’s “Hardball” last October:

What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the American people would love to see an expose like that. … Absolutely, I’m very concerned that [Obama] may have anti-American views.

An American investment banker , as quoted in a Financial Times article on Saturday entitled “Banker fury over tax ‘witch hunt’” – a single, conspicuously unnamed source whose views are now circulating widely on the ‘net:

“Finance is one of America’s great industries, and they’re destroying it,” said one banker at a firm that has accepted public money. “This happened out of haste and anger over AIG, but we’re not like AIG.” The banker added: ”It’s like a McCarthy witch-hunt. … This is the most profoundly anti-American thing I’ve ever seen.”

Obama on Cheney on CBS’ “60 Minutes”:

How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment.

Here is the “60 Minutes” clip:

But where is Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak? He’s supposed to be seated, facing Obama just to his right, about 40 rows back. Haven’t seen him yet, and Minneapolis City Councilman Ralph Remington, who just announced he won’t run for re-election, is AWOL as well. But in the course of trying to find them, I discovered someone wearing what looks like a Howard Dean stocking cap a few rows in front a man who may or may not be sucking his thumb:

The photo is the work of freelance photographer David Bergman, who told the Minnesota Independent via e-mail that he was at the inauguration on assignment for the Corbis photo agency using a Gigapan robotic camera. It took six hours for his software to stitch the Gigapan’s 220 separate images into one. Hat tip to a Twitterer Chuck Olsen of The UpTake.

But since the election, Republicans have made several high-profile mentions of things urban — urban myths and legends, that is. In exit interviews, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have three times invoked the phrase “urban myth” or “urban legend” — picking up on Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s use of “urban legend” to discount reports of her own statements, as quoted verbatim or shown in video clips, regarding anti-American attitudes in Congress.

Vice President Cheney, on Jan. 7, 2009, said about allegations that he made decisions for President Bush: “This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It’s an urban legend, never happened.”

President Bush, on Dec. 17, 2008, said about torture and wiretapping: “There’s a lot of urban myths about certain decisions I have made. But when the truth comes out and people will say, ‘Oh, I see what he did.’”

President Bush, on Dec. 16, 2008, said about not listening to opinions on Iraq from outside his inner circle: “I’ve heard all kinds of voices. There’s urban myths in Washington, D.C., and, you know, of course I listened.”

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, on Nov. 18, 2008, said about her televised statements calling for an investigation of anti-American views held by her colleagues in Congress: “It’s an urban legend that was created. That isn’t what I said at all.”

Thanks for the memories. Now please go away. Yes, we’re talking about you, Rudy Giuliani. And you, Wolf Blitzer. We no longer wish to be a swing state. Henceforth the residents of the state of Minnesota promise to vote reliably Democratic. Or Republican. It doesn’t much matter which — just as long as you people promise to stop showing up in our little slice of the frozen tundra seeking to feel our pain. But to memorialize the horrors visited upon us during the (still ongoing) campaign season, we offer — in honor of our favorite member of the Statewide General Election Canvassing Board — the G. Barry Anderson Awards.

Betty McCollum

Personally we thought the Andy Rooney date-rape skit had potential: It’s tough to recall now, but back in June it looked as if Al Franken’s Senate campaign was going to run completely off the rails. Despite two years of suffering through fish fries and potluck suppers in East Jesus Nowhere, his campaign was beset by controversies over improperly paid taxes and past writings. But it wasn’t the inevitable frothing of Minnesota Democrats Exposed that put the Franken campaign at risk of losing the DFL endorsement to a little-known challenger from the Trotskyite wing of the party. Rather it was the attacks from Franken’s fellow Democrats, led by Rep. Betty McCollum, that nearly doomed his candidacy. Her sanctimonious outrage over a (rather dull) Playboy article triggered a cattle call of Democratic politicians expressing faux outrage over Franken’s past writings. The comedian’s possibly pending triumph, however, raises hope for a 2014 Diablo Cody campaign.

