Still, Bachmann had sharp words for the media calling them “irresponsible” and “reprehensible.”

“That is a shocking story to me,” Bachmann told Radio Iowa on Friday evening. “I don’t know where that came from. We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn’t true, so I don’t know if this is just a bad story that’s being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we’ve made calls and it’s certainly not true.”

Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson followed up asking if Bachmann had had any defections from the campaign.

“Not to our knowledge,” Bachmann said. “We’re trying to call everyone and find out if there’s any truth to the story. Everyone that we’ve gotten a hold of has said that they were shocked as well. There’s no truth to that story, so this is a rumor and I think it’s highly reprehensible for the media to publish a story without calling us, the campaign, to even find out if that’s true. This is what’s really wrong with politics. It’s highly irresponsible media to spread stories and print stories that aren’t verified and aren’t true. I think this is wrong.”

As Bachmann denied any campaign staff had left as of Friday night, WMUR, the news outlet that broke the story that all her Granite State staffers had quit, also reported that at least one of Bachmann’s staffers had already been hired by Rick Perry’s campaign.

By Sunday it was clear that Bachmann had been taken out of the loop on developments within her own campaign.

On Fox News Sunday, Bachmann conceded that two of her staffers, communications director Jeff Chidester and field staffer Caroline Gilger, had resigned.

“We just didn’t know yesterday because they never talked to us, they just went to the press,” she said. “It would have been nice of them to talk to us. We understand that they want to campaign and work more, it’s just that we are spending our time and efforts in Iowa. We’re basically camping out in Iowa until the caucuses.”

Bachmann told Roll Call that her campaign would be replacing the staff that had left New Hampshire.

“We’re replacing the staff that we have in New Hampshire,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann did not have a large campaign staff in the Granite State and had focused much of her efforts in Iowa, but the news comes as a blow to a campaign that has floundered since briefly tasting success in the Iowa Straw Poll.

Her staff told reporters on Friday that they had intended to quit sooner, but waited so as not to damage her image. But by this week, they’d had enough frustration with the direction of the campaign and its lack of focus on New Hampshire.

The staffers still say they support the Congresswoman’s bid for the presidency.

Among those leaving are senior advisors Jeff Chidestar and Karen Testerman, director of operations Mattheu LeDuc, and field directors Caroline Gigler and Tom Lukacz,

Bachmann has a history of campaign and legislative staff turnover. In September, her top campaign staff left abruptly and her pollster quit in early October.

Since winning her congressional seat in 2006, Bachmann has had five congressional chiefs of staff, five press secretaries, four legislative directors and three communications directors.

Bachmann for President campaign manager Keith Nahigian passed a statement along on Friday afternoon saying the campaign knew nothing of the New Hampshire staff leaving:

“We have a great team in New Hampshire and we have not been notified that anyone is leaving the campaign. We look forward to spending more time in the Granite State between now and the primary, but our campaign has emphasized that our main focus is the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa and we are continuing to build efforts there. While she will campaign in other states, Michele will spend the majority of her time in Iowa, doing what she does better than all the other candidates – retail politics – leading up to the all important caucuses.”

Last weekend’s Tax Day Tea Party rallies in Iowa and South Carolina featured Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, respectively, and by all accounts, attendance at the events was off. Bachmann carries the tea party mantle, although some activists resent her de facto leadership title, while Pawlenty is having trouble garnering the support of tea partiers even at his own events.

In Iowa, Pawlenty and fellow presidential contender Herman Cain greeted about 200 tea party supporters in Des Moines at a  Saturday, Apr. 16 Tax Day gathering of tea partiers, according to the Associated Press. Last year, the rally drew an estimated 2,000. Last weekend’s event was chilly, windy and wet, which may have hampered attendance.

The Union Leader put Pawlenty’s April 15 Tax Day Tea Party rally in Concord, N.H., on Friday at about 300 people, which is in line with 2010 when the Boston Herald put the number at “hundreds.”

Also on Friday, Pawlenty drew about 300 tea partiers to the Boston Commons. Last year’s event with Sarah Palin drew more than 3,000.

