Minneapolis / St. Paul News Blog

​ Let's be honest. This wasn't Gov. Tim Pawlenty's shining week of success. He's done better. Not often, but it happens. At least he appears to be on a smooth track most weeks. This one was just painful.

And Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, normally a cheerleader for Pawlenty, noticed too. And he highlighted all of Pawlenty's failings this week in a nice nifty post. Thanks for also reminding us that we don't have a real governor in our state and the election isn't for three more years.

Cillizza highlighted Pawlenty's support for Upstate New York Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman right after Sarah Palin did the same thing.

Then he appeared on MSNBC and questioned Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe calling herself a Republican. What The Fix had to say:

In retrospect, neither move was a smart one from a strategic point of view. Hoffman fell short in the special election and Pawlenty had to reach out to Snowe in the wake of his comments to make clear that his belief was that the party was a big tent rather than a small one.

Pawlenty detractors are sure to see these two incidents as evidence of a transparent attempt to tack to his ideological right in advance of a presidential primary process that is dominated by conservative activists.