Tim Pawlenty has been running cross country to promote the presidential ambitions of Mitt Romney. From skating rinks in North Carolina to opening campaign offices in Ohio, the former Minnesota governor is there.
The Washington Post says “the rigors of Pawlenty’s schedule have made him the hardest-working Romney surrogate among all the vice presidential hopefuls, a fact that buoys his boosters, who read it as a sign that devotion will be rewarded.”
However, he worked just as hard for Sen. John McCain four years ago only to be passed over for Sarah Palin.
“Tim’s disappointment was obvious,” Phil Krinkie, a former Minnesota state House colleague, told the Post. “He’d had a deep yearning to be on the ticket. He was devastated, truly devastated. It was on his face. We had a handshake, a few words, you could feel it, the pain.”
While Pawlenty doesn’t have the sizzle of a Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan he has worked hard for Romney since his own presidential ambitions ended earlier this year.
“In contrast to his rivals, Pawlenty conducts himself nowadays like the most feverish of job applicants,” the Post wrote. “While the others have largely tended to their day jobs in which they benefit from built-in news coverage and audiences, Pawlenty has headlined dinners and campaign fundraisers in venues big and small. He has ridden the campaign bus wherever and whenever Romney needs him, exhorted workers at small campaign offices and appeared on every TV show asked — he will be on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday.”
Pawlenty has won the admiration of friends of Romney who detect a tightening bond between the two and others note his long support of Romney means he would not have to take anything back should he get the nod for the number two spot.
“I don’t want to see him left at the altar again,” Krinkie told the Post. “That’d be hard twice for anybody, especially with where Tim is right now.”
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