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Jewish World Review
Jan 24, 2012/ 29 Teves, 5772
Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
During his brief and ill-fated presidential bid, Tim Pawlenty pursued the role of attack dog about as well as you would expect a golden retriever to do.
The former Minnesota governor was just too cuddly. When he fleetingly referred to rival Mitt Romney’s “ObamneyCare” health legislation, he was invited to repeat the accusation to Romney’s face during a debate — and he awkwardly demurred. Belatedly, Pawlenty has found his venom sac. And on Monday morning, he poured it on Newt Gingrich during a conference call with reporters. “For Republicans and conservatives all across this country, a question is going to have to be as they consider Newt Gingrich as a potential nominee for president: Really? I mean, really?” Pawlenty went on to dub Gingrich a lobbyist and “influence peddler” and demanded that he release his client list and contract with the mortgage provider Freddie Mac. “The notion that he was paid $1.7 million as a historian for Freddie Mac is just BS,” he added. “I mean, it’s just nonsense.” “Gingrich,” Pawlenty informed the reporters, “has spent almost his entire adult life either as a member of the Congress or as somebody who has been an influence peddler. . . . To suggest that he’s the outsider simply defies the facts.” It was a solid political punch. Unfortunately for Pawlenty, it was too late for his own presidential ambitions; he was holding the teleconference as a surrogate for Romney as his former foe fends off Gingrich. But if Pawlenty performs well, he may be rewarded with a more formal attack-dog role: Romney’s running mate. Pawlenty has proved to be far feistier in defending Romney than he was in promoting his own candidacy. He has been working the crowds in the “spin room” after debates, giving TV interviews and making campaign appearances to boost Romney, and now doing the dirty work of the attack teleconference. “Good morning, everyone!” Pawlenty opened cheerfully. Before he began, the reporters on the call had been listening to the soothing tones of Pachelbel’s Canon. But within seconds, the truck driver’s son with the aw-shucks manner was ripping into Gingrich’s “incredibly unfortunate and questionable activities” and calling him “not somebody that I think can carry the banner for the Republican Party and the conservative movement forward as a nominee or as a future president.” Pawlenty offered his theory that “Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handing the election over to Obama, if it got to that point.” Gingrich is an especially fat target for Pawlenty’s contempt. He largely pioneered the modern era of assault politics, and lately he has been using his signature style to undermine Romney’s electability by characterizing him as a heartless corporate raider. Romney, suddenly in jeopardy of losing a nomination that was his to lose, has begun to respond in kind. “While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in,” says the narrator of a new Romney ad in Florida. Romney said Monday that Gingrich may have been involved in “potentially wrongful activity of some kind.” And Pawlenty, in his teleconference, added to the innuendo. “Gingrich has represented hundreds of clients and interest groups,” he charged, “in many cases for huge sums of money. To say that he wasn’t a lobbyist is an incredible hairsplitting.” Pawlenty had truth on his side: Gingrich’s work after leaving the House speakership was lobbying in every sense but the technical one. But Pawlenty’s task was more than to remind the reporters of what they already knew. He was also attempting to take the controversy over Romney’s hesitancy to release his tax returns (he finally has said he will do so on Tuesday) and replace it with Gingrich’s failure to release his list of lobbying clients and the details of his contract with Freddie Mac. “Who did he lobby or what advocacy positions did he take?” Pawlenty demanded. “Let’s have a look.” “You talk about lobbying as if it’s a bad thing,” a reporter from Politico commented. Pawlenty, serving a campaign backed heavily by lobbyists, deftly deflected. “When you’re running, as Newt is, as somebody who is saying he’s against the establishment, when in fact he is the establishment,” Pawlenty said, “number one, there’s hypocrisy there, and number two, there needs to be transparency so people can evaluate the candidates.” Nicely played. Had Pawlenty — a more consistent conservative than Romney, with a better record in office — taken that approach earlier, perhaps Romney would be working for him, instead of the other way around.
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Previously:
• 01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
• 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina
• 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed
• 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem
• 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism
• 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control
• 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP
• 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument
• 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/20/11 Strange brews and views?
• 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction
• 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet
• 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012
• 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him
• 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement?
• 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington
• 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy
• 11/23/11 Jon Kyl's search-and-destroy mission
• 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington
• 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee?
• 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last
• 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier
• 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama
• 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up
• 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive
• 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
• 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe
• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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