Pawlenty: The Real Winner in Minn. Senate Race

The Minnesota Supreme Court has awarded the Senate seat to Al Franken and Norm Coleman has conceded the race.  Yet there is a more important story: the brilliant way Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty handled this race, both politically and ethically.

Pawlenty was under great pressure a couple months ago to make a decision regarding Franken- however, the risks involved were tremendous. On the one hand, if he ran for governor again, he risked losing if he supported his fellow Republican, Coleman. On the other hand, if he supported Franken, he risked losing a lot of support with the Republican Party on the national scale in the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination, as that would have given the Democrats a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate. By holding back the way he did, he let the legal system work, and showed an ability to appear above partisan politics. Politically, it was brilliant.

Emblematic of the ethical and political risk Pawlenty overcame was his statement Sunday, where he said it “…would be a dereliction of my duty” to not sign Franken’s certificate if the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of Franken. Fortunately, Norm Coleman has taken this decision out of Pawlenty’s hands by conceding, but to me the important thing in the governor’s consistent position on this election was that of a legal one for the state of Minnesota. Beyond the political game he masterfully played, his consistent message was one of legality and his duty to his constitutents, something that is rare on both sides of the aisle.

Pawlenty is not the ardent conservative many Republicans would prefer, but he is young, charismatic, articulate and talks of the future of the Republican Party with great hope. In short, he’s the Republican Party’s version of President Obama, except with a legitimate resume (among other things, he went eight years as governor without raising taxes) and clear electability in a state Republicans will need in 2012.