The reaction of most people when I mention Pawlenty's name as the leading prospect for the vice-presidential sweepstakes seat is, "Who?" But political analysts have had him at the top of McCain's list for weeks and it would not surprise me if Tim "Aw shucks, I'm a nice guy" Pawlenty were selected. His relatively young age, working class roots, clean image and Midwestern location are all desirable traits for a McCain No. 2. Pawlenty is popular in his home state. Minnesota is a swing state where McCain is trailing in the polls.
The Minnesota governor describes himself as "a common sense, main-stream conservative in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln" (insert cough here).
Meanwhile, Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who set off the CIA leak scandal five years ago, has called Pawlenty, 'the most conservative Minnesota governor since Theodore 'Tightwad Ted' Christianson in the 1920s." In Minnesota, Pawlenty is famous for his efforts to freeze education, transportation and social service funding in order to balance the budget without raising taxes. Pawlenty's budget priorities early on led to continued double-digit tuition increases at the University of Minnesota; in effect, taxes were raised–for college students.
In 2006, Pawlenty supported increasing the Hennepin County sales tax in order to pay for a new baseball stadium for the Minnesota Twins.
Up until just hours ago, Pawlenty was in Denver (locale of the Democratic National Convention), acting as the stalwart soldier, launching televised attacks on Barack Obama–presumably in an effort to demonstrate his vice-presidential candidate attack dog bite. Now remember, he's a nice guy.
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