Bachmann drew a similarly small crowd at an appearance in Columbia, South Carolina, at a Monday afternoon Tax Day event for tea partiers. CBS News put the crowd at about 300.

Will Forks, a prominent South Carolina blogger wrote, “Only 300 people (including a horde of Palmetto political operatives) attended the event in downtown Columbia, S.C. – which is a generous estimate in our book. That attendance figure – confirmed by other media outlets – amounts to less than one-tenth the size of multiple crowds that have gathered at the S.C. State House in recent years in support of parental choice.”

He added, “It’s also roughly a tenth the size of the crowd that attended this same event in 2009.”

That blog post allegedly drew fire from Bachmann’s people, which prompted a terse response from Forks on Twitter:

“@michelebachmann’s people are pissed at me for not showing her any love. awwww. puddin. draw more than 300 people next time”

The low attendance at the Pawlenty and Bachmann events mirrors a national trend over the Tax Day weekend. Rallies across the country saw significant drops in tea pary attendance.

While Bachmann and Pawlenty failed to draw large crowds of tea partiers, they are also facing some grumbling from tea party leaders.

Bachmann’s co-opting of the tea party name for her potential presidential campaign isn’t sitting well with some locals. In January, the Tea Party Patriots of the Twin Cities sent out a statement saying, “Please call Michele Bachmann’s Office and tell her that she does not speak for the Tea Party. Michele has announced she will be giving the ‘Tea Party Response’ to the President’s State of the Union Address. The Tea Party Patriots Organization is a grass roots organization. One person has no right to speak for the whole organization.”

And just before Bachmann’s appearance in South Carolina, the Original Tea Party of Minnesota sent out a message stating, “If the tea party is just the GOP, it is like a one legged dog! Don’t let the GOP continue to cut off the legs of this old dog! The tea party was supposed to be NON PARTISAN and for the PEOPLE! Not for Michele Bachmann and the GOP to use as a vessel for their candidacies! Is your tea party a ONE LEGGED DOG?”

Pawlenty has had his own tea party problems. The New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition recently criticized Pawlenty over the International Baccalaureate program in some Minnesota schools. Some tea partiers view I.B. as an extension of the United Nations, which they say is eroding U.S. sovereignty.

“Treacherous or clueless, his lack of understanding of this program run by the UN and designed to promote ‘world government’ to our students, will likely be fatal to him in the primary,” the group wrote on its blog.

As the National Review noted at Pawlenty’s Tea Party appearance in Boston, he has lukewarm support from tea party activists.

Rep. Michele Bachmann made her debut in New Hampshire with a series five appearances on Friday and Saturday as part of her “all in for 2012″ tour. At one stop, a troop of AIDS activists crashed her speech and a gaffe on U.S. history put Bachmann’s visit in the headlines.

At her speech to the New Hampshire Republican party on Saturday morning, Bachmann praised the state’s caucus process, repeated her “Hu’s your daddy?” line, called President Bush a big spender and said the Medicare will be flat broke by 2017.

She also again talked about defunding “Obamacare.”

“I don’t know why our Republican leadership hasn’t taken this up in DC,” Bachmann said of her efforts to defund health care reform. She added that she was appalled by the $105 billion she says was hidden in the health care reform bill.

“I’m insulted that I was not given this information before the vote. That’s not what our brave men and women… it’s not the kind of nation they put their lives on the line for,” she said. “This is a crime against democracy not to reveal this to the American people.”

Fact-checkers have cried foul over the statement; last week, the Washington Post gave the statement “four Pinnochios” for prizing “bombast” over facts, while Politifact called it “barely true.” And on Saturday, a Star Tribune editorial chastised Bachmann for the claim, stating that “she personally needs a refresher course on the Ten Commandments – specifically, the one that warns against bearing false witness.” The paper notes that the $105 billion was really $103.1 billion and that there’s “no basis for Bachmann’s claim that the implementation money was inserted ‘secretly.’”

Halfway through her speech, a group of college students crashed the ballroom where the speech was held shouting, “Michele Bachmann, we insist! End AIDS treatment waiting lists!”

