{"id":3022,"date":"2008-08-08T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3022"},"modified":"2008-08-08T10:36:27","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T15:36:27","slug":"at-47-tall-and-runner-thin-mr-pawlenty-is-the-same-age-as-senator-barack-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3022","title":{"rendered":"At 47, tall and runner-thin, Mr. Pawlenty is the same age as Senator Barack Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

NYT Front Page\u00a0on the Pawlenty Vice Presidency<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Outside his home state, Mr. Pawlenty is among the least-known of the prospects Senator John McCain<\/a> is said to be considering as a vice-presidential partner. But those who have followed his political rise here say Mr. Pawlenty\u2019s personal story \u2014 his direct, everyman appeal to ordinary people \u2014 is among his most powerful attributes.<\/p>\n

Long before the polls began suggesting that Republicans could face trouble in November, Mr. Pawlenty, now in his second term, was urging his party to become \u201cthe party of Sam\u2019s Club,\u201d not just the country club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need everybody \u2014 to grow the party and to move forward,\u201d Mr. Pawlenty explained in a recent interview. \u201cOne of the most powerful reasons people go to Sam\u2019s Club or Target or Costco is they want value, and Republicans are well suited to be the party that says, \u2018We\u2019re going to have a limited but also effective government.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Pawlenty can talk about such things from experience. He now lives in the well-off suburb of Eagan, but holds blue-collar credentials. He grew up in South St. Paul, then a working-class town where life revolved around the stockyards, where his father drove a truck, where he played hockey, where his mother died of cancer when he was still a teenager, and where he went on to become the first in his family to graduate from college.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A damn good goalie…<\/p>\n

If anything, Mr. Pawlenty\u2019s critics say, he is too prepared for this moment; they say he has been so conscious of the possibility of higher office that he has been overly careful as governor. This year, he vetoed 34 bills passed by a Democratic-dominated Legislature, more than any other Minnesota<\/a> governor had vetoed in a year since at least World War II, leading his most fervent critics to describe him as more of a goalie fending off pucks than a leader rushing the net.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You call that a mullet?<\/p>\n

Some critics even note changes in his haircut \u2014 once a mullet-style, now a cropped conservative look less common at a Minnesota hockey rink \u2014 as evidence of his political calculations.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Pawlenty dismissed claims that her husband\u2019s ambitions had driven policy choices. \u201cThat\u2019s not who he is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nor, for that matter, she added, has Mr. McCain\u2019s vice-presidential search driven her husband\u2019s hairstyle. The governor has cut and grown out his hair at various times over the years, she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sour Grapes?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done popular stuff, easy stuff, symbolic stuff,\u201d said Tim Penny, a former Democratic congressman who lost the governor\u2019s race to Mr. Pawlenty in 2002 as the Independence Party<\/a> candidate and who says he supports Mr. McCain for president. \u201cI can\u2019t think of a single issue in which he has been leading public opinion. What you find here is an unremarkable record.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Classic Pawlenty<\/p>\n

Asked at a press luncheon in Washington what the most important quality of a running mate would be, Mr. Pawlenty responded, \u201cDiscretion,\u201d and walked away from the microphone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NYT Front Page\u00a0on the Pawlenty Vice Presidency: Outside his home state, Mr. Pawlenty is among the least-known of the prospects Senator John McCain is said to be considering as a vice-presidential partner. But those who have followed his political rise here say Mr. Pawlenty\u2019s personal story \u2014 his direct, everyman appeal to ordinary people \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}