“It’s usurping the power of the legislature… Right now he’s actually writing laws,” he said. “I don’t know where’s he getting this authority, and nobody’s really taking him on.”

“Right now any governor — whether the governor is Tom Rukavina or Tim Pawlenty — can basically sign every spending bill and then decide to unallot,” he said.

Rukavina agrees that Pawlenty’s motives in unallotment have been more about his national political ambitions than in looking after Minnesota’s future.

“I think he’s being very insincere in his claim that he loves this state and loves the people of this state,” he said. “Because what he’s doing to them isn’t, from where I come from, any sign of love.”

On Monday, the House Rules Committee voted to file a brief in support of a suit against the governor’s unallotment of some $2.7 million from the state budget.

Watch it:

See answers by DFL gubernatorial candidates R.T. Rybak and Paul Thissen to Stellmacher’s ongoing candidate series on the biggest threats to Minnesota.

Photo: WDCpix.com

In a matchup between President Barack Obama and Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Obama would win by ten points, according to a new St. Cloud State University poll (pdf) released Tuesday. When asked who they would vote for in 2012, 49 percent of Minnesotans surveyed said they’d support Obama, while 39.7 percent said they’d back Pawlenty.

The poll of 550 Minnesotans also found that among independents, when pushed, many are more likely to identify with the DFL (40.5 percent) than the Republican party (23.7 percent).

Just over half of Minnesotans (50.5 percent) gave President Obama a favorable rating in the poll. Gov. Tim Pawlenty didn’t fare as well, with only 48.5 percent rating his job performance as excellent or pretty good. Almost as many, 48.4 percent, rated Pawlenty’s performance as fair or poor.

The poll found that 50.3 percent of those surveyed say Obama is doing an excellent or pretty good job, but 47.4 percent rated the president’s performance as fair or poor.

Topping the list of the main issues facing the state are health care insurance at 19.6 percent, the budget deficit at 13.8 percent, education at 13.3 percent and unemployment at 12.8 percent.

Wedge issues barely registered with poll respondents with abortion at 0.8 percent, “family issues” at 0.2 percent, immigration at 0.8 percent and religious moral issues at 0.1 percent.

Overall, respondents said the state was heading in the wrong direction; 42.5 percent said the state is moving in the right direction and 43.8 said it was moving in the wrong direction. Nine percent said the state’s situation is neutral.

The poll doesn’t reveal its margin of error or polling methodology.

Of a potential run of her own, Bachmann said, “Goodness, I’ve only been in the House for three years, so, no, I’m not considering anything like that.”

But she is interested in seeing the equally controversial King run for the seat. “Steve King is mentioned as a potential nominee,” Bachmann said. “I have a very high opinion of Steve King and his ability, so I would encourage him to consider any position for higher office.”

Like Bachmann, King is a very conservative Christian known for stirring controversy with his public statements. He made waves this summer when he opposed a resolution recognizing the role slaves played in building the U.S. Capitol and called hate-crimes legislation “the Pedophile Protection Act.” Our sister site, the Iowa Independent, has continuing coverage of Bachmann’s kindred spirit to the south.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, McCain expressed “admiration” for his 2008 vice presidential pick but listed Pawlenty when host David Gregory asked him about future Republican presidential prospects.

GREGORY: In terms of future leaders of the Republican party, would you like to see Sarah Palin become president?

McCAIN: I’d like to see her compete. I think we’ve got some very good candidates. (Utah Gov.) John Huntsman and — the problem when I run down these names I always leave out a name — (Lousiana Gov.) Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty. There’s so many. There’s a lot of good, fresh talent out there.

GERGORY: Would you support Palin?

McCAIN: Oh, I’d have to see who the candidates are and what the situation is at the time. But have no doubt of my respect, admiration and love for Sarah and her family.

The exchange was a virtual replay of remarks McCain made on ABC’s “This Week” in December, just weeks after the election, when he joked “my corpse is still warm.”

That suggests that developments since then — including Jindal’s widely panned Republican response to President Obama’s address to Congress and Pawlenty’s poor straw-poll showing at a conservative confab — haven’t discouraged McCain about the future of those two 2008 GOP veepstakes also-rans.

Asked today how the Republican Party can avoid permanent minority status, McCain listed several approaches: “Party of ideas, party of inclusiveness, outreach to other ethnic aspects of the American electorate.

“A lot of people complain about divisions within the Republican Party,” McCain said. “That’s good right now. Let’s let a thousand flowers bloom.”

(If embedded video does not appear above, see the “Meet the Press” clip here.)

"POH-lenty 2012!"

“The big news out of the Conservative Political Action Conference … was an impassioned speech given by Gov. Tim Pawlenty,” intoned John McLaughlin last week on “The McLaughlin Group,” PBS’s exhausted political shout-fest. In a six-minute segment titled “Pawlenty 2012!” the host announced that Minnesota’s governor “is now positioned to be one of the five frontrunners likely to head the Republican presidential ticket in 2012.” But McLaughlin’s fellow right wingers on the show laughed off that pick, damning T-Paw as “nice.” Video after the jump.

Stephanopoulos: “You said, after the election, that Governor Palin has a bright future in your party. Does that mean that, if she does chooses to run for president, she can count on your support?”

McCain: “Oh, no. Listen, I have the greatest appreciation for Governor Palin and her family, and it was a great joy to know them. She invigorated our campaign. She was just down in Georgia and invigorated their campaign. But I can’t say something like that. We’ve got some great other young governors. I think you’re going to see the governors assume a greater leadership role in our Republican Party. Pawlenty, Huntsman…”

Stephanopoulos: “But why not? … She was the best person to succeed you if something had happened to you?”

McCain: “But now we’re in a whole election cycle. Have no doubt of my admiration and respect for her and my view of her viability, but at this stage, again my corpse is still warm, you know?”

It’s no secret that Pawlenty is looking to higher office, and the makeup of the Republican candidate pool might make his decision to forgo another run for governor in 2010, a seat he has never won by a majority. Will Jindal’s statement put ideas in his head?