New polling data came out today about lame duck Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's anemic 2012 presidential campaign. Pawlenty's presidential hopes have never really gotten off the ground. He has continually polled in the lower single digits.
Keep in mind that this is the same flawed MPR/Humphrey Institute poll Joe dissected yesterday. In other words, because of the rightwards skewing of this poll, this news could be even worse.
Do you want the good news or the bad news first? What? Okay, but I'm going to give you the good news for Timmeh first.
...But Pawlenty easily beats former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 59 to 24 percent.
Yup. That's right. The current sitting Governor of Minnesota whomps the Quittah from Wasilla. Timmeh wins today's tallest midget award for that one.
The rest of the news is bad.
...when it comes to whether Minnesotans would vote for Pawlenty for president, a majority, or 53 percent, consider that unlikely. Even nearly one in four Republicans, or 23 percent, say they've be unlikely to vote for him.
Ouch. A majority of Minnesotans wouldn't vote for him and nearly 1 our of 4 Republicans wouldn't support him in a primary contest.
Possibly even more stinging for the governor is a question about who would make a better president among potential Republican competitors. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney outpolls Pawlenty on that question, 45 percent to 32 percent.
He can't even beat Mittens the Mormon in his own backyard.
Is this good news that he finally got out of the lower single digits in a poll or is this a sign of the his campaign leaving the runway and hitting the first tree?
I had LOADS of submissions for my contest to determine an alternate title to lame duck MN Governor Tim Pawlenty's book that will be released the day the Governor's office door hits him where God split him. I like to thank everyone who participated.
I hope y'all had as much fun thinking them up as I had reading 'em.
So what are my criteria for determining the winner? What? You actually expected me to think that far ahead? Geesh ...
Okay ... here are the top 10:
Courage to Stand in an a Field in a Red Shirt under a Cloudy Sky and look Constipated, just like Sarah Palin did on the cover of her book, "Going Rogue
Political Rifts & Budget Shifts" My Presidential Ambition
The Courage to Pander, The TBag story
Courage to Stand Around while a State Crumbles
Kicking The Can Down The Road: The BridgeFail Story
A Man, A Plan, A Collapse... Minnesota
Holding Your Breath till you get your way -- Javier Morillo-Alicea wins an MPP tshirt
Courage to Stand on the Poor to Pander to the Rich -- @RickMons wins an MPP tshirt and the first issue of Bill Prendergast's Michele Bachmann comic
Courage to Stand. Bridges, Not So Much -- Robin Marty wins an MPP tshirt and the first two issues of Bill's comic.
You may have noted in a post I wrote about Tom Emmer, I mentioned that Minnesota could receive $263 million in aid to help pay for Medicaid (amount has since been revised to $236M). Tim Pawlenty, 2012 Republican presidential hopeful and lame duck Minnesota Governor, may have found yet another way to hurt out state (And you thought that with the legislative session over, there was little more damage he could do). Pawlenty could not request this grant money.
Democratic leaders in the Minnesota Legislature urged Gov. Tim Pawlenty Tuesday to apply for $236 million in federal health care money. In a letter to the governor, Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich wrote that it would be "irresponsible" for the state to not seek the funds when many patients in Minnesota are struggling with the tough economy, adding, "You cannot let political ambition get in the way of doing what's right for Minnesota." They join the Minnesota Medical Association and the Mayo Clinic in calling for Pawlenty to secure the funds for Minnesota.
(Minnesota Independent)
Will Pawlenty join other Republican Governors who have railed against expanding the deficit and the government stimulus plan yet accept this money or play to the teabagger base? Unfortunately, the well-being of our state and it's citizens hangs in the balance. I'm not getting my hopes up.
Word on the street is that lame-duck Governor Tim Pawlenty has a book coming out the day Minnesota is finally rid of him. For Minnesota's sake, the day can't come soon enough. So, in honor of his re-writing of MN history and his own history, I'm announcing a contest:
Best Alternative Title to TPaws Book Contest
Winner will receive a MPP tshirt.
Actual title is: Courage To Stand, An American Story
Minnesotans will experience higher health insurance costs because our lame duck Governor, Tim Pawlenty, is running for President. Pawlenty could have signed an application for a $1 million grant to help reduce health insurance premiums, but he chose not to. Pawlenty opposes health insurance reform because he needs to appeal to the Republican teabagger base who will decide who becomes the 2012 Republican nominee.
The grant, which was part of the federal health care legislation, was available to states to crack down on excessive health insurance premium increases. In response to questioning by Senator John Marty (DFL - Roseville), John Gross of the Department of Commerce said that department staff completed the grant paperwork, but that Governor Pawlenty had refused to sign the letter of application.
Senator Marty said, "If the governor signed the letter and submitted the already completed paperwork, the state would have been virtually guaranteed to receive the grant funding. Every state that applied received the money. It was a grant available simply for the asking."
Forty five states -- including most of the 21 states that are suing the federal government over health care reform -- took the money, Marty pointed out. "The money was to be used to protect consumers and the state from health insurers overcharging. The only people who might object to the state getting this money are insurance companies that don't want adequate oversight."
