Tim Pawlenty ends campaign

Tim Pawlenty has bowed out of the presidential race after a poor third place finish in the Ames straw poll yesterday.

At this point every national reporter who treated Pawlenty like a viable candidate for the Republican nomination and a serious threat to Mitt Romney's stance as frontrunner should apologize to their audiences for being so monumentally wrong. Pawlenty was a national media candidate, despite there never being any evidence that he resonated with national Republican voters. The press repeatedly highlighted him as a real threat, but outside of the political press corps, that sentiment was never echoed. Pawlenty never raised serious money. His field campaign was beset by intoxicated staffer problems. He backed down from an opportunity to follow up on his attacks on Obamney Care to Mitt Romney's face, looking weak and timid. And in the end, he couldn't even make it within a quarter of the Iowa caucus. By comparison, the juggernaut presidential campaigns of Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd made it to Iowa last cycle, and beyond. None of these Democratic campaigns were ever treated by the press as anything other than also-rans.

The national press gave Tim Pawlenty their stamp of approval as a serious, viable candidate. But the national press corps is not picking the GOP nominee. It's more and more clear that it's going to be the Tea Party who picks the Republican nominee and Tea Party Republicans were just not buying Tim Pawlenty - a fairly moderate governor of a fairly liberal state - as one of them. This is the modern Republican Party and it's dramatically different from the Republican Party of 2000 or even 2008. It's changed and with it have their candidates for President. The press needs to accept this and start aligning their coverage in a way that tells the story of what is actually happening in this race and not what they'd like to have happen in this race. Read More......

Michele Bachmann wins Ames Straw Poll

Michele Bachmann wins the Ames straw poll, Ron Paul takes second place and Tim Pawlenty comes in third place.

Below are the final votes for the straw poll via Aaron Blake.

Total turnout for the straw poll is 16,892
Michele Bachmann: 4823 votes
Ron Paul: 4671 votes
Tim Pawlenty: 2293 votes
Rick Santorum: 1657 votes
Hermann Cain: 1456 votes
Rick Perry: 718 write in votes (via Ben Smith)
Mitt Romney: 567 votes
New Gingrich: 385 votes
Jon Huntsman: 69 votes
Thaddeus McCotter: 35 votes

Quick thoughts: The fact that Bachmann barely beat Paul says that she's not invincible in Iowa. Tim Pawlenty can't hope to stay in this race much longer with a weak third place finish and how much money he spent on turning out votes by busing activists into Ames. Wow, Rick Perry write ins beat Mitt Romney. Goodbye Newt Gingrich, can't say we'll miss him at all. Read More......

Big day for GOP Presidential politics

Today is the biggest day of the primary campaign thus far. Republicans are gathering in Ames to vote in the Ames straw poll. It's an odd event where an Iowan either buys a ticket for Ames, or as is more likely that ticket is bought by the campaign and passed out to supporters. Despite the odd set up of the event the winner will be determined by a few thousand votes which technically means that a campaign that can organize Iowans, bus them to Ames can show a strong performance. It helps that half of the political press is in Iowa to cover the straw poll. But, at the end today will probably mark the end of the Gingrich and Santorum campaigns. If Tim Pawlenty doesn't take first place today, it could also mean the end of his campaign for president. Nate Silver provides the lay of the land on the straw poll. Poll results will be available sometime after 6:00 PM.

The other big news of the day is that Rick Perry is scheduled to announce his presidential ambitions in South Carolina today. Perry is scheduled to speak at 1:00 PM. Read More......

The extremism of the GOP field in one clip

Would any GOP candidate accept a raise in $1 in revenue for $10 in cuts. Everyone refused to take the deal.



Meanwhile, TPM has put together the top five moments from tonight's debate.

