Tim Pawlenty for President

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i66q1f3M3w&feature=player_embedded

It’s official now. He said it.

“I’m Tim Pawlenty, and I’m running for President of the United States.”

71 thoughts on “Tim Pawlenty for President”

  1. The Stranger‘s Paul Constant on TPaw.

    “I don’t know,” he replies. “I wish I had a good answer for you on that.”

  2. Pawlenty would have been a much better governor had he NEVER intended to run for president.

  3. Jim Wilferling

    Wow. Um. Wow. No, No Way, Never. If It happens, I hear Himchal Prasesh is nice.

  4. Jim Wilferling

    “I moved a Democratic state in a conservative direction.” This is a good thing? Blech! He’s gonna make BOTH the Bush’s look like Mother Freaking Theresa!

  5. “I moved a Democratic state in a conservative direction.” Yeah, and you still won’t be able to win it come election time. He really thinks that we are all so stupid that with a little cinematic and dramatic effect, we’ll all somehow forget what a shitty governor he was and how he left us all twisting in the wind while he prepared to further his own career.

  6. Absolutely agree with Sam – his obvious posturing in the past few years as governor was very annoying. It was clear that we weren’t getting real governing from a governor, it was more like he viewed Minnesota as a stage to demonstrate how amazingly fiscally responsible he is (which is a joke, of course).

  7. Time for truth … like how he declared he never raise taxes a cent, but then raised every possible fee he could. But wait, a tax is not a fee! Right. I believe this type of truth is called “truthiness.”

  8. Oh Tim’s got Pawlenty of nothin’, and nothin’s Pawlenty for Tim. His HS year book listed him as the “Most Likely to Need a Nametag at the Reunion.” Pawlenty is about as exciting as a church basement bingo game or watching old people getting out of cars.

    Arne Carlson had this to say about T-Paw: “Under Tim Pawlenty, it became deficit heaven… All the things we did were undone. Now, what bothers me is you get these holier-than-thou attitudes. Oh, we’re all to blame. But that’s just not true. There’s one person who has the power to insist on a balanced budget. That’s the chief executive officer, the governor.”

  9. Pawlenty’s “success” at holding the state of MN hostage was the precursor to the emergence of the wonderful things happening in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. It’s like the Repubs can’t decide if they want to force us to live under Jesus or Ayn Rand…

  10. Heh, it’s no wonder the Republicans kicked Arne out, he is so off the reservation.

  11. If T-paw gets the nod, the baggers will run somebody like Bachmann. Even if not, the man has zero gravitas. Obama wins in a walk.

  12. All discussion of records, policies, etc aside, the man has the charisma of a wet paper towel and this alone makes his run DOA.

  13. Udarnik, I did a little research, and the answer is: white ones and blue ones.

    And btw, nothing makes me want a cupcake like telling me you’re not giving me a cupcake. Thanks a lot, T-Paw.

  14. Why does it always seem like he’s trying sooooo hard to impress that he’s not a bland privileged white boy? His lack of authenticity bugs the hell out of me.

  15. I like how he takes a shot at people reading speeches and obviously reads his lines in his own ad. Watch his eyes. He didn’t have time to memorize?

  16. I actually suspect that he may nab the nomination simply because the other candidates are lunatics that moderates dislike (maybe not a problem in the primary though?) or Romney whom nobody trusts.

    Indiana Gov. has similar stance, but I don’t know much about him.

  17. I’d be willing to lay even money on Romney or Gingrich getting the nod before Tpaw…Romney’s got fundage.

  18. Nobody currently on the radar will grab the nom. All too unwilling to go completely bat guano crazy. If anybody currently running gets it, some teatard like Bachmann will run and split the vote.

  19. I think we may be over-estimating the GOP. George W. Bush was considered too fucking stupid by the party machine in the early primary challenges, and yet he managed to lose to Gore and win the office…

  20. “Do you wanna hear an interesting story about Tim Pawlenty? So would he.” – Bill Maher

  21. His soothing music has hypnotized me.

    He has SOLUTIONS. From experience I can only gather that means budget grandstanding.

  22. How can anyone watch this and not want to throw their computer through the window? I remember being so proud when I moved to MN a quarter century ago, living in a state where a rock hard Dem like me could, and did, vote for a common sense Republican, Arne Carlson, and trust that the state would be run fairly. Pawlenty is so full of shit and his policies have ruined the state. Too bad he didn’t care about that, he just cared about setting the stage for his presidential run.

  23. It indeed is more than aggravating that T-Paw would smirk as he brags about trashing our state, and talks about how he’d like to do to the entire country what he’s done to Minnsota. If his campaign goes anywhere — and he, as I predict, becomes Romney’s VP pick, we Minnesotans who know what T-Paw is really about, have to speak up. We have to tell the rest of the country before it’s too late that T-Paw has nothing to brag about.

