Every so often, politicians make as much news for what they don't do as for what they do. Let's take Norm Coleman, as an example, who seems to be making a career lately out of not doing things. Firstly, he didn't win the recount in the Senate race against Al Franken. Then he didn't concede, fighting the recount in court. Now he's not running for governor, which doesn't seem like much, when you consider that a lot of people aren't running for Minnesota governor. But, then, we don't announce the fact on Facebook, like Coleman did: Polinaut has the announcement.

There is something that makes Coleman's decision newsworthy, though, as City Pages points out: In a recent Rasmussen poll, he had a towering lead over other Republican candidates. So why not run? According to Coleman: "I think I can be part of recreating a more civil and respectful politics, a politics that better expresses the will of the vast majority of people." Than Tibbetts of Minnesota Public Radio reminds us that Coleman ran for governor previously, and lost to Jesse Ventura, which has got to be the sort of thing that causes a man to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of his own screaming echoing through the bedroom.

Is there a lesson to this? Yes, there is. If you make an announcement on Facebook, instead of showing a screenshot of your Facebook announcement, the FOX9 website will instead republish an image of you conceding to Al Franken, as though the Jesse Ventura thing wasn't weight enough on a man's sleepless brain.

Speaking of Al Franken, has it only been six months since he took office? Seemingly so, and he sums up the experience in an interview with Jason Hoppin of the Pioneer Press, saying he thinks he "did very well by Minnesota." "I kept my head down and did my job," Franken adds, although Hoppin's list of notable moments in Franken's senatorial experience suggests that the senator is either modest or delusional when he says he kept his head down. There was, for instance, his shushing of Joe Lieberman, which made a pretty big splash on the blogosphere.

There was also Franken's bill prohibiting government contracts with businesses that force mandatory arbitration on their employees; Hoppin doesn't mention it, but that piece of legislation included a memorable grilling of an arbitration lawyer on Franken's part. Hoppin does, however, mention Franken's squabble with John Thune over the health care debate, in which Franken pilloried the man for criticizing the health care bill but getting his facts wrong. If this is Franken with his head down, it should be interesting to watch when his head rises.

Tim Pawlenty's chin is way up, in the knuckles-forward posture that Victorian pugilists took: He's in the middle of a funding donnybrook, and his latest jab is a bonding plan that KARE11 calls "austere" and state Rep. Alice Hausman calls "spartan." The Associated Press calls it "modest," and explains the details: Pawlenty wants the state to borrow $685 million; two years ago, Pawlenty proposed borrowing $1 billion. Pawlenty's proposed bonding bill will be smaller than lawmakers want -- it always is, even when it isn't pared back like this -- and, in the past, Pawlenty had used line-item vetoes to eliminate projects that go over his budget. Pawlenty is threatening to do so again, which the Strib says Hausman characterizes as a "cynical opening gambit." According to MPR, Hausman will propose a binding bill for about $1 billion, so let's hope Pawlenty's vetoing hand is limber and well-exercised, or he is at risk of some terrifying writer's cramps.

In the meanwhile, Pawlenty's dance card is still quite full for his as-yet-undeclared presidential bid, as Hart Van Denburg of City Pages points out, including headlining a gala to raise funds for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group. This sort of thing seems to have hurt Pawlenty in Minnesota: Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent points to a recent Rasmussen survey in which only 37 percent of Minnesotans would vote for Pawlenty for president, and 43 percent complain that his presidential ambitions have affected his ability to govern; strangely, his approval rating remains stable, showing that Minnesotans might grouse a little but are a bit reticent when it comes to expressing naked disapproval, which isn't surprising in a state in which the phrase "not too great" means "really, really bad."

So, for instance, news that an Edina doctor removed the wrong kidney? That's not too good. But if a Minnesota church sends 1 million emergency meals to Haiti? Not bad. How about if a Minneapolis squad car crashes into a restaurant? That gets an "oh, fer sick!" And the news that the parent holding company for the Pioneer Press is declaring bankruptcy? Well, it's hard to say — the local newspapers seem to be engaged in an especially protracted Minnesota goodbye, malingering by the door and refusing hot dish leftovers, and, at this moment, it's impossible to say if they'll be gone soon or if they're going to stay on a while.

Maybe we should ask Minnesota's druid prophet, Burt Blackwell, about what's going to happen with our dailies, but it is possible his powers of prognostication are limited to sports. Blackwell emailed KARE11 this weekend with his prediction about the Vikings/Dallas Cowboys game, and, sonofagun, he was exactly right: 34-3. He's also predicting the Vikings will beat the Saints next weekend, which would take the Vikes on a trip to the Superbowl. That wouldn't be too bad.