T-Paw

He even cut off his hockey mullet, dammit: We really, really thought Gov. Tim Pawlenty was a shoo-in. When GOP muckety-muck Ken Mehlman hosts a Georgetown cocktail-and-mini-wiener gathering in your honor and it’s revealed that First Lady Mary Pawlenty refers to you as “45″ behind closed doors, it’s time to start measuring the curtains for Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret bunker, no? Pawlenty couldn’t have telegraphed his desire for the post any more strongly if he’d offered to take on eBay’s Meg Whitman in a steel-cage match. But when it became clear that Sen. John McCain’s appeal was largely limited to (some) former guests of the Hanoi Hilton and beer-distributorship scions, the drab choice of Pawlenty got scuttled for a moose hunter with a unique ability to arouse the Republican base with just three words: “Drill, baby, drill.” Does M-Paw now cry out “46?”

Xcel Energy Center

Let’s play hockey, please: Barack Obama decided to pee on the ice first. On the night that he finally slew the Pantsuited Beast once and for all, Obama showed up in St. Paul to stir the masses with his magic happy talk. A photo that would become one of the iconic images of the campaign was snapped in an Xcel elevator by Time photographer Callie Shell. It shows Obama, surrounded by his wife and advisers, beaming as if he’d just discovered indoor plumbing. Even better: nobody had time to organize a protest or arm the police with $50 million worth of the latest riot attire.

The Republican National Convention

What a gas: Did anyone other than St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, Gov. Pawlenty and a few other insecure, ambitious politicians have any desire to host this four-day excuse to beat on protesters, arrest reporters, scream epithets at cops and hire really high-priced hookers? Does anyone care about whether the world at large has any clue where St. Paul, Minn., is located on a map and whether people view it as a “first-class” city? Can we please go back to being a Cold Omaha that rich people visit only when their nasal passages can no longer reliably process coke? Nobody was impressed by forced exposure to Minnesota Nice Passive Aggression and the Land of 10,000 Cops in Riot Gear. Anderson Cooper will not be returning this winter to hang out at the St. Paul Curling Club. If “this is what democracy looks like,” as the protesters kept insisting, we don’t want any part of it. To quote Meir Kahane and Kelly Clarkson: “Never Again.”

Palin-tology

Let them eat moose: That damned Katie Couric. She ruined everything. Before Sarah Palin performed her excruciating media belly flop on the “CBS Evening News,” she brought the house down at the RNC in St. Paul. Winking her way through a speech notable for its withering contempt for the Democratic presidential nominee, she had pundits (particularly the male variety) swooning. But even after it became clear that she was about as prepared to take up residence at the White House as your typical TV sports reporter, the GOP faithful were positively loopy for Palin. When she returned to Minnesota for a rally in Blaine (along with the old guy at the top of the ticket) just two weeks later, the delirious Palin-ites nearly filled an airplane hanger. But after it became increasingly clear that McCain had no chance of winning Minnesota, we were stuck with the surrogates. And unfortunately it wasn’t Bristol Palin. Or Levi Johnston. Instead we got the first dude — a man (to put it kindly) not known for his rhetorical gifts. But Minnesotans apparently weren’t offended by this snub. Todd Palin’s whirlwind two-day tour of the state was the biggest thing to hit Grand Rapids since the annual Judy Garland Festival.

The Crazy McCain Lady

Now she would have been a bold VP pick: When McCain arrived in Lakeville for a town-hall meeting in October, we were concerned that Minnesota might not be living up to expectations as a swing state. After all, recent McCain-Palin rallies had featured party faithful so riled up by the red-meat rhetoric that they’d spewed death threats at Obama and gnawed the legs off of anti-war protesters (OK, not really the latter). Were nice Minnesotans psychologically equipped to live up to such demanding standards? But then 75-year-old Gail Quinnell wandered up to the stage and let everyone know that we’re just as loony as the rest of the country. The “Crazy McCain Lady” utilized her moment in the political spotlight to declare Obama an Arab, earning a rebuke from McCain and her own skit on “Saturday Night Live.”

