The Washington Post focuses on how Tim Pawlenty’s mild-mannered personality made it difficult to appeal to primary voters who wanted to be sure that President Obama’s challenger wouldn’t be afraid to take him on during the general election. But Pawlenty had little experience in waging war of words campaigns:

“It’s not that he isn’t a fighter; he’s won more battles than anyone else on that stage,” said a source close to the campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The way he’s run his fights is through policy and legislative battles once he’s been elected. But the races were actually pretty tame. They weren’t bloody campaigns. They were bloody legislative battles.” …

Another issue was fund-raising:

And Pawlenty didn’t want to go into debt. On Saturday, after the straw poll was done, he told Ayers, “I’m not personally wealthy. . . . I don’t want to drag this out for two or four weeks and risk not being able to pay my staff on time.”

Full piece here.