Tag: Tim Pawlenty

When it comes to politics, there is no denying the pull of momentum. And while it is clear that for this eighth edition of our Power Rankings U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann owns it, there is also no denying that social and religious conservatives in the state still have choices to make.

Five Republican presidential contenders took part in a National Right to Life Convention forum Friday in Jacksonville. Only two (Herman Cain and Rick Santorum) appeared in person, while the other three (Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Tim Pawlenty) literally phoned it in — appearing at the panel via Skype.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association told listeners of his radio show on Thursday that the Nazi Party in Germany was formed in a Munich gay bar by “homosexual thugs.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign and political action committee has benefited from a large amount of money from top executives of Morgan Stanley, a global financial services corporation which has been implicated in the financial and mortgage meltdown that brought about the Great Recession. A report by the Center for Public Integrity released this week scrutinized Pawlenty’s ties to top executives at the company, finding that he’s raised more than $800,000 in the last month with its help.

Income tax cuts for the wealthy will liberate the U.S. economy to create jobs and generate revenue and shrink the deficit. That line has become a policy standard on the right and a talking point repeated on stumps all across the nation. It is a cornerstone of the GOP Ryan Budget plan being pushed on Capitol Hill. Yet analysis and statistics and personal anecdotes pile high and deep against that tack as an effective real-world national economic policy. GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who led the state down a path toward deficit swampland, is the latest to try to rework history to suit the tax-cut narrative. As Dave Weigel at Slate points out, Pawlenty's recent big economic speech twists and turns and makes a dead stop at the Bush years, when "tax cuts for the wealthy" national budget policy went into full effect and revenues plummeted and the deficit skyrocketed and the economy withered.

Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty are among a long list of presidential hopefuls attending the Faith & Freedom Conference and Strategy Briefing this weekend in Washington, D.C. The conference is organized by Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and controversial religious right leader. In addition to Reed, Bachmann and Pawlenty will be sharing the stage with a number of controversial figures from the anti-abortion rights and anti-gay rights movements.

A SurveyUSA/KSTP poll released on Thursday shows that only 27 percent of Minnesotans feel that Rep. Michele Bachmann is qualified to be president. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty fared better among Minnesotans, with 55 percent seeing him as presidential material. Both Bachmann and Pawlenty lost in a matchup against President Obama here, however, an indication that if the election were held today, and either were the GOP’s nominee, neither would capture their home state.

With his second campaign video, Republican candidate for president Tim Pawlenty seems to be working with his media team to establish his brand as "Patriotic Midwestern Downer." The video released today, "A Time for Truth," presents in Depression-era black and white the candidate's unsmiling narrow face with its deep-set eyes, and it opens with a 40-second chronicle of the nation's woes. The message, in Pawlenty's words: "Our country's in big trouble." This comes on the heels of Pawlenty's pre-campaign video called "Courage to Stand," which was a kind of motivational scolding. "None of this is gonna be easy," he says. "We gotta roll up our sleeves."

The first GOP presidential primary debate is behind us. Fox News hosted the event in South Carolina last night. It featured five second-tier candidates and the news is that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty didn't lose and that Herman Cain, the Georgia political figure, motivational speaker and former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, may have won. Rightwing RedState blog founder Erick Erickson celebrated Cain as the new Mike Huckabee!

Republicans won an historic number of Congressional seats in the midterm election just six months ago. Tonight Fox News is hosting the first 2012 GOP presidential primary election debate and it will feature something like the weakest early lineup of candidates in modern memory. Serious Republican strategists will be watching either in denial or in panic through fingers stretched across their eyes.