Pawlenty needling finds its mark: Matt Entenza

Gov. Tim Pawlenty likes to needle folks.

The latest target of his needling? The Star Tribune editorial page, an old target, and Minnesota 2020, a newer target for the governor. Minnesota 2020 is a think tank started by Matt Entenza, a former state representative who is now running for governor.

Both on Wednesday and Friday morning, Pawlenty inveighed against Minnesota 2020 during radio programs and Friday afternoon Entenza inveighed back.

It all started when Pawlenty was asked about this editorial titled, "Budget woes cry out for bipartisan solution," Wednesday on public radio.

"They quote and cite as the basis for their statistics, Project 2020 (sic), which was started and funded by Matt Entenza, who is a DFL candidate for governor and clearly runs it, had run it, as a organization with a political agenda. And if you look at their work, it is clear...It should have been called Project 2010, because it was about Matt's desire to run for governor in 2010," Pawlenty said on MPR Wednesday.

The governor himself teed up the attack on Minnesota 2020, which he calls "Project 2020" for some reason, in the closing moments of his WCCO radio show Friday morning.

"Our friends at the Star Tribune editorial board, which leans a little the other way to be charitable, they use some data to try to say, you know, everything is going to heck in a handbasket and they use as their source, of course, Project 2020 (sic), which is funded by a DFL candidate for governor. So we just want to say, if you are going to cite data, could you at least look at it comprehensively and try to pick a source that isn't funded by an arm of the DFL Party," Pawlenty said. "That would be helpful."

Pawlenty responded: "Seems fair."

But Entenza himself doesn't see anything fair about it and decided to hit back.

He sent out a statement Friday afternoon saying Pawlenty "seemed irritated that anyone would criticize him" and noting that he left 2020 last year. But, seemingly proudly, Entenza added: "Apparently I'm quite a burr under the governor's saddle."

Here's Entenza's full response:

"Yesterday (sic), Tim Pawlenty spent part of his lunch hour going after me on MPR. Interestingly, it was in conjunction with Minnesota 2020, the think tank I founded in 2007. More interestingly, he didn't dispute their many criticisms of him – he mostly seemed irritated that anyone would criticize him. I left Minnesota 2020 last spring, but I'm very proud of the work I did there.

"The governor ought to spend less time on the radio and in places like Iowa and New Hampshire and more time actually addressing the challenges our state faces and taking advantages of opportunities in front of us. You can bet that as governor, that's what I'm going to do."