Former Governor Tim Pawlenty kicked off his campaign for a third term Monday with airport stops in Moorhead, Duluth, Rochester and Mankato. Meanwhile Republican-endorsed candidate for governor Jeff Johnson says his campaign will drive around Minnesota in a 2011 Jeep, visiting every town possible and actually talking to people. “I’m not gonna fly around for eight hours and stop in an airport and talk to the media and then disappear, Johnson says. “That’s not campaigning.”
Pawlenty responds, “We want to try to keep shooting at other Republicans to a minimum in the interest of being able to unite the party post-primary.”
In the Democratic primary there are now three candidates for governor after Attorney General Lori Swanson jumped into the race Monday.