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Pawlenty tries to elevate himself to presidential level

Check out the latest epic-ish web video from Tim Pawlenty's Michael Bay Imitation Department. The video is title "Experience Matters" and the closing slide punchline reads, "Executive Experience Matters." It also says, "Ames Straw Poll - Saturday, August, 13th." As a matter of fact, Barack Obama will not be on the ballot at the Ames straw poll. The whole web video is a series of attacks on President Obama's record, especially on the economy. I guess someone has been watching Mitt Romney's "Obama isn't working" video series after all. But in the context of this video, Pawlenty's claim of executive experience is something of a non sequitor. After all, while he has been a governor medium sized state, he hasn't been President of the United States. There's quite simply no way that Pawlenty can reasonably argue that his experience as Governor of Minnesota means he has more relevant experience as an executive than President Obama. But that's the comparison Pawlenty wants to make, as it elevates him to Obama's level and skips over his Republican competition without ever making the case for himself beyond his assertion that experience matters. Read More......

Tim Pawlenty - International man of mystery

It's desperate times in Iowa with one week left before the Ames straw poll and Pawlenty is desperately trying to turn any bunt into an infield home run.

PAWLENTY: On the trade front," I have maybe the most int`l eperience of any candidate in the race." What abt Huntsman? #iacaucusless than a minute ago via txt Favorite Retweet ReplyJosh Nelson
JoshatCourier

On cue, Jon Huntsman's press secretary mocks the statement.

@alexconant a little hyperbole? RT @JoshatCourier: PAWLENTY: On trade "I have maybe the most int`l eperience of any candidate in the race."less than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet ReplyTim Miller
Timodc

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Pawlenty busted for misleading spin

It's pretty early in the cycle for reporters to be getting so sick of your campaign's spin that they start doing posts actively debunking your claims and making clear to readers what spin you're using. That's why it should be really troubling for the Pawlenty campaign that Christian Heinze of The Hill is taking time showing how both the candidate, the campaign manager, and the campaign's spokesman are misleading the public and other reporters when it comes to expectations in the upcoming Ames straw poll. The nut of the Pawlenty campaign's problem is that while they are running in the back of the pack nationally (6th or 7th place), they are running much better in Iowa (3rd place). They have tried to confound their stronger Iowa standing with their weak national standing to make a non-win at Ames look like a strong performance. Here's Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant:

“We want to show progress in Ames, [do] better than sixth or seventh.”

See what Conant is doing there? Conant has framed an performance in Ames that is better than sixth place as a win for Pawlenty. But that's relative to national performance, not Pawlenty's current standing in Iowa. Quite simply, Pawlenty should finish in the top 3 at Ames. Winning it would be a surge, but getting second or third is not a great indicator of anything other than recent accurate polling in Iowa. And if Pawlenty doesn't finish in the top three at Ames, it will be a bad sign for his campaign. Read More......

Did team Pawlenty drop the "Bachmann is unstable and on meds" story?

It goes without saying that we're not big fans of Michele Bachmann on this blog. We cover the GOP presidential campaign from a progressive perspective and tend to have a lot of fun when Republicans on the campaign trail stick their foot in their mouth or advocate for extreme positions. And those things happen all the time.

When the Daily Caller story about Michele Bachmann's health problems (she has migraine's and former staffers think the migraine's are too debilitating for her to ever be president) went online last night I was skeptical of any news value and thought the story was a low blow planted to help another Republican candidate.

The story had two sources who were obviously high level staff members or connected to high level staff members who worked for Michele Bachmann. A third person verified that Michele Bachmann does indeed get migraines. I had a suspicion that the Pawlenty campaign was behind the hit, since they have one of Bachmann's former Chiefs of Staff, Ron Carey, supporting the campaign. The campaign has used Carey to attack Bachmann in the past. And the fact that Pawlenty's path requires that he beat Bachmann in the Ames straw poll next month.

