Gov. Pawlenty went on Fox's "Your World with Neil Cavuto" yesterday. I wouldn't say he made any news but he laid out talking points for a challenge to Pres. Obama, and restated his not-quite-commitment to sign an election certificate in the Senate race if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Al Franken.

Full transcript here. Full video here. It's about seven minutes long. Pawlenty doesn't show up on the video until about a minute in.

"Nationalization"

Playing off the bailout of General Motors, which Pawlenty termed "the nationalization of the auto industry," TPaw said GM should have gone through normal bankruptcy proceedings last year and if they had done so they would probably be out of bankruptcy proceedings by now.

He expanded that critique to basically accuse the Obama Administration of "nationalizing" or planning to nationalize one major industry after another, and said that this is reminiscent of some South American republic from the 1970s, a comparison he liked so much he hit it twice.

A couple of excerpts from that portion:

PAWLENTY: "Well, Neil, this is sadly reminiscent of the kinds of things we would expect from South America some decades ago. We're seeing the nationalization of the auto industry.

You are soon going to see the full or partial nationalization of the health care industry. You are soon going to see the nationalization, under the Obama administration, of the energy industry. And that, of course, puts the politicians and people making decisions that the market and private businesses should be making.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You now have politicians chiding the auto industry over size of cars, what they should do, their business decisions, dealership decisions. That is not the proper province for the United States Congress. That should be a private decision...

...This is going to be a very different country 12 or 24 months from now, and it's headed in the wrong direction in terms of government micromanaging or intervening, and, worse yet, funding and subsidizing and taking over entire parts of our economy.

This is not the United States of America that we know and love and remember. This looks like some sort of a republic from the -- South America circa 1970s."

I will certify a senator unless...

Cavuto also suggested that, free from the burdens of worrying about a political future in Minnesota, Pawlenty would be able to "fight more aggressively for Norm Coleman."

Pawlenty gave the latest rendition of what he will do. If you read it carefully, Pawlenty continues to say that he will follow the law and obey court orders but, as he always does -- and I have to assume there is some intent here because it happens every time he talks about it -- he continues to use certain words and phrases to give him options other than to sign an electioin certificate. For example if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Franken but doesn't directly order Pawlenty to sign the certificate, or if Coleman files an appeal to some federal court or if some federal court issues a stay. Here's the exchange:

PAWLENTY: "Well, as your viewers may know, Minnesota law does not allow the governor to sign an election certificate until the state court process is complete. It is not yet complete, but it may be about to be complete.

And, when it is, and they direct me to sign the certificate, I'm going to sign it. There's not going to be some undue delay or the like. But I'm going to follow the direction of the courts in that regard. And we're going to have a decision here in the coming weeks."

CAVUTO: "So, you could be signing a certificate that would turn that Senate seat over to the Democrat, Al Franken, and that would probably not suit you well."

PAWLENTY: "Boy, I hope not, but, you know, I have to follow the law, Neil."

CAVUTO: "Right."

PAWLENTY: "If the Minnesota Supreme Court says, you sign the certificate, and there is not an appeal or some other contrary direction from a federal court, that is my duty.

I can't just ignore that or say I don't feel like following a directive from the Minnesota Supreme Court."

But, just to clarify and discuss: Assuming the Supremes affirm the Election Court ruling that Franken got the most votes, it's never been clear whether they will explicitly order Pawlenty to sign the certificate and give him a deadline. It's also not known whether Coleman might appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, or start a new action in a federal district court.

Pawlenty has made clear that if he gets an order from the MN Supremes and there is no appeal, he will sign. But, for whatever reason, whenever he talks about it, he includes language that leaves open the possibility that he will not sign the certificate unless the court orders him to do so, and then he might not sign it if Coleman takes further legal action.

At his no-third-term-for-me press conference, Pawlenty chided those of us who keep parsing his language on this. Fine.

And I would like to make clear that I believe the likeliest scenario includes a Supreme Court ruling in favor of Franken, no further legal action from Coleman (or an acton that goes nowhere), a certificate from Pawlenty, and Franken being seated by the Senate, all within the next month. But, as I've written before, those are a lot of steps and if any one of them goes a different way, we're on a different path, or at least a different timeline.

And I do assume that Pawlenty has some reason to always mention that he will sign the certificate if the Supremes order him to and if there are no further legal actions. My guess it's just a way of leaving some options open. But if he wanted to be clear about this, he could say something like this:

When the Minnesota Supreme Court rules, that's the end of the state court process. If they rule that Franken got the most votes, I will issue a certificate within a week or so. They don't have to order me to issue it, I know that's my job once the court process is completed. The only reason I might wait a week or so is to give Sen. Coleman a chance to seek a stay, either from a federal court or from the U.S. Supreme Court. Obviously, if a federal court, after seeing what the state courts have done, orders me not to sign the certificate so they can consider the matter, I would obey such an order. But that's the only reason I can think of not to certify a winner once the Minnesota Supreme Court rules.

p.s. Hotline and Roll Call both have pieces up indicating that while Senate Republican leaders want Coleman to appeal to federal court, the decision is up to him. And Roll Call quotes sources close to Coleman saying he doesn't seem inclined to push the case any further.