Paul Wellstone

Gov. Pawlenty continued his attacks on Barack Obama today, saying the president is “spending the country into bankruptcy,” is “projecting potential weakness” to America’s enemies, and has “governed in an extremely liberal way.”

After three months in office, former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, chomping an unlit cigar, pronounced himself “a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone.”  Coleman’s successor, Al Franken, has now held Wellstone’s old Senate seat for three months: Is he a 99 percent improvement over Coleman?

How closely is Gov. Tim Pawlenty following Mitt Romney’s playbook in pursuit of the presidency? T-Paw is starting to draw laughs from out-of-state conservatives by taking jabs at his state’s reputed liberalism – just like Romney (with whom he crossed paths in Michigan over the weekend). 

Students at a St. Paul school recently renamed for President and First Lady Obama did not see the president’s address to the nation’s school children today. The plan is to show it later in the week.

President Obama called Congress’ “liberal lion,” Edward Kennedy, the “greatest United States senator of our time” — and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery will match that praise. But conservative bloggers are already complaining about his funeral, forecasting it’ll be a “Wellstone memorial on steroids.”

First, U.S. Sen. Al Franken wouldn’t stand to meet billionaire T. Boone Pickens. Then he got into it with the latter-day domestic-energy guru — “a lively conversation” were Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh’s words — over Pickens having paid for “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” ads against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign. Unseemly [...]

State Rep. Tom Rukavina is not hesitant to advocate higher taxes. While many of his DFL colleagues danced rhetorical circles around the state’s budgetary mess during the last legislative session, the 12-term Iron Range legislator repeatedly stated that increased revenue would need to be part of any solution. Now Rukavina is looking to bring that blunt — and perhaps politically obtuse — talk to the 2010 gubernatorial race.

“We’ll support Norm to the bitter end,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn last March. This month, Norm Coleman’s end as a U.S. Senator became a bit less bitter for Cornyn when the Texas Republican took Coleman’s old spot on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Eight months after election day, Al Franken will be sworn in today as Minnesota’s second U.S. senator. The UpTake brings the video of the 11:15 ceremony — in which Franken will be sworn in on a bible owned by the family of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone — at 11 a.m. CT. C-SPAN will also [...]

A new Republican web ad, titled “60,” again recycles footage of Al Franken gesticulating wildly — in imitation of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone cheering his son’s cross-country race. This time it’s accompanied by mournful music, because after Sen.-elect Franken’s swearing-in today, Democratic votes in the U.S. Senate reach the dreaded number 60.