Paulsen was “glittered” as he was accepting the Friend of the Family award from the Minnesota Faith and Freedom Coalition on Friday morning during that group’s strategy session on passing an anti-gay marriage amendment, and Rove was hit with glitter during a book signing at the conference following his speech.

Activist Ben Egerman shouted, “Feel the rainbow,” as he tossed a box of glitter on Rove while he was signing his book for conference goers.

Rove played a large part in using same-sex marriage bans across the country in order to bolster Republican chances at the ballot box. Minnesota has a proposed constitutional amendment banning marriage rights for same-sex coupleso n the ballot in 2012.

A few hours earlier, Michael Cahill shouted, “You’re no friend to my family!” as he threw glitter on Rep. Erik Paulsen as he was receiving an award as a “Friend of the Family” by the Minnesota Faith and Freedom Coalition. The group was founded by Ralph Reed as a 21st Century version of the Christian Coalition and much of its leadership is dedicated to convincing voters to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Paulsen, who generally stays mum on social issues, got the support of James Dobson in his first run for Congress. Earlier this year, he voted against repealing the military’s ban on gay and lesbian service members.

“Because of the hateful rhetoric of people like Erik Paulsen and Karl Rove, I was subjected to ‘reparative’ therapy as a teenager,” Cahill said in a statement following the events. “It’s this sort of twisted belief and hateful language that motivates families across the country to push loved ones into harmful treatment, endangering their vitality and emotional stability in the process.”

“Let me be clear, we are going to continue these glitter actions so long as people like Paulsen and Rove are doing everything they possibly can to make the lives of queer people worse,” Egerman added.

The glitterings are the brainchild of Nick Espinosa, who glittered Newt Gingrich at a book signing in May and held two actions at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Christian counseling business. His actions inspired the glittering of Tim Pawlenty in San Francisco earlier this year and the Minnesota Family Council at the State Fair. The movement hit popular culture when, several weeks ago, the season premiere of Glee used glittering as part of the story line.

“We’ve seen this show before,” said Espinosa. “Republicans are using Minnesotans in a desperate attempt to boost turn-out in 2012, not caring what damage they do to Minnesotan families along the way. It’s sick, it’s twisted, and it shows the desperate lengths that this party will go to in order to further their quest for political power.”

In 2006, the Bush White House used taxpayer money to campaign for Republican candidates across the country, and George W. Bush took a particular interest in Minnesota, according to a report released Monday by the Office of Special Counsel. Former Rep. Mark Kennedy, who ran for the seat vacated by former Sen. Mark Dayton, benefited from a number of campaign appearances by Bush cabinet members, and those appearances were illegally paid for with taxpayer money, the report found.

The report, “Investigation of Political Activities by White House and Federal Agency Officials During the 2006 Midterm Elections,” found that “White House Office of Political Affairs (OPA) employees, as well as high-level agency political appointees, violated the Hatch Act through a number of practices that were prevalent during the months leading up to the 2006 midterm elections.”

The Hatch Act prohibits the use of government resources for campaign purposes.

But the report found that the OPA, under the direction of Karl Rove, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act. In one instance, the OPA singled out former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and the Secretary of the Interior indicated he wanted to assist his campaign for governor in 2006:

On October 20, 2006, former OPA Director Sara Taylor sent an e-mail to several OPA Associate Directors informing them that Secretary Dirk Kempthorne “Wants to help Taylor, Pombo and Gov. Pawlenty.” North Carolina Representative Charles Taylor was seeking reelection in 2006 and was listed as a “Tier 1” priority on OPA’s target list. Similarly, California Representative Richard Pombo and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty were up for reelection in 2006. Former DOI appointees testified that when Secretary Kempthorne expressed a desire to help elected officials in 2006, they interpreted it to mean he wanted to help those individuals with their reelection efforts.

While that OPA email only indicated support for Pawlenty’s reelection, former Rep. Mark Kennedy got a huge boost from Bush’s cabinet members. Bush’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Alphonso Roy Jackson, visited Minnesota to campaign for Kennedy on Oct. 12, 2006.

“The event was designated as political on Secretary Jackson’s Confidential Schedule and Travel Order Request and Authorization,” the report noted. “Specifically, the Secretary’s Confidential Schedule reflects that on October 12, 2006, Secretary Jackson was to participate in approximately 45 minutes of official activity and one hour of political activity, thus obliging the Kennedy campaign to bear financial responsibility for over 50 percent of the total travel costs.”

The fundraiser was listed as completed by Bush’s OPA and by HUD and was listed as 91 percent official and 9 percent political, instead of the 50 percent split that should have been taken by the campaign and the federal government. The report’s authors asked the department about the discrepancy.

