Are Pawlenty and McCain fair-weather friends?

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has announced he will be campaigning in Michigan this weekend on behalf of New Hampshire primary winner Sen. John McCain. This will be Pawlenty’s third time on the campaign trail in just over two weeks. But during a six-month period during which McCain’s campaign was suffering greatly, Pawlenty boarded the “Straight Talk Express” only once, and not in an early primary state.

When Gov. Pawlenty endorsed the Arizona senator for president in December 2006, McCain was the presumed front-runner for the GOP nomination. When Tim Pawlenty became the co-chair of John McCain’s campaign in January 2007,  McCain was still the front-runner, and speculation that Pawlenty would be chosen as his running mate was rampant. Over the course of the next six months,Pawlenty would campaign on McCain’s behalf five times in three early primary states and serve as host to a McCain fund-raiser in Minnesota, during which time McCain’s political stock took a precipitous decline. By the beginning of July, McCain’s campaign had reached rock bottom, and Pawlenty was forced to hedge his bets while still remaining supportive of his candidate.

McCain, the recent winner of the New Hampshire primary, wouldn’t begin his Lazarus act until mid-December. Since that Minnesota fund-raiser in June 2007, Pawlenty has campaigned on McCain’s behalf only three times, two of which came after McCain’s resurrection in the New Hampshire polls. Pawlenty’s lone event during the six months that McCain was flat-lining came on Oct. 8 in Vermont, which happens to be next to New Hampshire, but doesn’t hold its primary until March 4.The collapse of the 35W bridge on Aug. 1 might explain Pawlenty’s relative absence during this time, though judging by the schedules kept by the transportation commissioner and MnDOT’s emergency response manager, the tragedy might not have consumed as much of the governor’s time as one might assume. Another possibility is that the McCain campaign didn’t want the governor of the state with the collapsing infrastructure to be stumping for them. Either way, any speculation regarding Pawlenty as McCain’s potential running mate needs to consider his presence, or lack there of, during the good times as well as the bad.

The following graph shows the closing prices for John McCain on the Intrade Prediction Markets with Pawlenty appearances at McCain events over the course of the last year.

Event details: