The National Republican Senatorial Committee went after Sen. Amy Klobuchar in a press release last week and again on Monday criticizing her hesitance to take a stand on the tax cut compromise brokered between President Obama and Republican Senators. The attack came after new polling showed Klobuchar with the highest favorability rating of any Democratic senator up for re-election in 2012. She would also clobber Republicans in a series of theoretical matchups.

“With her party in total disarray, Amy Klobuchar needs to tell Minnesotans where she stands on raising their taxes as they suffer from high unemployment. Does she stand with President Obama against this massive tax hike, or does she stand with the liberal left which supports higher taxes on job creators?” NRSC’s Brian Walsh said last Wednesday. “With Americans suffering from nearly 10 percent unemployment, the last thing we need is a job-killing tax hike. So, when will Amy Klobuchar come off the fence and make her position clear?”

The NRSC doubled down on Monday.

“With her party leaders at war with one another and this key vote just hours away, why won’t Senator Klobuchar just tell Minnesotans where she stands on raising their taxes as they struggle with high unemployment?” said Walsh. “It’s a simple question: will Amy Klobuchar join with President Obama in yielding to voters’ demands, or will she stand with Nancy Pelosi and the extreme left in raising taxes on Minnesota’s families and job creators?”

Klobuchar has told several reporters that she’s still studying the president’s proposal.

Photo: Tom Scheck, MPR Polinaut

Among the rewards Gov. Pawlenty dangles in a fundraising email on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC): “a photo opportunity with me.”

A randomly selected donor of $50 or more to the NRSC will get an expenses-paid trip to the organization’s meeting next month in Washington, D.C., including a seat at the same table as Pawlenty when he addresses the group at its Kickoff Luncheon.

And this being a meeting of Republicans, you can expect talk about opportunity. In this case, a photo opportunity, with T-Paw.

That’s a prize that might not have seemed so prizeworthy before Pawlenty’s recent rapid rise as a GOP presidential prospect … like back in April when Pawlenty posed with a guy in a fish suit at another luncheon, at the White Bear Lake Chamber of Commerce.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) ad opens with a grainy image of Franken making a hurling motion with his arm in front of a brick wall and a dark-skinned man in a baseball cap. Unspoken words in a typeface familiar from the Obama campaign appear on the screen as the footage of Franken flickers past: 

It’s finally here … with 60 senators … the Democrats have total control … No checks. No balances. … Higher energy taxes? No debate. … Government-run health care? No debate. … Eliminating the secret ballot? No debate. … They own everything. … And have no one to blame now. … Their taxes. … Their record deficits. … Their failed economy. … In 2010, you can hold them accountable. … Vote Republican. 2010. 

Here’s the new NRSC web ad, “60″:

[Via The Fix]

Franken’s brief will ask the high court to tell Gov. Tim Pawlenty he must issue an election certificate once the case clears the state’s judicial system, Polinaut predicts. Coleman filed his brief last week and must respond to Franken’s reply by Friday. Oral arguments are set for June 1.

Meanwhile, in Washington last week, the U.S. Senate’s Republican leaders hosted a dinner to raise funds for Coleman’ legal gambit. The event, at Bobby Van’s Grill, benefited the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) recount fund.

(Bobby Van’s is the kind of place, apparently, where you might see Commerce Secretary Gary Locke at a table with Forest Whitaker, the movie star who also attended the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night.)

Raising money for the Senate rivals got easier after the Federal Election Commission decided that the national parties could set up recount funds independent of their existing accounts and the candidates’ own accounts. That allows eager donors to spread more of their wealth among several accounts.

Watch the dollar limits lift in the fine print from a series of invites.

Nov. 18, 2008:

Feb. 11, 2009:

May 6, 2009:

Finally, here’s a new YouTube video with a Kermit-like frog puppet singing a Norm Coleman version of Billy Joel’s “My Life.” (Joel performed the song in its original version with Elton John at the Xcel Center in St. Paul last week — fan video here).

Cornyn also told Politico that Coleman has repeatedly brought up the possibility that the state will hold a re-vote. The former Minnesota senator has mentioned a do-over election at “different times,” the Texas senator said. Legal experts call a re-do one of the most distant of possible scenarios for resolving the Senate-seat snarl.

The absence from the U.S. Senate of Democrat Al Franken — who was determined to be the winner by 225 votes of a statewide recount that’s been contested by Coleman in a St. Paul courtroom for the last month and a half — was felt most sharply last week as Senate Democrats struggled on votes to pass the omnibus federal spending bill.

Franken’s request for an advisory opinion from the Federal Elections Commission — asking whether the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can start its own fund to aid his cause — earned him some new friends.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee have told the FEC they agree with Franken and the DSCC: National party organizations should be able to raise money independent of the Franken campaign and that of former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman — and independent of the federal limits on contributions to the campaigns’ recount funds.

Franken attorney Marc Elias asked the FEC on Feb. 17 for an opinion within 10 days, citing rising costs from a legal battle “with no end in sight.” He followed up to emphasize the urgency in a Feb. 23 phone call to Cynthia Bauerly, a Democrat from Minnesota now serving as a commissioner on the FEC.

The NRSC had a field day contrasting Elias’ words with Senate Democrats’ vows to seat Franken by April, but in their comments to the FEC the Republican groups cite his phrase without irony.

Asked about the request during an appearance in Minneapolis last week, Franken appeared interested — he has himself, after all, been raising money since the election — but he told the Minnesota Independent he was leaving the details of such matters to his lawyers.

Franken advocates have launched a fundraising site to track the vote tally and help the Democrat cover legal costs.

“Running,” the first TV ad that Democrat Ashwin Madia aired in his losing bid to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, was this morning ranked among the nation’s eight best ads in U.S. House races this year by The Fix, a Washington Post blog. The Fix said:

There are a lot of boring ways to do a biography ad. This was a standout because it broke from convention — telling the story of Madia, an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s open 3rd district, while he ran along the streets of the district. “When I was in Baghdad I was never able to do this,” Madia said. “Just go anywhere and run.” Powerful stuff.

Last week, The Fix bestowed an equivalent honor on the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s “Angry Al” ad, the bleeped-out highlight reel of bad words and bad attitude from Democrat Al Franken.

The satirical magazine Radar (the print incarnation of which just suffered its second or third and perhaps fatal death) determined that two Minnesota U.S. Senate race ads merited inclusion among its “Best Campaign Ads in Our Golden Age of Politics“: a fairly pedestrian anti-Al spot from the National Rifle Association and another from the National Federation of Independent Businesses that Radar appreciated for its association of Franken with assorted worklife miseries like missing your bus.

Just before Election Day, the Huffington Post corralled 60 campaign ads deemed ”Most Memorable” (not quite the same as “Best”). That list included three from Minnesota: Franni Franken’s testimonial for her husband Al, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spot in which a mother whose son was killed in Iraq blames Coleman, and the National Republican Campaign Committee’s attack on Ashwin Madia that became famous for darkening Madia’s skin tone.

That last one offers flattery of the proverbially sincerest sort to its intended target: It’s built on clips lifted from Madia’s original “Running” ad. Here are those two ads: