Pawlenty told the conservative website Newsmax that Obama has

a philosophy that government knows best, a nanny-state mentality on domestic issues that will ultimately be corrosive to the other pillars of our country — to markets, private enterprise, individual responsibility, freedom and liberty.

And T-Paw has what it takes to stop nannies from corroding pillars. On health care, Pawlenty pitches his plan to let companies sell coverage across state lines, adding

we need to make it more affordable for individuals and families, businesses, and governmental entities. But instead they are now focused substantially on expanding access.

If Obama is the object of scorn, Pawlenty’s home state doesn’t fare much better in his speeches. He has made Minnesota a punchline in past talks, but last week managed to draw boos at the launch of his new Freedom First PAC by introducing himself as “coming from a state that is the home of Humphrey and Mondale and Wellstone and now U.S. Senator Al Franken.”

Coleman was showered with criticism after his self-assessment appeared on the cover of the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. In his responses, first unapologetic then remorseful, the freshman senator insisted he’d only meant the comparison in terms of support for President Bush.
That sort of direct contrast isn’t possible for Coleman and Franken because their Senate terms coincide with different administrations: Coleman served only under President George W. Bush and Franken only under President Barack Obama.

But Coleman was in the Senate with Obama for a couple of years, so that’s a basis for comparison. In 2007, when both voted, Coleman and Obama voted differently 119 times. In 2008, Coleman and Obama cast opposing votes 43 times, for a total over their two years together of 162 votes at odds.

Franken on the other hand has voted with his party (and Obama, presumably) 95.5 percent of the time in 88 votes so far, according to the Washington Post — meaning he has voted against the Democrats (and Obama) about four times.

At that rate, over a two-year span equal to Coleman’s overlap with Obama, Franken will vote out of step with Obama only about 32 times — an 80 percent improvement over Coleman, by Coleman’s standard of measurement.

One thing almost everyone can agree on: As his 100th day in office approaches on Thursday, Franken (whose staff didn’t respond to a request for comment) is surely a 100 percent improvement over the vacancy in Wellstone’s seat that persisted for six months while Coleman challenged his election in court.

Here is an excerpt from the the April 7, 2003 Roll Call story, “Coleman Becomes Big Draw“:

Still, Coleman is loyal to Bush, perhaps because the president stood by his side in the last days of the campaign. And the Minnesota Republican is not shy about comparing his legislative accomplishments to those of his predecessor.

“To be very blunt and God watch over Paul’s soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone,” Coleman said. “Just about on every issue.”

When pressed about the remaining 1 percent, Coleman sidestepped the issue and instead talked about his desire to support Bush.

“In other words, Wellstone was never with the president,” Coleman said of the first two years of the Bush administration. “I could be with the president most of the time. If I disagree on affirmative action. If I disagree on ANWR. If I disagree on something else down the road, so what. The differences are so profound.”

Two days later, Roll Call reported on the fallout, under the headline “Coleman Under Fire“:

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) spent most of Tuesday dodging criticism over the freshman’s claim in Monday’s edition of Roll Call that he is a “99 percent improvement” over the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D).
Former Wellstone aides demanded an apology from Coleman, while Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) chastised his new colleague.

“I think it was an unfortunate comment,” Daschle told reporters. “I was one of those fortunate enough to consider Paul Wellstone a very, very dear and special friend. And I disagree with Senator Coleman 100 percent of it.”

Protesters also showed up at Coleman’s St. Paul office demanding that he “change the tone in Washington,” a pointed reference to one of the themes of his campaign last year.

For his part, Coleman initially released a statement that did not challenge the quotes that were attributed to him in the front-page story. He also did not specifically apologize in that statement.

“Mark Twain said the problem with talking to the media is they’re likely to print what you say,” Coleman said in a prepared statement. “It was my responsibility to be more clear in my remarks to Roll Call. It was my understanding we were comparing my relationship to this White House to the relationship Senator Wellstone had with this White House. I would never want to diminish the legacy or memory of Senator Paul Wellstone, and I will accept full responsibility for not having been more accurate in my comments.”

But late Tuesday, Coleman phoned HOH and said that he did want to apologize for any hurt that he caused.

“I fully apologize,” he said. “I accept the fact that there is a higher degree of sensitivity when talking about Senator Wellstone.”

Coleman stressed that he did not want to hedge anything about the context of his comments. “I apologize and it won’t happen again. I’ll choose words more carefully in the future. It’s not the reporter’s mistake. It’s my mistake.”

Here’s Pawlenty at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 18 (three years before the 2012 election):

I’m here to tell you as the governor of, to put it charitably, a left-leaning state [laughter] …

Here’s Romney in South Carolina, as quoted in a Washington Post article titled “Massachusetts Governor Makes His State the Butt of His Jokes,” from Sept. 26, 2005 (three years before the 2008 election):

Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention. … There are more Republicans in this room tonight than I have in my state!

Pawlenty also sounds a lot like Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has brought up the topic of the presidency herself. In Colorado earlier this month, she made a similar gag: “Hey, I got elected in Franken country!” Like Pawlenty at the Value Voters Summit, she followed it up by namechecking Minnesota liberals Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone.

Photo: spps.org

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.

