My interview of Tim Pawlenty is now posted. Among the highlights:
-
Expect a decision on the presidential campaign sometime in spring — at least, that’s how I interpret “sometime toward the end of the first quarter or the early part of the second quarter of this year, 2011.”
-
You’ll want to read the book to enjoy stories of dogs biting the pamphlets of young, aspiring state legislator Pawlenty, or the meeting where Pawlenty feared then-governor Jesse Ventura was going to haul off and slug him, or his reaction to the news that he would be inheriting a massive, $6 billion budget deficit from his predecessor.
-
You think he has any potential GOP presidential candidate in mind when he says, “When people talk about Republicans all being wealthy, or former CEOs, or trust-fund kids, all going to Harvard and Yale, and they say, ‘You can’t relate to me and my worries about whether I can afford to put gas in my car, or pay for health insurance, or afford college for my kids,’ I can say, ‘Yeah, I can, I lived exactly that life. I’ve walked in your shoes.’” Any former Bain Capital executive, perhaps?
-
On that note, do you think he has any potential GOP presidential candidate in mind when he discusses the 2012 GOP field and says, “The question isn’t going to be some huge divergence of policy positions. I think the question is going to be, ‘As you look at these as individuals, do their life stories and times in previous office demonstrate the fortitude to do the hard work that’s got to be done to turn this country around? Do they actually have results?’ I put my record against any of them.” Any well-known Republican who departed the position of governor a bit early, perhaps?
-
He responds to the possibility of a second Minnesotan joining the 2012 presidential race, Rep. Michele Bachmann.