Tim Pawlenty

Timothy James "Tim" Pawlenty, born November 27, 1960 is an American politician who served as the 39th Governor of Minnesota (2003–2011). He is a Republican candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives (1993–2003) where he served two terms as majority leader.

Pawlenty was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota and raised in nearby South St. Paul. He graduated from University of Minnesota with a B.A. in political science and earned a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. His early career included working as a labor law attorney and the vice president of a software company. After settling in the city of Eagan with his wife, Pawlenty was appointed to the city's Planning Commission and was elected to the Eagan City Council at the age of 28. He won a seat as a state representative in 1992, representing District 38B in suburban Dakota County. He was re-elected four times, and voted majority leader by House Republicans in 1998.

He won a narrow Republican primary in 2002 followed by a three-way election for Governor of Minnesota. His platform focused on balancing the budget without raising taxes. He was re-elected in 2006 by a margin of one percent. Pawlenty eliminated his state's budget deficit using spending cuts and borrowing heavily from earmarked funds. His administration advocated for numerous public works projects, including work on the Northstar Commuter Rail Line, and the construction of Target Field, a Major League Baseball stadium in Minneapolis. He signed a bill mandating 20% ethanol in gasoline by 2013. He cut health care spending to help balance the budget, and signed an executive order rejecting federal funds related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He led worldwide trips for business leaders and trade delegations to explore trade opportunities. In the 2007–2008 term he served as chairman of the National Governors Association.

Pawlenty was rumored as a contender for president as early as 2005, and was closely involved with U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008. Pawlenty began early steps toward a run in late 2009. He formally announced his presidential campaign in May 2011, running on a strongly conservative platform.

Early life and career

Pawlenty was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Virginia Frances (née Oldenburg) and Eugene Joseph Pawlenty, who drove a milk truck. Pawlenty's father was Polish American and his mother was German American. His mother died of cancer when he was 16. Pawlenty grew up in nearby South St. Paul, where he played ice hockey on his high school's junior varsity squad, the South Saint Paul Packers.

Originally planning to become a dentist, Pawlenty enrolled in the University of Minnesota, becoming the only one of his siblings to attend college. During the summers of 1980 and 1982, he worked as an intern at the office of U.S. Senator David Durenberger. In 1983, he graduated with a B.A. in political science. He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1986. While in law school, he met his future wife, Mary Anderson. They married in 1987.

Pawlenty first worked as a labor law attorney at the firm Rider Bennett (later Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel), where he had interned during law school. Later, he became vice president of a software company, Wizmo Inc.

Now settled in Eagan, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis – Saint Paul, Pawlenty was appointed to the city's Planning Commission by then Mayor Vic Ellison. A year later, at the age of 28, he was elected to a term on the City Council.

Pawlenty got his start in state politics in 1990 as a campaign advisor for Jon Grunseth's losing bid for Minnesota governor. After Pawlenty himself became governor, he appointed Grunseth's former wife, Vicky Tigwell, to the board of the Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport, which became an ethics and accountability issue in 2003.

Personal life

Pawlenty frequently uses (and is referred to by) the mononym TPaw or T-Paw.

In 1994, Pawlenty's wife Mary was appointed as a judge of the Dakota County District Court in Hastings, Minnesota and the two began raising their two daughters, Anna and Mara. After he was elected in 2002, the family remained at their Eagan home instead of moving into the Governor's Residence because of Mary's requirement to stay in her judicial district. In 2007, she left her judicial position to become General Counsel of the National Arbitration Forum, a dispute resolution company based in Minneapolis. She stayed on only briefly before departing for another dispute resolution company, the Gilbert Mediation Center.

Pawlenty was raised a Roman Catholic. His conversion to an Evangelical Protestant faith has been attributed to his wife Mary, who is a member of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a member congregation of the Minnesota Baptist Conference. Its senior pastor, Leith Anderson, is the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. In a January 2011 interview, Mr. Pawlenty stated that "I love and respect and admire the Catholic Church. I still attend Mass once in a while there. The church I now attend is an interdenominational church which has got many former Catholics in it, and so we share the Christian faith and the Bible. I had to reconcile my faith life with my wife so we could have a consistent, integrated family faith life.

McCain presidential campaign, 2008

Beginning in 2005, Pawlenty was rumored in the press as a potential candidate for president of the United States. When formally announcing his candidacy for a second term as Governor of Minnesota on May 31, 2006, Pawlenty said, "As to my future, if I run for governor and win, I will serve out my term for four years as governor. On January 15, 2007, after being reelected, Pawlenty said, "I am committed to serving out my term as governor. That's what I am going to do.

In 2007, it was announced that Pawlenty would be serving in a lead role for McCain as a national cochair of his presidential exploratory committee which led to Pawlenty becoming cochairman of McCain's campaign (along with Phil Gramm and Tom Loeffler). In January 2008 a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune suggested Pawlenty's renewed focus on his proposed immigration reform plans might be politically motivated as counterbalance to McCain's less favorable guest worker program.

For many weeks, Pawlenty was widely considered to be a leading candidate for the vice-presidential nomination on the Republican ticket with John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. McCain surprisingly chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

In 2008 Pawlenty expressed support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). But in 2010 Pawlenty claimed that he had made those statements solely as a surrogate for presidential nominee McCain and never actually supported the idea himself.