As the group was escorted out, Bachmann said, “It’s okay; they just brought the buses in from Madison, Wisconsin.”

But it was a gaffe earlier in the speech that generated weekend chatter by political pundits. “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord,” she said, referencing Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” an ode to the lives lost at the start of the American Revolution in Concord, Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.

Bachmann was quick to admit the historical mistake. In a message on Facebook, she said, “So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!”

And not to escape without a dig at President Obama, she added in a later Facebook posting, “And by the way… That will be the last time I borrow President Obama’s tele-promoter!”

Sources close to Bachmann told CNN over the weekend that she is leaning towards a run for president in 2012.

“She is leaning more toward doing it,” an anonymous Republican told the network. “The people she’s meeting on the ground, they love her. She is definitely more encouraged when she makes these trips.”

Conservative commentator George Will disagreed with his fellow panelists on CBS’s This Week on Sunday morning that Bachmann would be a formidable contender.

“She’s not among the serious contenders,” explained Will at the culmination of a roundtable discussion focused on Bachmann’s political ambitions. “We know who settles presidential elections, they’re independent voters. Independent voters are not inflamed, and not inflamed in the way that some of the marginal Republican candidates are.”

Here’s video of that exchange:

Following the gaffe and protest at Saturday morning’s speech, Bachmann riled up the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC meeting later on Saturday.

“I think it’s not about being polite, I think it’s about being honest,” she said of her outspoken nature.

She also tried to tie President Obama to the TARP bailout passed and signed into law by President Bush.

“Did you ever think you’d live to see the day when your government would own the largest banks, the largest insurance company, the largest auto maker and over half the homes in the united states?” she asked. “All of that happened within 12 months of Barack Obama becoming president of the United States.”

She said the United Nations “would love to see American sovereignty diminished,” and said she’s fine with forcing a government shutdown in order to defund “Obamacare.”

“I’ve decided to draw a line in the sand. We will repeal ‘Obamacare,’” she said. “We cannot allow this to abide in the United States of America. It will change our nation forever.”

She concluded, “The nation was founded on a miracle and a miracle can happen again.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann has the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina on her itinerary, while former Gov. Tim Pawlenty is headed to early-caucus state Nevada following trips to Virginia, Florida and Arkansas — the latter fueling speculation that Pawlenty may make a play for supporters of Mike Huckabee if he decides not to run for president in 2012.

The details of Bachmann’s trip to New Hampshire have been solidified. She’ll be in Manchester on March 11 and 12 to meet with GOP officials with a “main event” scheduled for Saturday to raise funds for the state party.

Bachmann also added another event to her trip to South Carolina this weekend, a low-budget fundraiser for the York County Republican Party.

Pawlenty was in Arkansas on Wednesday to meet with Republican officials. “Could Pawlenty be positioning himself to pick up Huckabee supporters looking for a candidate if Huckabee decides not to run?” asked Jason Tolbert, a conservative blogger who attended the meeting. “It sure looks that way to me.”

Over the weekend, Pawlenty sat down to dinner with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, fueling some speculation about McDonnell possibly looking for a vice president spot on a GOP ticket in 2012.

Pawlenty will be heading to Nevada next week to meet with GOP leaders.

While he’s still at single digits among Republicans in New Hampshire, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty scored third place in the WMUR Granite State Poll, which was released on Thursday. Pawlenty polled ahead of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, and tied Mike Huckabee at 7 percent. The strong showing by Pawlenty could be an indication of Palin’s sinking support following her “blood libel” remarks in January.

Mitt Romney topped the poll with 40 percent followed by Rudy Giuliani with 10 percent. Pawlenty and Huckabee came in at 7 percent, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich at 6 percent and Ron Paul at 5 percent.

Pawlenty has gone up in a ranks in New Hampshire over the last year, though his position still seems volatile. However, there’s still a year of campaigning until the first primary.

In July 2010, Pawlenty ranked near the bottom of a Public Policy Polling poll with just 3 percent and was beaten by Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Huckabee and Palin.

In November, a PPP poll had Pawlenty at 4 percent behind Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich and Palin.