In response, HUD acknowledged that the Kennedy campaign actually owed 57 percent of the total trip cost, or $542.46, as opposed to the $85.85 previously assessed. However, HUD has provided no evidence showing that the balance owed for Secretary Jackson’s political travel has been sought or received by HUD. Therefore, U.S. Treasury funds apparently were used to finance Secretary Jackson’s political activity in violation of the Hatch Act.

The event in question was held in Minneapolis to discuss “housing, homelessness and other issues affecting new and low-income Americans.”

The Bush White House also dispatched USDA Secretary Mike Johanns for a lunchtime fundraiser for Kennedy in Lake Crystal, Minn., on Mar. 23, 2006, and again for a political townhall and fundraiser on the Iron Range on Oct. 24, 2006. But according to the report released on Monday, there’s little record that the government was properly reimbursed for the event.

In the margin of both bills submitted to the Kennedy campaign for the expenses incurred by Secretary Johann were the words “Payment Unknown.”

The reports authors concluded, “This failure to ensure timely reimbursement of U.S. Treasury funds that were used for political activity was a violation of the Hatch Act.”

In yet another instance, the report found that a visit by Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt on Oct. 27, 2006, in Minneapolis, didn’t appear to be billed to the Kennedy campaign at all. Despite being a political fundraiser, the trip was classified as “official,” the report states.

“However, the documentation provided to OSC by HHS regarding the Secretary’s October 27, 2006, travel to Minnesota indicates that the trip was classified as official, despite his attendance at a political fundraiser,” wrote the report’s authors. “In fact, the ‘remarks’ sections of the Secretary’s Traveler Authorization and Travel Voucher identified the official purpose of the travel as ‘Value Driven Healthcare.’”

The Office of Special Counsel concluded, “Failure to determine what percentage of U.S. Treasury funds was used to pay for political activity, and ensuring that those costs were reimbursed to the Treasury, was a violation of the Hatch Act.”

The involvement in Kennedy’s campaign was a small part of a much larger effort to turn an official government office, funded by the taxpayer, in to a political war room for the Republican Party.

The report’s authors identified numerous instances where campaign coordination occurred. Among the findings were that Bush’s office “worked with the RNC to develop a ‘target list’” of Republicans facing a close election. It also engaged in “asset deployment” by encouraging Bush’s political appointees — including cabinet members — to attend events with GOP candidates “in order to attract positive media attention to their campaigns.”

The office also used RNC Desk Coordinators “to help coordinate high-level political appointees’ travel to both political and official events with Republican candidates.” And the office kept track of GOP candidates’ fundraising numbers, tracked appearances by high-level appointees at campaign events, and, on behalf of the RNC, recruited political appointees to “participate in 72-hour deployment efforts.”

Though Mark Kennedy enjoyed unprecedented campaign assistance through Bush’s use of taxpayer money, he lost his race against Amy Klobuchar by a landslide in November 2006. Klobuchar won 58 percent to 38 percent.

Following Kennedy’s defeat, he would soon become a political appointee himself when President Bush named him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiation in 2007.

So far, the Office of Special Counsel has been mum about why the report came out more than four years after the violations occurred, but according to Politico, the report may have been blocked by another Bush appointee, former Office of Special Counsel Chief Scott Bloch, who was convicted of concealing information from a House panel.

While the report specifically lists fundraisers and appearances by Bush appointees for Kennedy, most Minnesota Republicans received some help from Rove’s Office of Political Affairs.

In 2006, Pawlenty got visits from Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, HHS Secretary Leavitt, and USDA Secretary Johanns. Rep. Michele Bachmann was the beneficiary of visits from Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Interior Secretary Kempthorne.

The report’s authors don’t fault the candidates for the fact that public money was used to promote their campaigns by the Bush administration — the onus is on political appointees to reimburse the government for their political activity.

“If the campaign or political party does not timely reimburse the government, then the exempt employee will be billed for the outstanding amount because political activity is tantamount to personal activity,” the authors wrote.

The full 118-page report can be viewed at the Office of Special Counsel.

Photo: wdcpix.com

Karl Rove, a controversial GOP operative and former Deputy Chief of Staff for President George Bush, will make an April 22 appearance at the University of Minnesota for a book signing with the university chapter of the College Republicans. Rove’s book tour has been disrupted by anti-war protesters who have attempted a citizen’s arrest, citing his involvement in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame and in the run-up to the Iraq War. And indications are they may try it again here.

At California and Nevada signings for Rove’s book, “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight,” CODE Pink members tried to arrest him.