Presidential race, 2012 Early steps

In February 2005, ABC News identified him as a potential candidate for president. Pawlenty decided not to seek a third term as governor, and so was not a candidate in the November 2010 gubernatorial election. In July 2009, Public Policy Polling conducted a poll that showed that President Obama was favored to win against Pawlenty in his home state of Minnesota by more than 10 points. In October 2009, a CNN article suggested that Pawlenty was contemplating a 2012 White House bid. Among those advising him in preparation for a potential presidential run is lobbyist and former Congressman Vin Weber.

In late 2009, Pawlenty began taking steps that many saw as leading to a 2012 presidential bid. He visited Iowa in November 2009 and April 2010, making political speeches. In January 2011, the New York Times reported that "Few Americans, in fact, even know his name. In January 2011, Pawlenty told the College Republicans group at The George Washington University "If I decide to run it would be for president, not vice president.

Book tour and political positions

Pawlenty at a book signing in February 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Pawlenty went on tour for his book Courage to Stand, and as of January 18, his book had reached #1,979 on Amazon.com's list of bestsellers. Pawlenty calls himself a social conservative. In his extended interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, he said he thinks United States Social Security and Medicare need to be cut to balance the federal budget. Pawlenty believes that state governments should outlaw abortion, except for cases of rape, incest, and to save a woman's life. He thinks the United States Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade wrongly, abortion being a state, not a federal, matter. He opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions. He would like to reinstate "Don't ask, don't tell" should he become president. Answering a question from talk radio host Bryan Fischer, he replied, "... I have been a public supporter of maintaining Don't Ask, Don't Tell and I would support reinstating it as well".

In December 2010, Pawlenty was one of three U.S. governors who publicly declared solidarity with Christian-right group Family Research Council.

Pawlenty's tour has been in Minneapolis, San Francisco and Dallas, and it ends January in Iowa where the Iowa Caucuses are scheduled for February 6, 2012. "That will come up fast," he said, "if I do run." In Minneapolis, speaking to Pat Kessler of WCCO-TV who asked about his feelings regarding a potential run for president by Representative Michele Bachmann, "I have a lot of respect for Michele Bachmann … Whether she runs or not, it's gonna be a big field. There's gonna be five, six, seven, eight people running … Whoever wants to run can run. The more, the merrier.

In a December 2010 column in The Wall Street Journal, Pawlenty argued in favor of the historical benefits of "private sector" labor unions and strongly against "public sector" labor unions, whose collective bargaining rights he would like to see curbed: "The rise of the labor movement in the early 20th century was a triumph for America's working class. In an era of deep economic anxiety, unions stood up for hard-working but vulnerable families, protecting them from physical and economic exploitation." He also criticized modern unions: "The moral case for unions—protecting working families from exploitation—does not apply to public employment... Unionized public employees are making more money, receiving more generous benefits, and enjoying greater job security than the working families forced to pay for it with ever-higher taxes, deficits and debt.

Announcement

On March 21, 2011, Pawlenty announced, via Facebook, that he had formed an exploratory committee in preparation for a potential run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

On April 12, 2011, Pawlenty said clearly on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight that he was "running for President" and not for Vice President, adding that a formal announcement would be given in several weeks. On Twitter, his spokesman said CNN took his comments out of context.

On May 23, 2011, Pawlenty launched his candidacy for President in a speech in Iowa stating: "I'm going to try something a little unusual in politics. I'm just going to tell the truth. A YouTube video appeared a day before. The Wall Street Journal wrote of his candidacy, and the luck he experienced in the GOP's field, that Pawlenty has a "golden chance to become the chief rival to... Mitt Romney".

Political views

Pawlenty is generally considered a conservative on the American political spectrum. With regards to his economic record, he has drawn mixed reviews from fiscally conservative interest groups. The lobbying group Taxpayers League of Minnesota gave Pawlenty an average approval score of 80% during his years as a state legislator, while the Cato Institute think tank gave him scores ranging from C to A across his eight years as governor. In February 2008, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak wrote that Pawlenty was the most conservative Minnesota governor since Governor Theodore Christianson in the 1920s. A 2011 white paper by the Club for Growth, analyzing Pawlenty as a presidential candidate, found his political stance difficult to identify. The group praised him for reduced growth in spending and taxation, but found that he "has some simply inexcusable tax hikes in his record" and questioned his support of proposals such as "mandatory vegetable oil in gasoline, cap and trade, and a statewide smoking ban. Chris Edwards, a director at Cato, speculated that Pawlenty's rightward tack in his second term was related to his impending presidential run.

Approval ratings

In April 2009, 46% of Minnesotans approved of Pawlenty, while 40% disapproved.

Among registered Republicans nationwide in July 2009, 38% had a favorable view of him while 33% didn't according to a Rasmussen Reports survey.

In March 2010 42% of Minnesotans approved of Pawlenty, while 52% disapproved.

In October 2010 a Rasmussen report showed that Pawlenty had a 49% approval rating among Minnesotans with 49% disapproving.

A March 2011 survey by the Gallup organization stated that Pawlenty began his Presidential run with only 41% name recognition in the GOP.

Also in March 2011, the Public Policy Polling (PPP) agency found that nationwide voters had a net negative view of Pawlenty, with 15% viewing him favorably verses 33% unfavorably.

In the June 2011 results of a survey of registered Minnesota voters conducted from May 27-30, 42% of Minnesotans had a favorable opinion of Pawlenty, while 52% had an unfavorable opinion of him. In the 2012 presidential race polling, the results show President Obama leading Pawlenty by 51% to 43%, suggesting Pawlenty would lose his home state to President Obama were he the 2012 GOP nominee.