A Jan. 7, 2011, poll by NH Journal had Pawlenty at the bottom with just 4 percent. Romney, Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich and Paul all did better.

In a January 22, 2011 WMUR straw poll at a Republican gathering, Pawlenty scored third with 8 percent and was ahead of Palin and Giuliani but got beat by Paul and Romney.

Palin made her remarks about “blood libel” in mid-January following the controversy over her use of crosshairs on a map over a number of Congressional candidates, including that of Rep. Gabriele Giffords, who was shot in Tucson. The two polls conducted since then show her trailing Pawlenty in particular and other candidates generally.

Minnesota’s two potential presidential contenders continue with plans to travel the nation. At CPAC, Rep. Michele Bachmann said she’s planning a trip to New Hampshire, while former Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced an upcoming trip to Florida. Both have been touring the country — Pawlenty hawking his new book and Bachmann assisting Republican candidates and party units with fundraising.

According to the Union Leader, Bachmann said on Friday she was planning a trip to New Hampshire.

“The Minnesota congresswoman made the announcement to reporters this afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.,” wrote John Distaso. “According to a source who is attending the conference and witnessed the exchange, Bachmann gave no time frame for the visit to the first-in-the-nation primary state.”

Pawlenty is headed to Florida on Wednesday to speak to state legislators on the invitation of state Senate President Mike Haridopolos. Haridopolos is running for U.S. Senate in 2012 and is bringing in a number of presidential candidates because “if a person is seeking the presidency, I think they should come to Florida and let us know what they think.”

Haunted by the memories of the 2008 election between former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and current Sen. Al Franken (D), Minnesota is bracing for yet another contentious recount, this time to determine the state’s next governor.

Just as the ‘08 outcome had national implications — Franken became the temporary 60th Democratic Senate vote in 2009 (due to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death not long after) — a delayed decision on the 2010 gubernatorial race would have wide repercussions at both the local and national levels. The state legislature, which flipped to the GOP on Tuesday, could quickly pass conservative bills while a Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, waits in limbo. All the while, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty finds himself in a unique posturing position before his probable bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

After all precincts reported their totals on Wednesday, former U.S. Senator and Democratic candidate Dayton held a narrow 43.63–43.21 percent lead over his Republican opponent, state Rep. Tom Emmer, in the gubernatorial campaign. Tom Horner, a third-party candidate running for the Independence Party, drew 12 percent.

Mark Dayton leads Tom Emmer by nearly 9,000 votes. Photo: Minnesota Independent

With only 8,856 votes separating Dayton and Emmer, media outlets have held off on calling the race, and, so far, neither candidate has declared victory nor conceded defeat. Vote tallies are unofficial until the State Canvassing Board meets on Nov. 23. Counties will examine their vote totals and the final numbers could still shift before that date, but as long as Dayton and Emmer remain within 0.5 percent of each other, the state will automatically conduct a recount, likely starting on Nov. 29.

The term for the next governor is scheduled to begin on Jan. 3. If the recount drags on past that date, the constitution calls for the current executive to remain in office. Pawlenty issued a press release Wednesday affirming that he will stay in the governor’s office until a new governor is sworn in.

“My administration is fully committed and prepared to accomplish the swift and orderly transition to the next governor as soon as a final determination is made. As required by Article V of the Minnesota Constitution, I will continue to serve as Governor until a new governor takes the oath,” the release said.

While the gubernatorial campaign remains in limbo, Republicans swept both sides of the state legislature this week. Pawlenty faced a hostile Democratic legislature during the entirety of his eight years in office. Democrats at times held veto-proof majorities, forcing Pawlenty to push only a limited form of his ideological goals during his tenure. If the final decision on certifying the next governor drags into 2011, Pawlenty and state Republicans could rush through numerous pieces of conservative legislation, allowing the governor to add accomplishments he can tout to the Republican base when he hits the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire next year.