"This isn't a matter of whether one agrees with the federal reform or not; this was a matter of getting our share of federal dollars," Marty said. "It's not as if Minnesota has a surplus of money. Rather than sign a letter, Governor Pawlenty gave up a million dollars. That is inexcusable."
(From email statement from John Marty)
Tim Pawlenty desperately wants to get his 2012 Republican presidential campaign off the ground. After nearly a year of criss-crossing the country, our lame-duck Governor just can't poll higher than the low single digits in poll after poll. To improve his chances, he's commenting on any national issue to anyone who'll listen.
So Pawlenty decided to comment on the Muslim Community Center to be built several blocks away from Ground Zero in NYC.
"To have him be the leader not just of this mosque but to hire him through the State Department and send him around the world on our behalf is ridiculous," T-Paw told Sean Hannity. "It is quite quite dangerous, quite concerning."
(City Pages Blotter)
There's only one small, little detail hypocritical with Pawlenty and the rest of the right wings fear-mongering:
When Bush adviser Karen Hughes was appointed Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, the Bush Administration saw improving America's standing among Muslims abroad as a part of its national security strategy. And, as such, Hughes set up listening tours, attended meetings and worked with interfaith groups that -- shocking, by today's Republican standards -- included actual Muslims. One of those people was Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
(Talking Points Memo, h/t City Pages Blotter)
Lame duck Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty had more bad news today. Pawlenty has 1% of Iowa Republicans supporting him. Pawlenty has consistently been unable to rise above the low single digits in 2012 presidential polling.
Pawlenty scored 1 percent in a poll of Republican presidential hopefuls released Monday by the Iowa Republican, putting him in a distant tie for sixth out of 10 candidates in the poll.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, led at 22 percent, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 18 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 14 percent and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 11 percent.
As Pawlenty's presidential campaign trundles down the runway unable to achieve flight, I wonder how long the runway is and how long until his campaign loses its wings amongst the trees?
Poor Tim Pawlenty. Our lame duck Governor's 2012 Presidential campaign just can't get off the ground. At what point does his aspirations go off the end of the runway and into the trees?
The Clarus Group, a non-partisan research and polling firm, conducted a national survey that wasn't sponsored by anyone.
The modestly interesting finding: All the leading candidates have declined or stagnated over the company's three surveys, the first of them in August 2009. The leader, Mitt Romney, is down to 26 percent from 30 percent. Mike Huckabee's stable at 21 percent; he was at 22 percent before. Newt Gingrich is at 14 percent, from 15 percent. And Sarah Palin, the biggest mover, is at 12 percent, down from 18 percent.
The extra votes seem go to names that were added to the list: low single digits for Pawlenty, Alexander, Barbour, Daniels and Thune.
Lame duck Minnesota Governor and 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty proposed extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. When confronted about how he would replace the $40,000,000,000 in lost revenue each year, he proposed taking money from the stimulus program which benefits the middle class.
In an interview with Bloomberg's Al Hunt yesterday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) called for the extension of all the Bush tax cuts, and at least attempted to provide a way to pay for them - use unspent stimulus money to find $40 billion:
HUNT: Okay, alright. $40 billion is what those [Bush tax cuts for the wealthy] cost in one year. Where you take the $40 billion from?
PAWLENTY: That's easy. You can start by going back and looking at the stimulus package, which is still half unspent, which is not a good package. That could be redesigned and redeployed. And number two, if you look at the growth in federal spending, whether it's in the entitlement side or the mandatory outlay side or on the discretionary side, you could easily find $40 billion.
Lame duck Minnesota Governor and failing 2012 Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty took a bold stand on building a mosque near ground zero. He has too. His polling in the 2012 presidential race is hovering in the low single digits. He needs to appeal to the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers that compromise the Republican base.
Tim "I'm not a bigot, I just want the GOP 2012 nomination" Pawlenty says:
"I'm strongly opposed to the idea of putting a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero-I think it's inappropriate," he said. "I believe that 3,000 of our fellow innocent citizens were killed in that area, and some ways from a patriotic standpoint, it's hallowed ground, it's sacred ground, and we should respect that. We shouldn't have images or activities that degrade or disrespect that in any way."
Apparently, Pawlenty forgot that fact that the Pentagon was also attacked on 9/11 -- and that there is a mosque in the Pentagon. Justin Elliot:
Why did no one object to the "Pentagon mosque"?
The "ground zero mosque" story seems to be dying down, but nothing lays bare the absurdity of what we've just lived through quite so much as this Washington Times story, quoted above, from 2007.
Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes -- daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven't even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.
Should we cut him some slack cuz he wasn't running for President back then? Nah.
Lame duck Minnesota Governor and 2012 Republican presidential no-hoper Tim Pawlenty endorsed the English-only plank of the far right's agenda. With his presidential polling numbers languishing in the lower single digits, Pawlenty needs to do everything and anything he catch the attention the Republican party base. If this means endorsing racism, so be it.
