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Pawlenty is literally a boy on the bus

Governor Pawlenty took a long, strange trip to get to San Diego this week The Hotline said he had to take a few side trips to get there.

Sometimes, getting from Point A to Point B can include a few stops along the way. That's what happened to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) on his way to the annual Republican Governors Association meeting earlier this week.

Pawlenty left Minnesota Tuesday night on a commercial flight bound for San Diego, but fog forced an unscheduled stop-over in Phoenix. The flight took off again a few hours later, but again, fog prevented a landing. That sent Pawlenty's plane to Ontario, an airport about 100 miles north of San Diego.

So the airline, which shall remain nameless, gave their passengers free tickets that would get them to San Diego early Wednesday morning -- on a Greyhound bus. Pawlenty hopped on board and arrived at the downtown San Diego bus terminal at 4:45 a.m.

Capping off the trip from hell: Pawlenty headed north, to initial RGA sessions, to moderate a panel just a few hours later.

Next time, he'll probably check the weather first.

Side note: The blog title is a takeaway from the classic book The Boys on the Bus.

Update: AP writes a profile of Pawlenty.

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