Wcco

Pooh-poohing concerns about disruptions at town hall meetings last Friday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty was already singing in harmony with the Republican Governors Association, a group that recently elected him its vice-chairman.
“It’s democracy in action,” Pawlenty told listeners to his weekly WCCO-AM radio show. Those are the same words Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue used to describe [...]

Gov. Pawlenty got off an international flight from Iraq and Afghanistan and immediately took to the domestic airwaves. The health care reform plan is a “joke” he told Fox News, and President Obama is ”scamming the American people” — with “false advertising,” he added on Minnesota Public Radio. On his WCCO-AM show this morning, Pawlenty interviewed Colin [...]

A pair of headlines Thursday morning at the WCCO website made for a stark contrast in the television station’s treatment of LGBT-related stories. On one side, “Twin Cities to Celebrate 37th Gay Pride Fest” and on the other, “Undercover Cops Crack Down on Gay Cruising.”
“Gay cruising” is often a phenomena among men who are closeted [...]

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s announced plans to axe state refunds for political contributions of $50 or less has set off an email stampede as candidates urge donors to give before the program dies July 1.

In the Republican response to President Obama’s weekly address today, Gov. Tim Pawlenty regurgitates the right-wing Tax Foundation’s discredited “Tax Freedom Day” calculation to claim that ”the average American has to work from January 1st until this Monday, April 13th, just to earn enough money to pay all their taxes for the year.” It’s as deep a nod [...]

A group of online media outlets — including Checks & Balances, Radio Free Nation, the Minnesota Independent, The UpTake, Twin Cities Daily Planet and others — have been pressing the Minnesota House of Representatives to change rules that limit who gets to cover their proceedings. Now that the Sergeant-at-Arms proposed (now-ditched) restrictions on all media [...]

In its humble return, this edition of the intermittent Media Monitor catalogues: Ed Kohler’s latest analysis of City Pages (charged with rampant photo-swiping), a look at how a local Black History Month supermarket promotion has gone national, an acknowledgment of the power of “Brautweets,” and more.

Norm Coleman suggested in a TV interview Sunday that reporters’ asking about charges of illegally funneled money cost him the Nov. 4 Senate election. “That could have been a quiet story,” Coleman said. “It could have been a story that came out the day after the election.”

The parallels between the plan for President-elect Obama to post YouTube videos of his Saturday presidential radio addresses and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famed fireside chats aren’t lost on anyone this morning. Obama will roll out the practice tomorrow when he gives the Democratic response to President George W. Bush’s radio address.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s got his own regular radio gig, but his absence from it today meant a missed opportunity to set the record straight on his opinion of Minnesota’s electoral process.

A veteran Minnesota campaign observer tells Brian Lambert that Al Franken’s camp freely tips him on U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman misdeeds but said nada about the Texas lawsuits. Via Lambert to the Slaughter:
Pat Kessler, WCCO’s political reporter, says he’s been approached countless times by the Franken crew over the months of the campaign with hot [...]