It is difficult to discern exactly how long a recount could last, but the Coleman-Franken scenario from 2008 offers insight into the process. The state declared Franken the initial winner after a hand recount of votes lasted seven weeks. Reforms to the election process and a smaller pool of votes cast during a midterm year means a recount should proceed quicker in 2010, likely to last three to four weeks, according David Schultz, a professor at the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul.

If that’s the case, the outcome should, theoretically, be known before the end of the year, just in time for the next governor to take the oath on schedule. However, like 2008, it is not the recount itself that would extend the race but rather subsequent lawsuits that would endlessly drag out the final result. If the losing candidate chooses to file a lawsuit challenging those results, the state Supreme Court chief justice appoints a three-judge panel to review the complaints. That decision itself can then be appealed to the state Supreme Court, the highest point it could reach in a state-level election.

Following the 2008 recount, Coleman continued filing lawsuits up the ladder in questioning Franken’s victory. The three-judge panel did not make their decision until April 2009, and then the Supreme Court’s final ruling did not come down until the end of June, when Franken was finally allowed to assume his seat in the U.S. Senate.

Differences between the current gubernatorial results and 2008 may shorten that judicial window. Unlike the few hundred votes that separated Franken and Coleman, Dayton’s nearly 9,000 vote lead should prove difficult for Emmer to overcome in the recount.

On Wednesday, Jay Weiner, journalist and author of “This Is Not Florida: How Al Franken Won The Minnesota Senate Recount,” detailed changes in Minnesota election law since 2008 that should streamline the process in 2010. “Key among the changes: Absentee ballots this time ’round were viewed and accepted by centralized absentee ballot boards in each county. No longer did tired poll workers late at night have to quickly determine if absentee ballots followed the various guidelines,” Weiner wrote. “Also, signature mismatches, an element in the Senate recounts election contest trial, have been eliminated.”

The GOP has brought in a lawyer from the 2000 Bush v. Gore case to act on Tom Emmer's behalf. Photo: Facebook

Even if continuing the recount through lawsuits would be unlikely to change the results this time around, the Republican Party has every reason to extend the process for as long as possible if Dayton appears likely to win. The state party has already taken an aggressive public posture on the recount that indicates they are willing to see the race through.

“The stakes are enormously high in this one, much in the same way they were enormously high with Franken and Coleman. I see the same political motives for filing the challenge,” David Schultz said.

At a GOP news conference on Wednesday morning, state GOP Chairman Mark Sutton strongly pushed back against those who may view Dayton’s substantial lead as a solidified victory. “We’re going to pursue this until we’re absolutely certain that all the votes were counted correctly.”

The state party has hired Washington lawyer Michael Toner, who was the general counsel for the 2000 Bush campaign, an indication that they may already be eying a post-recount lawsuit. “It looks like it’s recount part two: And this time it’s personal,” Sutton said. (When contacted with questions, Toner directed the Minnesota Independent to the communications director for the Minnesota Republican Party, who did not return e-mail seeking comment.)

“This is the exact same rhetoric they were using two years ago. They’re starting off with similar strategy … which is to claim voter fraud,” Schultz told the Minnesota Independent. Republican claims of voter fraud were bolstered on election night when Hennepin County, which houses Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs, made a tabulation error and reported too many votes. That mistake was corrected and accounted for, bringing Emmer’s results closer to Dayton’s, but state Republicans have continued to point to it as an indication that Emmer could further close the vote-total gap.

Would Pawlenty be willing to push conservative bills through a Republican legislature during litigation even if Dayton continues to hold a solid lead in the vote totals? The governor’s communications director did not respond to requests for comment, but in a press release from Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC, the governor praised the Republican state victories.

“The historic nature of this victory cannot be overstated: For the first time since legislative races were partisan, Republicans will now have majorities in both the state House and Senate. This is a great validation of our work over the last eight years to cut spending and keep a lid on taxes,” Pawlenty wrote.

Pawlenty’s statement is in line with other Republicans’ attempts to frame the legislative victories as a governing mandate granted by voters even if the party loses the gubernatorial race. If party officials truly view the results in those terms, they would likely feel justified pushing their agenda while they still have a friendly face in the governor’s office.