  24. I was going to comment, but emmadogs and Claire pretty much took my comments.

    Pawlenty seems to be taking an asinine amount of pride in turning the great state of Minnesota into a crappy conservative state. Excuse me, but that’s supposed to be a good thing? And how much was the state deficit you left us with, Mr. Pawlenty?

    Not only that, but this seems like a terrible marketing campaign, and he keeps going back to it. By sheer number of people, I’m guessing there’s probably more Democratic-leaning people than Republican-leaning people in Iowa. So all he’s doing is appealing to the diehard conservatives. He offers absolutely no reason from any left-leaning or independent/undecided voters to vote for him.

  25. It’ll be interesting to see how he does in Iowa, our neighbor to the south. I’d imagine many Iowans would be able to see past the arrogant smirk and have a good idea of what T-Paw’s policies have done to Minnesota’s standing.

  26. Yee-haw it’s T-Paw! He did move us toward a more logical, conservative state. The northern libs are slowly becoming nothing more than a shrill voice in a sea of common sense conservatives. Just look at what happened to the gold old boy Jimmy O. It’s about freakin’ time.

  27. Jim, “good old boy Jimmy O” held his seat for 36 years, ran a terrible campaign, got verbally angry in and insulted members of the audience in the debate, and continually denied poll numbers. All of this at a time which conservatives refer to as a “shellacking” of Democratic members of Congress in a turbulent economy. It’s not exactly like conservatives conquered a giant and converted Minnesota into a red state.

  28. What Tom said — And the visuals at the debate helped… JO looked old and cranky, and CC looked hale and hearty in comparison. That debate turned the election, I think JO would have won if he hadn’t been ambushed and responded to the heckling the way he did.

  29. Again tom, agree to disagree. I would classify Jimmy as a giant in the DFL. The fact that Chip “David” Cravaack took him down with a few stones is more than just a subtle victory, and a definate harbinger of things to come.

    And Claire, I agree that the visual of an angry Jimmy didn’t do anything to help your cause. The debate may have helped Chip, but I think the writing was on the wall. Chip led in the polls at that point, and Jimmy’s base was already crumbling. When you have union folks on the range stating that they are switching parties, you definately have a problem. That’s not an ambush. That’s a reality that Minnesota’s base is switching.

  30. Jim, if you think you can generalize from one election with some unusual circumstances, you are sadly mistaken.

  31. Will E. Coyote

    He looks so presidential, earnest, hard working, that all knowing smirk of self satisfaction, why, he wouldn’t let another bridge down when he’s ruler of the known universe! BTW, does anyone know how to fool a smarmy presidential hopeful into snorting a line of fire ants?

  32. Is this primary election going to be a competition to see who is the most hardcore, farthest right wing candidate? All of T-Paw’s ads so far do nothing but tout his right wing record. If he were to secure the nomination for president, it would be interesting to see if he keeps these types of ads up. I’m guessing that he would win about 1% of the independent vote.

    Also, I love how he says he’ll talk to us straight without the typical political rhetoric — and then tells us he defeated unions (umm … you did?), shut down the government and won (despite being a staunch tax hater, he gave in and raised taxes on cigarettes to end the shutdown he claimed he started), and turned a liberal state conservative (in addition to his successor being a Democrat, Minnesota still has Democrats serving as both U.S. Senators and 4 out of 8 U.S. Representatives).

  33. Violating copyrights seems to be a frequent trend for Republicans around the country. The State Fair told Michele Bachmann to stop using its logo last year. And, in recent years, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and David Byrne have told George W. Bush, Michele Bachmann, John McCain, California senatorial candidate Chuck DeVore, and Florida governor Charlie Crist to stop using their songs without authorization.

  34. @ tom: it’s really too bad Woodie Guthrie wasn’t alive to smack Dumbyah with a C&D order to quit using “This Land Is My Land.”

  35. Well, it looks like T-Paw has given up his pipe dream for 2012. I never thought I’d say this after having him as governor for 8 years, but that’s too bad. He seemed to be one of the LEAST crazy candidates the Republicans have managed to produce for the 2012 primaries.

  36. Pawlenty being the least-crazy of the lot really begs the question as to the whole of them.- He was the absolute worst governor the state of MN ever had!

  37. Wow, that makes it look like America’s a scary and apocalyptic place no matter who’s in charge. Is that music supposed to inspire?

  38. The ad is meant to scare the shit out of people and get them to vote for the “good” guy.

    “Tim Pawlenty endorsing Mitt Romney is like Miracle Whip endorsing mayonnaise.” ~Paul Constant, The Stranger.

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