SAN DIEGO – Taking the first steps toward a 2012 presidential bid, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty received a solid response from members of the Republican National Committee Thursday as he told them that the
GOP must embrace voters who don’t agree with the party on every issue. Pawlenty, a second-term governor who is not seeking re-election next year, reminded a luncheon of the party’s conservative governing body that he had found success in a state with a deep-blue Democratic tradition.
“Somebody who disagrees with us 80 percent of the time isn’t our enemy,” Pawlenty said, borrowing from Ronald Reagan, and telling Republicans that they needed “room for conservative Democrats and independents.”
Pawlenty's speech came at the outset of the RNC’s summer meeting, a gathering of the state chairs and national committee members largely devoted to internal party affairs. But, taking place on the same week that he was elevated to the number-two position in the Republican Governor’s Association, Pawlenty’s address and appearance here also amounted to something of a 2012 debut.
Accompanied by a seasoned national political operative – Minnesota native and former RNC aide Alex Conant – Pawlenty distributed advance excerpts of his remarks, sat with the Chairmen of the Iowa and New Hampshire state parties at the lunch and courted party leaders behind the scenes. He met with about a dozen state chairmen for a private dinner Wednesday at McCormick and Schmick's, a seafood restaurant in San Diego, and had a series of meetings with state and national officials before speaking Thursday. According to those present, he focused only on getting to know the officials and discussing the 2009 and 2010 elections.
Further lending an aura of 2012 politics to the atmosphere, a group of still-loyal supporters of Mitt Romney offered middling assessments of Pawlenty’s address after he was done.
While he toes the party line on the issues, Pawlenty made only fleeting mention of abortion and no reference to gay rights during the lunch, instead devoting much of his approximately 25-minute address to introducing himself, discussing his record in Minnesota and taking rhetorical shots at the Democrats.
But even as he weaved in a series of red-meat attacks, Pawlenty urged Republicans to couple policy solutions with their criticism of President Obama.
“Our strategy can’t be we hope the other side goofs up and kicks it in the dugout,” said the governor.
He spoke at length on healthcare and excoriated the administration’s contention that spending money on it now will ultimately help ease the federal deficit.
“This is a scheme that would make Bernie Madoff blush,” Pawlenty said, laying out a number of market-based health care proposals he said Republicans should get behind as a counter to the public option Obama supports providing.
He also took Obama to task on overall spending –
“In the war on spending, President Obama is a pacifist” – while also taking note of the GOP’s own spending appetite when they controlled Washington.
By contrast, Pawlenty touted his fiscal record in St. Paul, noting that he was the first governor in the Minnesota’s 150-year history to actually cut state spending over his years in office. Read more:
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