This week, the contested Senate race in Minnesota between Al Franken and Norm Coleman went to that state’s Supreme Court even as Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty announced he would not seek a third term. To help decipher the effects of the political doings in Minnesota on the rest of the country The Nation Washington Editor Chris Hayes stopped by the Rachel Maddow Show. Hayes pointed out that retiring from the Governorship allows Pawlenty time to survey the landscape for a presidential run in 2012 and shifts the incentive to settle the Senatorial dispute in favor of continued obstruction.

—Gabriela Resto-Montero

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