Cullen Sheehan

In October Harper’s Magazine reported allegations that Norm Coleman’s close pal Nasser Kazeminy financed lavish shopping sprees for the senator at Nieman Marcus. The Republican’s campaign initially refused to answer any questions about the controversy, brushing off inquiries from both Harper’s and Pioneer Press reporter Dave Orrick. “There are very awful things that are said about people on the blogs,” Coleman revealed. But it was the senator’s campaign manager, Cullen Sheehan, who really transformed the story into Intertubes gold. At an excruciating state Capitol press conference, he repeatedly refused to disclose whether Coleman had received any free suits from Kazeminy. Instead Sheehan recited this mantra over and and over and over and over again: “The senator has reported every gift he’s ever received.” Of course Suit-gate was soon trumped by Donor-gate, after two lawsuits alleged that Kazeminy attempted to funnel $75,000 to the senator.

Neiman Marcus

We’re pretty sure that was Rod Blagojevich trying on a houndstooth jacket over in aisle three: What other clothing store in the country can claim a place at the center of two different scandals during this election season? Coleman may have been responsible for the first free Neiman Marcus advertisement, but it took Sarah Palin to truly put the retailer in the national spotlight. After she was tapped as the VP nominee, the GOP brass were apparently fearful she might show up at the convention in camo waders and a blaze orange overcoat. So they tapped local Republican pooh-bah Jeff Larson to lead the Alaska governor on a $75,000, donor-financed shopping spree at Neiman Marcus. No word on whether she ran into Norm (or Nasser) while at the Nicollet Mall store.

Sixth Congressional District Voters

They’re not anti-American, but they’re definitely pro-Scandinavia: After the best-dressed homophobe ever to represent Minnesota in Congress spread her magic to the whole wide world via “Hardball,” it looked as though her congressional career might be over after just one term. Money poured in from across the country to support the underdog campaign of Elwyn Tinklenberg, and polls showed the race deadlocked. But the nice, racist Scandinavian voters of the Sixth Congressional District had an election day surprise for the pollsters. They gave Bob Anderson — a candidate who wasn’t endorsed by any political party, wasn’t invited to most debates, and hardly campaigned — 10 percent of the vote, thus ensuring that Michele Bachmann would return to Washington. We can vividly imagine the thought process of Ole and Sven while hovering over the ballot: “Bachmann? Isn’t she the one who wants to start gulags for everyone with un-American thoughts? Tinklenberg? I do kinda have to use the bathroom now that I think about it. Anderson? Well, I betcha he’s an awful nice gentleman. I’m sure he’d do a wonderful job in Washington, just like Coya Knutson.”

The Recount

This is dedicated to Eric Magnuson’s goatee: The fifth pile. The third pile. Wrongly rejected absentee ballots. Allegedly double-counted ballots. The 133 missing ballots. G. Barry Anderson. Marc Elias. Tony Trimble. The Lizard People. Flying Spaghetti Monster. G. Barry Anderson. Minnesotans have been forced to learn an entirely new lexicon and nomenclature to fully follow the U.S. Senate Contest That Refuses to Die. And now it’s clear that no matter how much we repeat the totemic words “G. Barry Anderson” over and over and over again, the recount is destined to drag on well into 2009. Even if we don’t end up in the swamps of south Florida with hanging chads and Cruella Harris haunting our dreams, it’s still been a rather gruesome process to behold. But here’s a simple proposal to bring this mess to an end: a lutefisk-eating contest on the state Capitol steps. The Uptake will carry a live feed. G. Barry Anderson will officiate. Whichever candidate can cram the most lutefisk down his throat in 15 minutes goes to Washington. With one caveat: He can never come back.