Tim Pawlenty Focused On ‘Yard Work’ as Veepstakes Speculation Heats Up

Tim Pawlenty Shows Two Sides of a Vice Presidential Contender

Jul 292012

Richard Ellis/Getty Images(RALEIGH, N.C.) — On a day when Mitt Romney surrogates and vice presidential contenders were spread out all over the country, Tim Pawlenty showed two very different sides of himself as a possible running mate.

Dressed in a blue checkered shirt and jeans, he first held a small roundtable with “sports parents” at a local ice rink in Cary, before holding a much larger rally opening a campaign office in Raleigh.

At the Polar Ice Rink, he listened to voters about their concerns and pledged to take them back to the presumptive GOP nominee.

At the rally, it was a much more revved up Pawlenty, one rarely seen during his television appearances on behalf of Romney, attacking President Obama’s record.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing his teleprompter speeches and no results. His big fancy speeches from four years ago and since, those speeches, those words, they don’t put gas in our cars, do they?” Pawlenty asked the crowd, to screams of, “No!”

During the roundtable, one of the parents, Christine Godeaux told Pawlenty she needed to hear more from Romney. In an almost pleading tone she told him because “he’s not Obama” is good enough for her, but not enough to make others vote for the former Massachusetts governor, especially those “afraid of change.”

“I want to know specifically what his plan is,” Godeaux said, adding she wanted to know what Romney was going to do on day one.

ABC News asked Godeaux after if she had seen Romney’s series of “On Day One” ads and she said she had, but it wasn’t enough detail for her.

Pawlenty described his tax plan briefly, but said he didn’t want the crowd’s “eyes to glaze over” before the hockey fan took to the ice for a quick spin. He spent much of his time in the rink coaching some children on ways to stop and gave tips.

ABC News asked Pawlenty afterwards if he agreed with Godeaux that Romney needed to give more.

“His message is a strong message and his story is a good story,” Pawlenty said. “There are certainly voters who want a lot more detail and there’s different ways they can get it. Got to strike that balance when you are only given 30 seconds to respond in media interviews or a brief time to speak on TV shows, but for those who are interested in more detail there are ways to do that and I think the campaign is, particularly when they get into debates, will have an opportunity to get into even more.”

Pawlenty is one of the potential vice presidential picks believed to be on the campaign’s short list, all of whom know their lives will change dramatically if they are selected to be Romney’s running mate in the next month before the Republican National Convention.

Tim Pawlenty’s Website: ‘Coming Soon,’ ‘Please Come Back Later’

Jul 202012

Scott Olson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Tim Pawlenty’s website appears to be getting a curiously timed facelift, raising questions about why and when this revamp began as the veepstakes world is reaching a fever pitch.

When users head to www.timpawlenty.com, which Pawlenty has used since 2009, according to a Facebook post, any semblance of a homepage is gone and instead is replaced with the words, “Please come back later.” The tab on the browser reads, “Coming Soon page.” Pawlenty lists this website on both his Twitter and Facebook profiles.

Pawlenty told ABC News the site was taken down because there is no longer a campaign or a PAC, but he said he “doesn’t know who wrote” “coming soon” up there.

Some bloggers are suggesting otherwise, speculating that this could indicate Pawlenty is preparing to receive the vice presidential nod. It’s unclear when this reboot began.

Typing in www.timpawlenty.com into the Wayback Machine, an Internet archive site, shows Pawlenty’s webpage when it was fully functional — back in July of last year when he was still conducting his own presidential bid.

Other potential VP contenders’ websites still link back to their original pages: www.robportman.com is still a site for Rob Portman’s 2010 senate campaign, and Marco Rubio’s website, www.marcorubio.com, directs to a page for users to look through Rubio’s senate campaign site or his Reclaim America PAC site.

Pawlenty to Obama: Leave Ann Romney’s Therapy Horse Alone

Jul 182012

Scott Olson/Getty Images(MINNEAPOLIS) — Tim Pawlenty thinks the Obama campaign’s mocking ads featuring the Romneys’ expensive sport-horse is a bridge too far.

Though Pawlenty said in an interview with ABC News’s Jon Karl that he hadn’t seen the ad, he interpreted it as a swipe at Romney’s wife, Ann, who has said she used horse-riding to cope with her illness.

“Well, I haven’t seen the ad, but shame on them, really,” Pawlenty said. “I mean, this is something that she does as a hobby to help her condition as a therapy for having MS, and it gives her great relief and great joy. And I think by her own account and the account of her medical professionals, it helps her. That’s something she shared with others as a sport or hobby or therapy who are facing life challenges or disabilities, and to make light of that or to criticize that, I think, is really, really low. I wish they wouldn’t do that.”

In a statement, Melanie Roussell, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, which made the ads, said: “What Governor Pawlenty is alleging is inaccurate and distracts from the main point. One of Mitt Romney’s hobbies and investments is his dressage horse. And, like his horse, Mitt Romney continues to dance around the issues, from answering why he’s invested in known foreign tax havens or trying to rewrite his position on letting Detroit go bankrupt.”

