A good piece from The Weekly Standard comparing the two candidates:

Ethanol: A Tale of Two Candidates
In a moment of candor after his political career had ended, former vice president Al Gore averred that his support of ethanol was in part driven by “a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.” Gore, it should be noted, cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate when he was vice president in 1994 to pass the first statute to mandate the use of ethanol as an additive to certain reformulated gasoline blends.
Ethanol fever is far from being a partisan affliction, though. The latest diagnosed case is Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. In his most recent speech in Iowa, Gingrich declared his commitment to make America energy self sufficient, in part through ethanol. The applause line/press lead of his speech: “if my choice is Iran, or Iowa, I prefer the money in Iowa. If my choice is Saudi Arabia, or South Dakota, I prefer the money in South Dakota.”
Another GOP hopeful, however, has evidently been inoculated against ethanol fever. Tim Pawlenty, former governor of neighboring Minnesota where ethanol is also a big deal–indeed, Minnesota has been making direct payments to ethanol mills since 1987–has dared to take up the cause against federal ethanol subsidies. In his most recent speech, Pawlenty said that federal subsidies for ethanol “have to be phased out.” He continued, “even in Minnesota, when faced with fiscal challenges, we reduced ethanol subsidies. That’s where we are now in Washington, but on a much, much larger scale.”
Pawlenty’s position is predicated on the state of the federal budget and the U.S. economy. America can’t afford more subsidies; he’s campaigning to weed out virtually all federal subsidies. And he’s right when he goes on to point out that mandates and subsidies distort the economy and create unintended consequences–case in point, the federal preferences for ethanol have left us with food price volatility by diverting much of the U.S. corn crop away from livestock feed to vehicle fuel. In April of this year, ground beef prices were up 20 percent over April 2009, bacon prices were up 30 percent over the same period according to USDA data.

The rest here.