Tim Pawlenty released a web video tonight to preview his official announcement tomorrow that he’s running for President.
Seems pretty hard hitting and the right tone to me. Me thinks this guy might have some fight in him.
Last November I asked you to tell me about Tim Pawlenty. So tell me again.
Update 5-23-2011: On Rush today, Pawlenty stated that the “the era of small goverment is over” quote attributed to him is a misattribution, and that he was quoting a David Brooks article, not expressing his own opinion. He says that the day after the Minnesota Tribune ran the quote on page 1, it ran a correction buried deep in the paper. Fact check, anyone?
Pawlenty was very good on Rush. If I can get a link, I’ll post it.
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Ron Coleman
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Tim Pawlenty delivers..
"In announcing his campaign for president in Iowa Monday, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty placed a big bet on boldness.
He called for a phasing out — albeit gradual — of federal ethanol subsidies, a move long considered a political death wish in a state with such a large agricultural community.
But, Pawlenty didn’t stop there. In his speech he detailed how he will travel this week to Florida — one of the oldest (by age) states in the country — to call for fundamental reform of Medicare and Social Security, to Washington to take on alleged largess in the federal government and to New York to make clear the era of bailouts of the financial industry is over.
“Conventional wisdom says you can’t talk about ethanol in Iowa or Social Security in Florida or financial reform on Wall Street,” Pawlenty said. “But someone has to say it. Someone has to finally stand up and level with the American people.”
The Fix, WaPo
Not only is he Romney-Lite, he's Romney-Redux. He's borrowing lines straight from Romney's '08 campaign:
http://mittromneycentral.com/2011/05/23/pawlenty-washington-is-broken-sound-familiar/
And again: http://mittromneycentral.com/2011/04/05/pawlenty-takes-a-line-from-romney-in-new-web-video-its-going-to-take-a-new-president/
If Pawlenty is hoping to differentiate himself from Mitt Romney, then he needs to have a talk with his speechwriters.
Mitt Romney took a classic Reagan line (and probably much earlier, too, it's not so sophisticated) and now is claiming offense at someone "stealing" it from him? What a joke.
Club for Growth
2012 Presidential White Paper #2
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty
"It’s clear that Governor Pawlenty is, for the most part, hard to pin down on his exact ideological moorings. Minnesota is not a conservative state by any means, and Governor Pawlenty did veto tax hikes passed by the liberal legislature and made a relatively strong push to keep a lid on taxes. Pawlenty deserves tremendous praise for keeping Minnesota’s spending growth remarkably low. For this, and for his consistent stances on school choice, tort reform, and political free speech, he deserves credit – while his record on health care and entitlement spending is mixed. However, Pawlenty has some simply inexcusable tax hikes in his record, and he made a mistake by taking no clear position on the 2008 Legacy Amendment. His tacit support for bailouts, more job-choking regulations, and various tariffs make it difficult for us to identify his core ideological identity. His support of things like mandatory vegetable oil in gasoline, cap and trade, and a statewide smoking ban make him sound overly eager to support big government proposals to address policy fads of the day.
Given all of this, we struggle to identify the real Tim Pawlenty. We agree with those who say that Governor Pawlenty did the best he could in a state as liberal as Minnesota. And we believe he would be a stronger pro-growth executive in a more conservative climate, but his “clunkers” as he himself describes them are difficult to ignore. A President Pawlenty, we suspect, would fight for pro-growth policies, but would be susceptible to adopting “pragmatic” policies that grow government."
Club for Growth
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