Pardon the snotty headline. I've just come from Gov. Tim Pawlenty's big, jammed, Capitol press conference. (I assume you know the main news by now: He won't seek a third term. He won't say anything about a possible run for president -- "Not ruling anything in or out. I don't have any plans.")

And, in case you missed it, within minutes of the press conference, House Republican leader Marty Seifert announced that he will run for governor, with an official announcement on that score Wednesday morning.)

And I really don't mean to be snotty at all. I come away, as usual after watching and listening to TPaw, very impressed with his political talent. I am not talking about his no-new-taxes obsession nor his social conservatism. I'm talking about pure political talent. I still think John McCain should have put him on the ticket last year. Today, he wouldn't even acknowledge that he might run for president, but if he does -- and the odds are he will -- he will start out behind many of his rivals in money and name recognition, but well ahead in two other important political ingredients: likeability and authenticity.

Plenty of politicians could benefit from studying the tape of just this uneventful press conference. (It would have been eventful if Pawlenty had not allowed members of his circle to leak the big news in advance.)

He started out with a joke and double sports reference. (The joke was that given the chaos created by the Brett Favre situation, he was issuing an executive order requiring Twins catcher Joe Mauer to also play quarterback for the Vikings. Before he was done, he would also make charming, self-deprecating references to his own participation in hockey games and marathons.

Then, to complete the sports reference portion of his I'm-really-a-regular-guy routine, when asked if he would be satisfied if his two terms as governor marked the end of his political career, he remarked that by becoming governor, he had "already outpunted my coverage by so much as it is." If you're not football savvy enough to get that one, it's simultaneously humble and regular Joe the Plumber-ish.)

One of the many ways that Pawlenty deflected the do-you-want-to-be-president theme of reporters' questions was to say that his dream remained to play defenseman in the National Hockey League, but "at age 48 and having no skill," this was perhaps not going to happen.

I wasn't kidding in the headline. Pawlenty did, explicitly and by name (if name is the word I want here) thank God for his many blessings. (He also sprinkled in a few biblical quotations. He moved on to his wife and kids who stood beside him, pretty and beaming throughout. He paid homage to the troops (the troops came up several times). He sang the praises of Minnesota (a "special, jaw-droppingly amazing" state inhabited by "kind, generous, wise, hard-working, wonderful" people. Seriously, these are direct quotes.)

His message to his party went like this:

"We're a party of the marketplace, and the marketplace is signaling movement to our competitors ... We've gotta be the party that can accommodate both Colin Powell and Rush Limbaugh. Not either/or. Both."

He has no particular plans to organize an exploratory campaign committee but "as time and circumstances allow," he will try to "lend voice" to "the need to raise issues and ideas for my party here, and elsewhere if I'm asked, because I think we need new ideas and new faces in the party." (Hint, hint.)

The assembled reporters tried to ask him tough questions. He deflected them with smooth, effortless good humor. He said nothing that could possibly distract from his main message, but seemed -- and this is a skill many politicians lack -- to be genuinely addressing the questions. This a serious, major political gift, to be able to stay on-message without seeming robotic, without getting peevish over reporters' efforts to get you to say something other than what you want to say, and without leaving much opening for criticism, except, of course, on substance.

If you are a liberal and are familiar with Pawlenty's record, you may think that substance is his Achilles' heel. You see it as a record, especially coming out of the recent session, of preferring to cut essential services for needy people and important public services to spare the wealthy a modest tax increase. And it is, as Dems frame these issues.

But you are kidding yourself if you think Pawlenty cannot reframe that message. Tuesday's version of that reframing went like this. We can't live in the past, when Minnesota and the USA had all the revenue it needed to keep expanding services. Those times are past. Times are tough all across the economy. "Most Minnesotans and most Americans" are making do with less, but certain government agencies and localities seem to think that they should not have to figure out how to "live for a little while on 96 or 97 percent of what they used to have."

With a specific reference to higher education's loud complaints about cuts they will be getting from Pawlenty: "We need leaders and visionaries who are change agents, not whiners and complainers and defenders of the status quo."

A couple of other items of possible interest from the press conference:

On the issuance of an election certificate in the Senate race, Pawlenty said that some analysts have "really overbaked that issue ... I'm gonna do whatever the court says ... As soon as I'm required to issue or sign that certificate, I will. I'm not gonna hold it up or delay at all." (Not to overbake again, but if the state Supreme Court decides that Franken got the most votes but doesn't explicitly order Pawlenty to issue the certificate by a particular deadline, that statement doesn't quite commit him to do anything in any particular time frame.)
 
When asked for regrets from his tenure as governor, he talked about pushing too hard for his side at the end of the 2003 legislative session: "We ran the table pretty hard on Democrats. And I think there's a lot bitterness because of that. If I had that to do over again, I think I would have allowed a little more room for mutual victory, because I think they were so angered and bitter, they never quite got over that. We have a more difficult environment as a result of that. So I think I would have let up on the accelerator a little bit if I had that to do over again."

Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau (who, so far as I know, was not considered a leading candidate for future office) stepped up briefly and said that it was "highly unlikely" that she would run for governor."

First lady (and former judge) Mary Pawlenty also dismissed any notion that she would run for governor.