“There may be powerful incentive for the Republicans to want to enact and do things very, very quickly during that time period,” Schultz said. “Get a budget passed, do all kinds of stuff when they’re guaranteed of having a Republican majority and a Republican governor.”

Pawlenty has said he will make a decision on his presidential campaign sometime during the first quarter of 2011; he did not seek a third term so that he could begin building his campaign infrastructure and increase his time spent in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. An extended recount would delay his ability to implement those plans, but it would also allow Pawlenty to build his conservative legislative credentials in ways previously prevented by a Democratic-controlled House and Senate.

Standard Republican issues of taxes and social conservative topics would likely be among the first issues addressed. Pawlenty often touts his record of not raising taxes in a liberal state when he visits national media outlets. The opportunity to pass a major tax cut — especially corporate rates that a Gov. Dayton would be unlikely to let decrease — may be too tempting for Pawlenty to pass up. One idea floated in the past that may surface again is a taxpayers bill of rights, which would essentially only allow Minnesota taxes to be raised if they are put to a popular vote.

Codifying a ban on same-sex marriage may also be addressed. Passing legislation tackling this topic would play well among the base in Iowa, one of the states Pawlenty has invested in most heavily as he eyes 2012. Three Iowa Supreme Court justices lost retention votes on Tuesday after state and national conservatives campaigned against them for their votes in ruling bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Pawlenty praised their efforts to oust the judges, and passing legislation against same-sex marriage in his own state would add credibility to his statements when he speaks to the Republican base.

One issue that would immediately confront Pawlenty if he stays in office past his initial expiration date would be an opt-in to a federal Medicaid assistance program. As part of the health-care reform legislation, Minnesota has the option of gaining extra federal Medicaid aid by increasing state enrollment. That would require the state to spend an extra $188 million, but the state would be expected to gain $1.4 billion of federal assistance in return. Democrats support the opt-in, with Republicans opposed. During the budget session last year, the two sides struck a deal: Pawlenty had the option of opting-in last year –- which he declined -– and the next governor would be presented with the same choice when he or she assumed office. Dayton campaigned on taking part in that federal program, but the next governor would have to make that decision by Jan. 15, leaving the choice in Pawlenty’s hands if lawsuits prolong the election.

Patrick Caldwell is the American Independent’s Minnesota correspondent.

The site is inspired by Ayotte’s answer to a question about where she found disagreement with the national GOP.  Ayotte answered, “Nothing comes to mind that’s on the table now.” The “new faces of the GOP” — or, in language on another part of the site, Ayotte’s “right-wing dinner guests” — also include Rand Paul and Sarah Palin.

What Bachmann “brings to the table,” according to New Hampshire Dems?

On Climate Change:

• “Human activity is not the cause of all this global warming…in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc.” ^[1]

On Equality:

• Bachmann called the recent court ruling that struck down Prop 8 “infuriating” and the work of “progressive activist judges who issue their personal moral pronouncements under the guise of constitutional law.” ^[2]

On Economics:

• Bachmann claimed that a minimum wage law is “superfluous.” ^[3]

On The Gulf Oil Spill:

• Bachmann called the fund to help victims of the oil spill a “redistribution-of-wealth fund.” She went on to say “and now it appears like we’ll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government.” ^[4]

The Democrats’ website doesn’t mention its candidate for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Judd Gregg. U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes will face off with the winner of the Sept. 14 GOP primary between Ayotte, Bill Binnie, Ovide Lamontagne and Jim Bender.

Via the Colorado Independent.

The dinner is the “bread and butter of presidential campaigns,” writes The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder: “[I]n key primary states, they give candidates the opportunity to get face time and build support from the local party members and activists that play an important role in presidential primaries.”

It’s the second time Pawlenty’s buttered up Manchester Republicans. In December, he keynoted the party’s state Senate campaign PAC event.

But back in November he let his fingers do the walking: he called up Manchester’s mayor to congratulate him on his election win.

According to MPR’s Tom Scheck, Pawlenty has traveled to around 20 states since he announced he wouldn’t be running for governor again. Keep up with the Governor’s travels at MPR’s Pawlenty-travel map.