It's hard to prove, and it was just one source, until a Republican who is also suspicious that Pawlenty dropped the bogus story emailed me a link to another two high level staffers who would know about Bachmann's health problems, and who are also supporting the Pawlenty campaign. Those two other staffers are Gina Countryman and Tim Gould. Countryman was Palin's 2010 campaign manager and both former staffers would have been high enough to know about Bachmann's migraines.

So did Tim Pawlenty's campaign provide the Daily Caller with the sources to make the overblown claims about Bachmann's migraines? Don't get me wrong, Bachmann is unqualified to be president for hundreds of reasons, just read our archives on Bachmann. Her headaches and her medication for headaches told to Daily Caller by former staffers seems like a low blow from a desperate candidate, Tim Pawlenty, who is getting trounced in the polls in Iowa and needed to smear Bachmann as unstable. Someone should ask the Pawlenty campaign. Read More......

NYT destroys the Pawlenty record

In today's New York Times, reporter Trip Gabriel goes after the heart of Tim Pawlenty's argument for why he should be the Republican Party's presidential nominee, namely his sound record of fiscal accomplishments during his two terms as Governor of Minnesota. As the Gabriel piece shows, though, Pawlenty's alleged successes were built on a house of cards that is now dramatically and painfully falling apart as the state continues to endure a government shutdown due to the poor fiscal state Pawlenty left his state in.

Minnesota’s bond rating was downgraded last week by the national firm Fitch Ratings, which cited the current shutdown as well as “nonrecurring balancing tools” in earlier years that have left the state on shaky financial ground.

“That’s the classic definition of how you kick the can into the future,” said Arne Carlson, a former Republican governor of Minnesota who is a critic of Mr. Pawlenty’s fiscal management. “He basically reduced the weight in Pocket A and increased the weight in Pocket B, and said, ‘Look at what a great job I did.’ This was all sleight of hand.”

Obviously this both undercuts Pawlenty's case for why he's better than his GOP opponents and leaves him with zero ground to stand on to lob criticisms against President Obama.

Gabriel's piece also looks at the soaring real estate taxes under Pawlenty (up over 38%) and his 2009 record of signing every single spending bill sent to him by the Democratic controlled state legislature, while vetoing all the pay-for bills. To put it differently, Pawlenty took out the state's credit card and ran amok, but stopped making his monthly payments. Again, these are facts which undercut him both in as a primary candidate and in the general election.

There have been numerous stories in the press about Pawlenty being a totally different person as the one who served as governor, in terms of his demeanor and the ideological slant he's now showing. This is a different sort of piece in that it actually goes at Pawlenty's record, the record he is now trying to run on, in a straightforward way. It's devastating, but it's not a hit piece. It's an honest look at what Pawlenty did while Governor in the context of the current government shutdown that is taking place largely because of his refusal to pay for spending while he was in charge. As long as the Minnesota government is shut down and people there are hurting as a result, expect more pieces busting Pawlenty's spin on his record as a fiscal administrator of his state. Read More......

WOW: Pawlenty thinks the science is in dispute over whether someone is born gay

I think it's safe to assume that when Tim Pawlenty says that he likes Lady Gaga's song, "born this way," he's only talking about the beat to the song.

On Meet The Press this morning David Gregogry asked Pawlenty whether he answered that the science was 'in dispute' over whether someone is born gay or not. As ThinkProgress makes fairly clear the science is not in dispute at all.

GREGORY: Is being gay a choice?
PAWLENTY: Well, the science in that regard is in dispute. I mean, scientists work on that and try to figure out if it’s behavioral or if it’s partly genetic –
GREGORY: What do you think?
PAWLENTY: Well, I defer to the scientists in that regard.
GREGORY: So you think it’s not a choice? That you are, as Lady Gaga says, you’re born that way.
PAWLENTY: There’s no scientific conclusion that it’s genetic. We don’t know that.

(H/T Thinkprogress) Read More......

