Governor Tim Pawlenty was on Huckabee this weekend on Fox News. During the interview, Governor Huckabee brought up Pawlenty’s endorsement of John McCain in the 2008 campaign. That question made me wonder if the endorsement came near the end of the primaries when most card-carrying republicans endorsed (by default) John McCain or earlier in the campaign.
A few minutes on Google, searching from January 1, 2007 through November 5, 2008, brought me the answer: on January 15, 2007, the Washington Post reported that not only was Gov. Pawlenty endorsing John McCain, he would be serving as the national co-chair of his campaign.
“Senator McCain has been a strong leader and a common sense conservative in the U.S. Senate and will continue to be in the White House,” said Pawlenty of his decision to back McCain.
Toss in the following quote from 2006, and it appears that Tim Pawlenty is not the conservative I’m looking for:
“The era of small government is over . . . government has to be more proactive, more aggressive.”
— Tim Pawlenty, 2006.
Anyone who wants a bigger, more aggressive government and supported John McCain as early as January 2007 and believes him to be a conservative, is not the candidate for me.
I’m still looking for a conservative, no-nonsense candidate for 2012 …
OneMom
Thanks for the quotes. I’ve been too lazy to dig. I knew there was a better reason than “I cant vote for someone from the state that elected Al Franken.”
Sad isn’t it. Please dig in on Herman Cain next – Very pro-life from what I can tell. Pro – FairTax. Business and science background. What’s hiding in his closet?
Vince – as soon as I found his support of McCain from the very beginning, that told me volumes about Pawlenty. The quotes sealed it for me, that I will not be able to support Pawlenty.
I’ll do what I can to shine the light in Herman Cain’s closet. Seems the big question mark with Cain is no political experience (although maybe that would be a good thing).
Kerry,
Have you looked into Herman Cain? My mom asked me about him and then I got an article from LifeSiteNews about him. Any thoughts?
Frances recently posted..Great New Book
Hi Frances – Vince asked me about Cain earlier, but I haven’t had much chance to investigate. Do you have a link to the lifesitenews article?
LifeSiteNews – Herman Cain, Pro-Life
Enjoy voting for Mitt Romney then.
That’s your argument in support of Pawlenty?
No.
But religious conservatives are so determined to find a perfect candidate that perfectly matches their ideals and beliefs, but none of those people are ever electable. A
The country isn’t as religious and conservative as you would like to think.
The majority of people sit in the middle and don’t want someone forcing their moralities and religion on them. Or they want to keep their religious lives to themselves.
The last “preacher” that was elected was a democrat anyways. You can keep on dreaming for Huck to run… but the majority of the nation would not vote for him. His two credentials are Jesus and running the state of Arkansas, which frankly isn’t something to brag about. (Specially when you help set a rapist free because you were dumb enough to think he “found God in prison,” that goes on to rape and kill more women.)
Not to mention the complete lack of foreign policy experience.
It just irks me that conservative christian republicans do the most complaining about every candidate that represents our party because they don’t fit your absurdly perfect ideals.
It also scares great candidates like Mitch Daniels away from running because he didn’t want his wife and family judged by the hypocritical Christian right.
It wasn’t Governor Daniels that was scared, it was his wife … public scrutiny is brutal in these campaigns … something that isn’t bothering Gingrich, but if Mrs. Daniels didn’t want that spotlight, that is her freedom.
I’m not looking for perfection, but I am seeking a candidate with strong, unwavering conservative convictions, I have decided that Governor Pawlenty does not meet the criteria for me … that is my right. It is much too early for me to “settle”.
By the way, you knock Gov. Huckabee’s foreign policy experience … how many governors get much of that? How much foreign policy experience did Gov. Pawlenty have in Minnesota?
Governor Pawlenty talked about an article entitled “The era of small government is over” and got misquoted. The paper ran a correction. T-Paw discussed it on Rush Limbaugh’s show on Monday. As far as supporting McCain, in the end, everyone did.