Such a measure could spare governments translation costs, but impose a new level of difficulty on the state's immigrant population.
At a news conference outside the governor's residence, Pawlenty said that as the country becomes more diverse, some people might question which language to use in official documents. He said it might be helpful to clarify that the official language is English.
Spokesman Bruce Gordon said Pawlenty made the comments when asked about his support for so-called English-only measures, such as one recently approved in the northern suburb of Lino Lakes. Pawlenty's comments came shortly after a meeting with Chilean ambassador Arturo Fermandois. The two talked about investment partnerships between Minnesota and Chile, including a northeastern Minnesota mining venture involving Chilean companies.
Minnesota's lame duck Governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty is getting desperate. He has consistently polled in the lower single digits. He cannot gain any traction. So what's his solution?
For this loyal Republican crowd, the setting was a familiar one. The opening line was not.
"I'm very thankful for my red-hot smoking wife, the first lady of Minnesota," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, pointing to his wife, Mary, who was standing a few feet away.
As the audience roared, she said with a smile: "Who, when they're turning 50, doesn't like to be called a red-hot smoking wife?"
(NY Times, h/t Wonkette)
Oh. My. God. Is this what his presidential campaign has come to?
Minnesota's lame duck Governor and 2012 Presidential candidate wannabe Tim Pawlenty made a statement at a luncheon last Monday with Washington, DC journalists that most Republicans accept as fact. Republicans believe that taxes in the US are higher than anywhere else. Based upon this supposition they argue that we need to lower taxes to become competitive.
"I don't think the argument can be credibly made that the United States of America is undertaxed compared to our competitors."
(Washington Post)
In an opinion column published the following day, Marcus took aim at Pawlenty's remark.
"Actually," Marcus wrote, "the United States is on the low end in terms of the overall tax burden -- 28 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared with an average of 36 percent in the 30 OECD countries. Only South Korea, Mexico and Turkey were lower."
By locating the OECD chart -- which is exactly what we would have done -- Marcus ably did much of our work for us. But we still wanted to check with a few tax experts to make sure that she didn't miss anything in her analysis.
Three experts we queried -- Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, William Ahern, the director of policy and communications at the Tax Foundation, a tax research group, and Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research -- all agreed with Marcus's conclusion, though Ahern and Mitchell took the opportunity to add some additional context.
Kevin Diaz and the Minneapolis Star Tribune are doing what he can to help the campaign of lame duck Minnesota Governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty's problem is that he's uncharismatic and doing really, really poorly in presidential straw polls. When I say really, really poorly, I mean that he can't climb out of the lower single digits. So Diaz spins the latest really, really bad news as something positive.
In Diaz's opinion, Pawlenty is a stealth candidate.
Yes, Pawlenty is so stealth that most Republicans across this country don't know he's running and even when they do know who he is they prefer just about anyone else to him. But this isn't going to stop Diaz.
Largely unknown in the early primary state, Pawlenty still packed a room with curious journalists this week at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, two blocks from the White House he's eying for 2012. The New Hampshire poll, released Wednesday, is only the latest indicator of Pawlenty's weakness as a potential GOP nominee. But there are more subtle indicators that suggest the governor may be in an uncommonly strong position to be just the kind of candidate the GOP may want: a relatively mild-mannered Midwesterner who won't bring controversy or baggage of his own when he shifts the focus on President Obama.
In a strong position or not, Pawlenty says he's not worried. "A, I haven't made a decision whether I'm even going to run or not, and B, I continue to have not much name ID or awareness in some of these other states," he told reporters on Wednesday in St. Paul.
Pawlenty strategists and outside observers say he has plenty of time to stir the public, which has not connected with him nearly as much as with the journalists and party insiders who are looking for the GOP's next leader.
Can we talk about that "stirring the public" business?
More bad news arrived for lame duck Minnesota Governor and 2012 Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-BP) is pushing Rep. Steve King's (R-IA) presidential aspirations. Last weekend she was in Iowa for yet another out-of-state fundraiser:
While denying any plans to seek the presidency herself in 2012, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has made no secret of her "high opinion" of right-wing colleague Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as a "potential nominee." While headlining a fundraiser on Saturday for Iowa Attorney General candidate and King's former chief of staff Brenna Findley, Bachmann expanded on her national design by plugging King and his political family as the future of the federal government:
"Who would you like to see nominated to the Supreme Court - Elena Kagan or Brenna Findley?" Bachmann said, prompting applause. "I knew you were smart. And when Steve King is president, he can appoint her."
Bachmann clearly isn't backing Pawlenty's floundering bid. Then again ... who is? He has consistently polled in the low single digits in Republican straw polls.
New polling data came out today about lame duck Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's anemic 2012 presidential campaign. Pawlenty's presidential hopes have never really gotten off the ground. He has continually polled in the lower single digits.
Lame duck Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty had 
In an opinion column published the following day, Marcus took aim at Pawlenty's remark.
While denying any plans to seek the presidency herself in 2012, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has 