Pawlenty lies about raising taxes in Minnesota

In a sit down with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, a sit down that reads like a train wreck, Tim Pawlenty makes two claims which are by any standard complete lies about his record as Governor of Minnesota. The first is that he never raised taxes, even when he raised cigarette taxes.

Part of the resolution for the stalemate was his proposal to collect an additional 75 cents a pack on cigarettes.

Pawlenty insists on calling the additional charge a “health impact fee,” not a tax.

“That issue was litigated in a court of law and as a matter of law, it was determined to be a fee,” he said.

The second is that he's not responsible for cities and counties raising property taxes. He admits that he cut funding to cities and localities by large margins and during that period of time time property taxes skyrocketed by over 50% across the state. But whatever you do, don't try to argue that Tim Pawlenty was responsible for rising property taxes.

“It’s absolutely not accurate to say that I raised property taxes in Minnesota,” Pawlenty said. “It is accurate to say we cut cash aid to cities and counties, and they made the decision about whether they were going to in turn reduce spending or raise property taxes.”

Pawlenty’s argument is just the opposite from what Iowa Republicans have said about this state’s finances.

When the Democrat-controlled Iowa Legislature decreased state aid to school districts last year, Republicans blasted the Democrats, saying they were raising property taxes.

(H/T for the article - Mo Elleithee) Read More......

Talk of an early Pawlenty exit starts

The NY Times pens the first story about Pawlenty's early exit from the Republican presidential nomination. It's a five week sprint from behind Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachmann to finish first at the Iowa straw poll. If he can't beat Bachmann (who hails from Minnesota and Romney who is not even contesting the Ames straw poll) there's very little chance that he'll have the funding to continue on through January.

Tim Pawlenty was first in line to enter the Republican presidential race. He is now fighting to avoid becoming the earliest major candidate to be shown the door.

...

The voting will not open for at least six months, but Mr. Pawlenty knows that his performance at the Iowa Straw Poll on Aug. 13 — fair or not — will help determine whether his candidacy accelerates or lands in the annals of Republican presidential hopefuls like Elizabeth Dole, Lamar Alexander and Dan Quayle whose campaigns were extinguished here.

The sense of urgency was apparent as Mr. Pawlenty made the case to Republicans that an experienced candidate was preferable to an intriguing one. If Michele Bachmann, his fellow Minnesotan, was on his mind, he did not say so directly, but there was little mistaking his point.

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Q2 Fundraising Thread

We'll be collecting all of the Q2 fundraising announcements and placing them in this thread as they are released.

Mitt Romney - $20 million. The establishment frontrunner leads the field of candidates in the cash haul primary. The report includes a $10 million dailing-for-dollars fundraiser in Las Vegas last May.

Tim Pawlenty - $4.2 million - A small pull from a "top-tier" presidential candidate who can actually win the nomination. It's not clear how Pawlenty keeps a large campaign going with fundraising this weak.

Herman Cain - $2.4 million - As TPM points out it's half of what "top-tier" candidate Tim Pawlenty has brought in and enough to continue to be a spoiler candidate in one or two early states.

Jon Huntsman - $4.1 million - Do not let numbers deceive you. Huntsman's figure includes money from the family fortune, although the campaign declined to state how much.

Ron Paul - $4.5 million. The two-time presidential candidate built up his first quarter haul that positioned him atop the fundraising heap. Read More......

Pawlenty foreign policy speech gets panned

In an Business Insider article titled "Tim Pawlenty Flops In Foreign Policy Debut" the reporter overhears reaction to Pawlenty's foreign policy speech.

It was actually a little painful to watch the former Minnesota Governor squirm under the supercilious scrutiny of people who make their living by knowing American foreign policy inside out. When someone asked about the worse possibilities that could follow Assad in Syria and Pawlenty responded with "No one ever asked who would follow Hitler," it seemed like half the audience started snickering behind their notebooks.

As the crowd was leaving, we overheard one well-known foreign policy journalist say something to the effect of: "My impression is that he doesn't know a whole lot about anything."

