This Minnesotan would vote for Ralph Wiggum first.

He's now trying to engineer a state constitutional amendment tying spending to revenue - after, of course, his upper-crust tax cuts. Since he's standing down after this term, what he's after is tying the hands of the state government while walking away from the consequences. In his sick, twisted mind, that somehow equates to "responsibility" in governance.

Maybe we ought to ask Californians how well things like that work. Last I heard, the world's sixth largest economy was in...interesting shape.

Neither would 75% of the rest of the states. Hang it up timmy. Your 15 minutes of "fame", the one passed up for Rambo of the great northwest for vp, are soooo over.

A majority of Minnesotans have never even voted for Pawlenty as Governor. IIRC, he won pluralities in 2006 with a little under 47% and in 2002 under 45%.

There goes the (Virgil) Goode and (Tim) Pawlenty ticket. Sigh.

Rasmussen usually has numbers that favor Republicans, so for it to still show Pawlenty losing says a lot about how Minnesotans don't like him. He only won because he had the benefit of liberal third-party candidates siphoning off votes in 2002 and 2006. Yet, I still wouldn't be surprised of Pawlenty got the nod. Republicans have been obsessed with winning Minnesota (Rove himself said it was one of his goals) and they've spent milliions there since 2002 only to lose both Senate elections, a House seat, control of the State Legislature and (most likely) the governorship come 2010. I say let them keep at it if they want - Minnesotans are proud to be from the only state that never voted for Reagan!

But T-Paw is so precious when he gets all righteously angry and fight-y and stuff, like he did in Iowa recently. His sadly comical efforts to be accepted by tea bagging brethren are a little bit cringe-inducing, akin to watching a nerd in high school trying to get accepted by the mean-spirited jocks. He truly doesn't get that they are laughing AT him and not WITH him. To borrow an analogy from Matt Taibbi, watching him try to hold his own with the lunatic fringe is a little like watching Mr. Rogers address the Reichstag.