Entitlement mentality or admiring the problem?

Gov. Pawlenty gave a thirty minute speech tonight to the Minnesota Business Partnership's annual dinner. Most of the speech was standard fare.

He warned about Minnesota's cost structure being higher than other states. He also tried to compare the fiscal and management problems that caused General Motors to fail to the problems in the federal government. Pawlenty also warned that Minnesotans should be careful not to get an "entitlement mentality."

You can listen to the full speech here:

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Pawlenty did offer one news nugget. He suggested that school teachers should have to "re-earn" tenure every three years by meeting certain benchmarks in the classroom.

(I wanted to follow up with him but he ducked reporters after the speech.)

Not everyone was impressed with Pawlenty's speech. Some complained it was the same speech he's given at every Minnesota Business Partnership dinner. Others said it lacked applause lines.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who is mulling whether to run for governor in 2010, said Pawlenty shouldn't be criticizing a state that he's been in charge of for the past seven years.

"Minnesota is desperate right now to get government and business working together," Rybak said. "The problem is the governor does an exceptional job of admiring the problem but not a very good job of leading a solution to it."

Pawlenty is not running for a third term and is widely considered a potential candidate for president. (Side note, he's out of the state "building" the Republican Party for the rest of the week).

As Pawlenty ponders a possible presidential run, several candidates for governor were seen working the crowd.

GOP state Rep. Marty Seifert, GOP state Rep. Paul Kohls, DFL House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and DFL state Sen. Tom Bakk were seen mingling with guests.

There were a few other possible candidates attending. GOP state Rep. Laura Brod said she'll let us know if she has something to announce.

MN Department of Labor Commissioner Steve Sviggum said he's not prepared to make an announcement either (Sviggum is bound by the Hatch Act so he can't keep his job and run for governor at the same time.).

MN Business Partnership executive director Charlie Weaver said he's "still thinking about" a run for governor. When asked when it's too late to get into the race, he replied "January."