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Pawlenty camp now attacking Michelle Bachmann

It's desperate time in the Pawlenty camp with the staff making little to no salary and early state polling showing Pawlenty at the back of the pack even in places where he has a 70% name ID.

Today, the Pawlenty campaign rolled out former Bachmann chief of Staff Ron Carey to pen an op-ed in the Des Moines Register attacking Michelle Bachmann and her readiness to be president, while at the same time endorsing Tim Pawlenty.

“The Bachmann campaign and congressional offices I inherited were wildly out of control. Stacks upon stacks of unopened contributions filled the campaign office while thousands of communications from citizens waited for an answer. If she is unable, or unwilling, to handle the basic duties of a campaign or congressional office, how could she possibly manage the magnitude of the presidency?”

Carey has been an early Tim supporter of Tim Pawlenty and one of Michelle Bachmann's disgruntled former Cheif's of Staff (she's had six in five years). It's also not the first time that the Pawlenty campaign has rolled out Carey to endorse Pawlenty publicly and attack Bachmann. It's a sign that while Tim Pawlenty would like to be the anti-Romney for Republican voters his first task is to be the anti-Bachmann. Read More......

DNC responds to the WMUR debate

Not the most fair and balanced selection of quotes from last night's debate, but then again, that's not the DNC's job. Read More......

The definitive image of Tim Pawlenty's sad campaign

Tim Pawlenty is running for president of the United States and he wants your attention in the most desperate way possible. His media team is producing over the top web videos that borrow heavily from really bad Jerry Bruckheimer films. He rolled out a flat tax proposal that's been panned as a joke. A budget that couldn't even the libertarian magazine Reason mocks. He's polling worse than Herman Cain and would lose the presidency by 19 points and he would lose his home state where he was a Governor for two terms by 13 points to President Obama. His call for the repeal of DADT doesn't even get him any love for the religious right.

As Esquire says this new image, posted to Tim Pawlenty's Facebook page, may be the definitive image of his sad campaign.

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Pawlenty's Google test will cut everything

There's a reason kids are taught not to run with scissors: it's dangerous and people can get hurt when the implements of cuts get carried away. Unfortunately this is a lesson that Tim Pawlenty never learned and now the rest of the country is going to get hurt by his reckless and slapdash style of cuts to programs that benefit working American families. No doubt the top line story is going to Pawlenty's nonsensical "Google test":

There are some obvious targets to cut. We can start by applying what I call "the Google test." If you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn't need to offer the same good or service.

Uh, what? Eddie Vale of Protect Your Care points out what the consequences of this are:

I can Google ‘seniors’ and ‘health care’ does that mean Pawlenty would completely end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? I can Google ‘veterans’ and ‘hospital’ does that mean Pawlenty would dismantle the VA system? I can Google ‘pharmacy’ does that mean no senior citizen or child would ever get assistance with their medicines from Pawlenty? These may seem like idiotically stupid questions, but, are necessary since Pawlenty is going to give a speech to demonstrate his qualifications to be leader of the free world by basing his policy agenda off what he can find on the internet.

“It’s also pretty sad and pathetic how quickly the regular blue collar guy veneer has fallen off as he rushes to cry crocodile tears over class warfare while taking away health care from seniors and kids to pay for tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and big oil.

“Finally, for those of you who are more visual learners, here’s an animated version of this statement – http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Pawlenty+%26+policy+%26+are+you+f%27ing+kidding+me%3F%3F%3F

Heh, well played Mr. Vale. Pawlenty's speech makes the example of the Post Office - that's right, Pawlenty wants to privatize the Post Office. Now I don't know if Pawlenty gets special discount rates from anti-union FedEx, but I don't know of any private shipping company who can send a letter for $0.44. Just because there are private companies that exist on the internet (and in real life!) who provide similar services, doesn't mean it is economically sensible for the government to stop providing those services affordably. And as Vale points out, this can be said literally everything the government does. It's on the internet! The Google will cut it all!