Tim Pawlenty Won’t Talk VP Timing, Sticks to Romney’s Tax Returns

Jul 182012

Scott Olson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — While VP short-lister and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had nothing new to say about the timing of the VP selection on CBS Wednesday morning, he was vocal on one issue: Mitt Romney’s taxes.

Pawlenty continued the Romney campaign’s attempts to refocus discussion on the economy rather than “shiny objects” such as tax returns, saying that Romney’s release of two years of tax records is “standard.”

“Mitt Romney has released tax records for 2010 and 2011, and that’s the standard for Republican nominees two years worth, and look, we shouldn’t be debating tax returns from 10 or 15 years ago or college transcripts from 20 or more years ago,” Pawlenty said, referring to calls by some Republicans for President Obama to release his college transcripts. “We should be debating the main issue in this race, which is jobs and the middle class.”

Romney has yet to release his full 2011 tax records, although he has released preliminary numbers. The campaign has announced that it will release Romney’s 2011 records in October.

Pawlenty went on to criticize Obama from distracting voters from the main issues in the race.

“The president is hanging shiny objects before the public and the press, and the press is taking the bait,” Pawlenty said. “There is no indication that Mitt Romney has done anything wrong with respect to his taxes and he’s trying to distract from the main issue, which should be his performance, the president’s poor performance on getting this economy moving again.”

When CBS’s Norah O’Donnell pointed out that Republicans’ history of standard tax releases has varied from 30 years to two years, Pawlenty said that “the practice has varied,” and that Romney is “within the range of past practice.”

When asked why Romney is hesitant to tout his successes in the private sector by releasing full data on his wealth, Pawlenty again redirected the conversation back to Obama’s mismanagement of the economy.

“I don’t think there is any secret that Mitt Romney has been successful, that he’s achieved success, that he’s paid a lot of taxes, but there’s also no indication that he’s done anything wrong,” Pawlenty said.

He then went on to slam the media for covering Romney’s reluctance to release his tax records rather than Obama’s line on the economy.

“Why aren’t they pursuing the issue of six million fewer jobs since he took office? Twenty-three million Americans being unemployed, underemployed or having dropped out of the workforce?” he said. “Forty months of over 8 percent unemployment, those are the big issues in this race, not issues of 20-year-old college transcripts or 15-year-old tax returns.”

Tim Pawlenty Focused On ‘Yard Work’ as Veepstakes Speculation Heats Up

Jul 172012

Richard Ellis/Getty Images(MINNEAPOLIS) — Despite a flurry of speculation about whether Mitt Romney will name his running mate this week, one of the top contenders for the job insisted that politics was the furthest thing from his mind.

“I’m in contact with Governor Romney from time to time, but this week I’m focused on some yard work and some business things,” Pawlenty said in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday.

Pawlenty, who over the last year has transitioned from one of Romney’s fiercest rivals to one of his biggest advocates, offered few clues about the swirling rumors that his is one of just a few names at the top of Romney’s list of possible running mates.

“The process will unfold in due course,” Pawlenty said. “I’m sure governor Romney and his team will let you all know when the announcement’s coming, but that’s not something that I can comment on.”

He acknowledged, however, that he was experiencing “a little bit of déjà vu,” recalling how he was the subject of similar speculation four years ago when Sen. John McCain was preparing to select his vice presidential nominee — a spot that ultimately went to Sarah Palin.

Outside his home south of Minneapolis on Tuesday, Pawlenty was casually dressed in a white tee shirt and baseball cap. He did not look concerned about whether he will be tapped to be Romney’s running mate. Instead, he seemed more focused on walking his dog and going about his everyday business.

Some political observers have noted that Romney might be able to squash some of the negative headlines about his failure to commit to releasing more than two years of tax returns by naming his vice presidential candidate this week. But in his interview on Tuesday, Pawlenty declined to echo the calls of other prominent Republicans that Romney should release additional years of his returns, saying that two years was “reasonable.”

“That’s basically been the standard for Republican nominees for president,” Pawlenty said.

Pawlenty was unable to recall how many years of tax returns he handed over to the McCain campaign when he was being vetted for vice president in 2008.

“I don’t remember the specific number of years,” Pawlenty told Mitchell. “I know I provided some tax returns going back a number of years, but I don’t know if it was three or five. I don’t think it was probably more than that.”

Pawlenty was circumspect about his own views on who Romney should choose as his Number Two, saying that “geography is one of many factors [at which] a candidate might look.”

He also acknowledged that his Minnesota roots were unlikely to offer much of an electoral boost to Romney if historical voting patterns hold true. The state has not voted for a GOP presidential nominee since 1972.

“It’s the longest unbroken streak of voting for a Democrat of any state in the nation including Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii and California,” Pawlenty lamented. “I love my state. It’s filled with great people, but it unfortunately has the longest unbroken streak of voting for a Democratic candidate for president of any state in the nation.”

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