It appears, anti-war activists will attempt to do the same in Minneapolis, according to a Facebook event:

“The War Criminal Karl Rove is coming to town! He released a book “Courage and Consequence” despite he is trying to avoid facing any consequences from the war crimes of the Bush years. He also doesn’t have enough “courage” to turn himself in for these same crimes.

(WDCpix)

According to the Wall Street Journal, former Sen. Norm Coleman and Karl Rove are among big Republican names attached to a new political organizing group called the American Action Network.

The 501(c)3 with an attached 501(c)4 is also looking to bring in former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and Republican donor Fred Malek.

WSJ says the group has “the goal of organizing grass-roots support and raising funds ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.” The group is still in its formative stage.

Currently, Coleman is working for the Republican Jewish Coalition.

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.

Photo: wdcpix.com

Karl Rove gave Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty high praise at a speech at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., last week: “Tim’s smart, thoughtful, thinks outside the box. He has a lot of new ideas.” But in an interview with the Washington Times over the weekend, Pawlenty tried to put one new idea — invoking states’ rights to fight federal health-care reform — back in the box.

Here’s what Pawlenty told the Washington Times about the role he sees for Tenth Amendment objections in the health-care debate:

It is important to raise the issue — not through lawsuits or threats to secede — but because doing so makes a philosophical statement and political statement for policymakers to take seriously. The federal government shouldn’t boss us around as states. It’s another example of federal government’s encroachment on markets and individual freedoms.

The newspaper said Pawlenty “sounded most of the right base notes as a Republican who is clearly eyeing his party’s 2012 presidential nomination”:

He equated abortion with murder, noted that the Earth is cooling, not warming, and said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the Treasury secretaries in the Bush and Obama administrations were “misguided” at best in declaring certain financial and manufacturing organizations too big to be allowed to fail.

But that isn’t good not enough for the Club for Growth, whose vice president assailed Pawlenty as “not the true believer that the conservative base is looking for.”

Elsewhere in Minnesota headlines this morning …

DULUTH: Surveyed residents circle the wagons in support of hometown. But it’s a Gallup Poll, not a “gallop poll.” [Duluth News Tribune]

MOORHEAD: Roving for student voters? Karl Rove speaks at Concordia College tonight before heading to St. Olaf College for another speech Thursday. [Morris Sun Tribune]

ST. LOUIS PARK: That new furniture smell. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s anti-formaldehyde bill was inspired by a cheap, foreign-made cabinet she bought on moving to Washington, D.C. [Bemidji Pioneer]

ST. PAUL: Republicans expand complaint. Now the state GOP is fingering Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak as well as St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman for running undeclared campaigns for governor while seeking re-election to their current jobs. [Star Tribune]

ST. PAUL: Mayoral rivals set election-eve debate. That throws a wrench in Coleman’s plans to crisscross the state the night before the election. [City Hall Scoop]

ROCHESTER: More kicking and punching. This time it was an airplane, not a goose statue, that took the abuse. [Associated Press]

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]

The highlight, though, was this cryptic exchange about President-elect Barack Obama:

NYT: Are you going to send him a little note congratulating him?
Rove: I already have. I sent it to his office. I sent him a handwritten note with funny stamps on the outside.
NYT: What kind of funny stamps?
Rove: Stamps.

That called to mind one of the more cryptic MnIndy interviews of the campaign season. It took place last month, outside a Todd Palin rally in Moorhead, Minn. Prompted by the Minnesota Independent’s Paul Demko, Moorhead resident Greg Rhodes, a McCain-Palin supporter, revealed that he’d just handed Alaska’s “first dude” some photographs. What kind of photographs?  Watch a less-than-a-minute MnIndy video clip after the jump to find out.

The Norwegian consulate in Minneapolis and the Sons of Norway, the Minneapolis-based international fraternal organization, say they aren’t aware of any interaction over the weekend between two prominent Norwegian-Americans: Walter Mondale and Karl Rove.

Rove, architect of what former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan calls the administration’s “permanent campaign,” was in Rochester, Minn., to speak at the state Republican convention. Mondale is honorary Norwegian consul at Norway’s consulate in Minneapolis.

Both men made the Sons of Norway Viking magazine’s 2004 short list of five “Notable Norwegians.” (The others: athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharis, figure skater Sonja Henie and agronomist Norman Borlaug.)

In a way, Mondale has Rove to thank for his current job. As Brian Melendez, the state DFL Party chair, pointed out, it was Rove who hand-picked Norm Coleman (over Tim Pawlenty) to be the Republicans’ candidate for the U.S. Senate six years ago. Mondale took Paul Wellstone’s place on the ballot after the late senator’s death, but lost to Coleman in the general election a week later. That made Mondale available when the new gig was offered after Norway demoted the Minneapolis consulate to “honorary” status last year.