Like other schools in the St. Paul district, Tuesday was the first day back for students at what used to be Webster Magnet Elementary. New pencils, new clothes, new teachers … and a new school name: Barack and Michele Obama Service Learning Elementary.

At the end of last school year, the St. Paul school board voted to rename Webster after the Obamas, not quite four months into the president’s term. (The one vote against the name change came from Tom Conlon, the board’s lone Republican member, who has since resigned.)

So last week when ire began to be heard from some quarters in Minnesota and across the country over the president’s plan to speak to students, the Minnesota Independent was curious about plans for the speech at Barack and Michele Obama Service Learning Elementary.

Principal Lori Simon didn’t return messages, but today district spokesman Howie Padilla called with news that although some schools showed Obama’s speech live this morning or replayed it on tape this afternoon, Barack and Michele Obama Service Learning Elementary was not one of those schools.

As at Minneapolis Public Schools, the decision of whether and when to show the speech was left to principals and teachers in St. Paul schools, Padilla said. (A typical example may be Paul and Sheila Wellstone Elementary, where a receptionist told MnIndy that people in the school office weren’t sure which teachers had opted to use the speech in class.)

And also as in Minneapolis, viewing via the internet was discouraged for fear of swamping the St. Paul district’s servers, Padilla said.

Photos: Wikipedia

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.”

A post at the blog JammieWearingFool, amplified by Instapundit, appears to coin the phrase, in this context at least: “While we have no doubt the Democrats will do all they can to exploit his death and will probably have a Wellstone memorial on steroids, we’ll stay above that.”

But the phrase isn’t new: Rush Limbaugh used it to criticize Dems in a January interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity.

Paul Wellstone’s name also appears in a piece about Kennedy’s passing by The Economist, which includes the late Minnesota senator among statesmen like Adlai Stevenson, Edmund Muskie and George McGovern — “men who refused to compromise or triangulate in the Clinton style, and who made no apology for their beliefs.” The piece calls Kennedy the “last” of that clan, asking who’ll carry the torch now. (Two answers: Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.)

Franken knew who the guest was going to be (a controversial choice) and presumably arrived loaded for bear, just in case. Wellstone was likewise prepared to meet the president of the Senate. In Sarah Janecek’s words:

The beginning of Paul Wellstone’s first term in the U.S. Senate was also inelegant. He thrust a cassette tape of Minnesotans expressing opposition to the Gulf War into the hands of then-Vice President Dan Quayle.

Indeed, Wellstone took a while to adjust to Washington, D.C. protocol, as remembered at CounterPunch:

So when Wellstone met Bush in a typical White House pro forma reception line, he used the occasion to urge Bush on three different occasions to spend more time on issues like education and cautioning him against the Persian Gulf War. Of course, Bush was more concerned about fighting the war against Iraq (sound familiar?) and could care less about Wellstone’s issues. After Wellstone violated Bush 41’s sanctimonious White House protocol, Bush was overheard saying, “Who is this chicken shit?”

(Minnesota House of Representatives)

State Rep. Tom Rukavina is not hesitant to advocate for 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.

“I certainly don’t shy away from the fact that I’m not opposed to raising fair taxes,” says Rukavina, speaking to MnIndy by phone. “We all knew at the Capitol, including Gov. Pawlenty, that we needed to raise money.”

Last week, Rukavina filed papers with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to formally explore a gubernatorial bid. He expects to spend the rest of the summer meeting with DFL activists, raising money and gauging support. Rukavina said he won’t run against the DFL-endorsed candidate in a primary election.

“I can’t compete against some of the people who are running in the DFL primary as far as money is concerned,” he said. “A little guy with a lot of passion and just a little bit of  money can’t compete if I don’t have the DFL party behind me.”

Rukavina paints himself as a passionate populist in the mold of former U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone. He expects to have strong support from organized labor and becomes the second candidate from the DFL stronghold of the Iron Range, joining state Sen. Tom Bakk.

“My mantra’s going to be six issues,” Rukavina said. “Jobs, jobs, jobs, and education, education, education.”

Rukavina believes Pawlenty overstepped his authority when he used his unallotment powers to help unilaterally close the state’s $2.7 billion budget gap. He contemplated suing the governor, as his previously did in 2003, but didn’t have the financial or legal resources to follow through.

“No governor — I don’t care if it’s Tom Rukavina or Tim Pawlenty — should have that kind of power,” he said. “I think it’s unconstitutional the way it was used.”

Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, regularly sounded the rallying cry of Coleman’s cause, threatening “World War III” when appropriate and calling for Coleman’s return to the Senate, or at least for his seat to remain empty a good long time — like, “years.”

It took only days after Coleman conceded defeat to Democrat Al Franken for Cornyn to take the Ag committee seat that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had kept empty, in case Coleman came back. It’s Cornyn’s fourth committee assignment — evidence, says the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, of how thinly-spread the 40-Republican Senate minority is.

Franken got four committee assignments too, but not Agriculture, where Minnesota’s other senator, Amy Klobuchar, holds a seat (as did her predecessor, Mark Dayton). That makes 2009 the first year since the late Sen. Paul Wellstone joined in 2001 that Minnesota hasn’t had both its senators assigned to what’s officially called the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

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]