As far as Romney, he has Romneycare, Cain has his full-throated support of the bank bailouts. Pawlenty has “Cap and Trade”, which he has since renounced. Point is, at the end of the day, we have a slate of good but imperfect candidates. I like Pawlenty to unite the party and beat Obama.
“as far as supporting McCain, in the end everyone did” …. I didn’t support McCain ever. I would have given Pawlenty a pass on supporting McCain at the “end” by default, but he was the co-chair of McCain’s campaign, and jumped on board with him in January 2007.
The theme of his campaign is “truth”.
Politifact
FactCheck
Washington Post
Unfortunately, I have not been able to access the full original article that appeared in the Star Tribune in 2006.
On the era of small government comment, Governor Pawlenty was quoting someone else and the liberal media quoted HIM as supposedly saying it. See http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052411/content/01125104.guest.html
So unless you’re going to take the word of the liberal media, you should take down this attack on a conservative governor. Here’s more info on Pawlenty’s REAL record:
Pawlenty vetoed every tax hike sent to him — $7.5 billion in total, set record for one year. http://www.startribune.com/opinion/112831449.html
Cato Institute gave Pawlenty A grade for lowering taxes, balancing budget. http://bit.ly/h1OAWZ
Illegal immigration reduction advocate likes Tim Pawlenty http://politi.co/fFsEBr
Governor Pawlenty on the right way to do health care http://wapo.st/bmD1wK
Pawlenty’s exec order netted 6,000 fraudulent drivers licenses. Democrat Gov. Dayton canceling it. http://bit.ly/e3ZiQB
What Pawlenty did was reject Obamacare http://bit.ly/fVMRIn and advocate market reforms: http://bit.ly/jtfqBV
Not sure why you posted this comment twice, although you took out the “take down this attack on a conservative governor” in the second version.
The era of small government being over is NOT a Pawlenty quote. He was quoting someone else and responding to it and the liberal media wrongly attributed it to him. See http://bit.ly/lp4VUb
Here’s the real record for this excellent conservative governor:
Tim Pawlenty May Be the Strongest Pro-Life Candidate in 2012 http://bit.ly/fu4XLe
Pawlenty vetoed every tax hike sent to him — $7.5 billion in total, set record for one year. http://www.startribune.com/opinion/112831449.html
Cato Institute gave Pawlenty A grade for lowering taxes, balancing budget. http://bit.ly/h1OAWZ
Illegal immigration reduction advocate likes Tim Pawlenty http://politi.co/fFsEBr
Governor Pawlenty on the right way to do health care http://wapo.st/bmD1wK
What Pawlenty did was reject Obamacare http://bit.ly/fVMRIn and advocate market reforms: http://bit.ly/jtfqBV
Steven, you’re right, that wasn’t his original quote, but here’s the rest of the story (from my early comment above and the link to the Washington Post) it does seem that Gov. Pawlenty was doing a bit of spinning on Rush’s show:
The talk-show host, who serves as the unofficial gatekeeper to the Republican nomination, presented Pawlenty with a 2006 newspaper article in which he said that “the era of small government is over” and that “government has to be more proactive, more aggressive.”
The truth-teller beat a hasty retreat. He claimed that he had merely been referencing somebody else’s words — “I didn’t say those words myself” — that his political opponents had “pushed that falsely,” and that the newspaper was motivated by political bias and was forced to issue a correction.
To verify Pawlenty’s truthfulness, I looked up the article, from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and discovered that Pawlenty had taken some liberties with the facts.
The article is all about Pawlenty’s efforts as governor to take on drug and oil companies and other practitioners of “excessive corporate power.” It includes his boast that many ideological Republicans “don’t even talk to me anymore” because of his support for things such as the minimum wage.
“The era of small government is over,” Pawlenty told the newspaper. “I’m a market person, but there are certain circumstances where you’ve got to have government put up the guardrails or bust up entrenched interests before they become too powerful. .?.?. Government has to be more proactive, more aggressive.”
The newspaper did issue a “clarification,” but only to say that Pawlenty’s quote about small government was “in reference to a point” made by the conservative writer David Brooks — one that Pawlenty, from his other comments, obviously agreed with.