Additionally, Pawlenty's plan includes:

• Cut corporate taxes by 57% and make sure not to cut subsidies to Big Oil


• Huge new tax cuts for millionaires


• Eliminate taxes on capital gains, dividends, and the estate tax (all taxes which essentially only apply to millionaires)


• A constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, with a budget cap of 18% GDP (forcing huge cuts in health and social programs)


• Raise the Social Security retirement age (aka huge cuts)


• Cap and block grants for Medicaid (aka huge cuts)

Pawlenty's plan is ideologically extreme, going at least as far if not farther than the budget authored by Paul Ryan and passed by House Republicans. Pawlenty's plan cuts Social Security and Medicaid and would have to dramatically cut pretty much every other non-military program in the federal budget to make up the massive gap between the level of revenue his tax cuts would bring in and the current spending, which is at 25% of GDP.

What's most infuriating about this isn't that Pawlenty is seek to destroy the entire social fabric of the American republic, a system of governance and societal support that has taken developed and thrived over the last century. Rather, what's so sickening about Pawlenty here is that he is proposing massive tax cuts for the wealthy and massive spending cuts to programs that benefit working, middle class Americans - essentially facilitating what would be hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth transfer from the middle class to wealthy elites - and he has the temerity to claim that it is Barack Obama who is guilty of class warfare. You've got to be kidding me, Tim Pawlenty. Clearly class warfare is going on here, but it is Pawlenty who is perpetrating it at the expense of our grandparents, our parents and our children. Read More......

Pawlenty in, Daniels out

A blue-tinged Tim Pawlenty has announced that he's nominating himself Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in the aptly-titled, "Tim Pawlenty - A Time for Truth (Preview of Monday's Announcement)." The video has the now-predictable Pawlenty video editing flash. Sadly, no matter how many times they do this, Tim Pawlenty is still taking part in the Republican presidential primary and not a Ridley Scott movie.

At the other end of the Republican campaign editing bay is Mitch Daniels, who announced this weekend that he won't be running because he didn't have his wife's support for President. Mitch is the first and third husband of Cheri Daniels, who has apparently never been much of a fan of Mitch's political aspirations beyond blowing up the debt as George W. Bush's OMB director.

What does this all mean for the right's field? Bill Kristol thinks the field will continue to expand later this year:

“It would be unfair to call the current field a vacuum. But it doesn't exactly represent an overflowing of political talent. And insofar as politics abhors even a near-vacuum, others are bound to get in. I now think the odds are better than 50-50 that both Rick Perry and Paul Ryan run. I also now think they (and others -- Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, John Bolton) may not feel they have to decide until after Labor Day -- or maybe even until October or even November. The field could well remain open and fluid until Thanksgiving.”

I don't see any reason why any candidate not currently in the race would rush right in now. The dissatisfaction with the current crop of candidates is only likely to increase over time, making the appeal of a Palin, Christie, Bolton, Ryan or Perry seem greater. I'm certainly not convinced that the field is done (assuming every candidate with an exploratory committee ends up running). Someone else will get in, as the only commonality between a field of people like Romney, Ron Paul, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Bachmann and Herm Cain is that none of them will beat Barack Obama. Read More......

Vast majority of Fox News focus group says that Herman Cain won the debate

In my preview of the presidential debate I said mentioned that Tim Pawlenty had the most to lose by showing up tonight and when the debate ended and Sean Hannity asked Frank Luntz's focus group what they thought it became pretty obvious how unimpressive Pawlenty's performance was tonight. Hands down the vast majority of Fox News' focus group of South Carolina Republican voters chose Herman Cain as winner of the first GOP presidential debate.



Update: More bad news for Tim Pawlenty. The focus group also thinks that Rick Santorum was the runner up winner. Meanwhile Herman Cain is up 300% on Intrade. Read More......