State Democratic leaders, predictably, one could argue, are at it again. They’re targeting Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s weekly radio show, “Good Morning Minnesota,” saying Pawlenty is using the statewide forum as a campaign tool, whether he’s stretching the truth about his own good deeds or exaggerating or even fibbing about the bad things that Democrats are up to.

This has happened before. Whenever a campaign season is about to roll around (when aren’t campaign seasons rolling around these days?), DFLers will cry foul, saying that Pawlenty should have to suspend the show broadcast live on WCCO, or Democrats should receive equal broadcast time.

The thinking here is, just let it be. Let it be until Pawlenty steps over the line or some other election/campaign authority steps in and tells the governor that he’s got to, at least, cool it, or, at the most, suspend the show entirely.

Why let it be? Well, if you don’t like Pawlenty, do you listen to “Good Morning Minnesota”? Of course you don’t. Your stress level is high enough already; you don’t need your governor boosting your blood pressure any higher. And Pawlenty isn’t running for a third term as governor. Certainly, everyone’s assuming he has his eye on national office, but if the radio show starts to sound suspiciously like “Good Morning America” (not the morning news program on ABC), Pawlenty will be called out by someone other than annoyed Democratic politicians, and changes will be made.

It’s not like Democrats, and politicians in general, don’t have access to the public. It’s not like they don’t have avenues at their disposal to get their message out to the masses. Both DFLers and Republicans flood media outlets across the state with their opinion pieces that toot their party’s horn or rip the party across the aisle. Both parties always seem to have people traveling the state to meet with editorial boards to do more tooting and ripping. We get it. We know you disagree on just about everything. It’s called overkill for a reason.

The Minnesota Senate’s DFL leader, Larry Pogemiller, has written a letter to WCCO AM, saying that Pawlenty has often expressed “partisan viewpoints” on his weekly show. Well, how could he not? He’s a Republican, and his viewpoints, even as he’s fielding phone calls from constituents and being his folksy self, are going to be of the Republican variety.

Pogemiller wants WCCO to give DFLers an opportunity after Pawlenty’s show to “sound off” in response.

We don’t want that, do we? Will this really cover any new ground? When the other party sends one of their own to read a scripted response to the president’s state of the union address each year, do we really learn anything new? Are we at all inspired? No, we’re not.

Let someone else, not Democrats, decide if Pawlenty is using his radio show to gain an upper hand politically, in Minnesota or beyond.

— Crookston Daily Times, July 14