VP or not VP: Stars keep aligning in Pawlenty’s favor

Three possibly consequential developments this week in Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s quest to become John McCain’s Mr. Heartbeat Away from the Presidency:

• Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic — the only reporter we’ve read who explicitly traces TP’s top-dog status to McCain campaign insiders — writes that Pawlenty aide and former MN GOP chieftain Ben Golnik has been named the Midwest regional manager of the McCain campaign.
• During McCain’s Hardball appearance earlier this week, he all but ruled out any pro-choicer from his ticket, a move that scotches such speculative dark horses as Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani, and Condi Rice.
• The capo of conservative Washington columnists, Bob Novak, who wrote a prior column grousing about Pawlenty’s renewable energy rhetoric at the National Governors Conference, made this grudging aside in his April 12 column:  “A footnote: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty gets higher marks from the McCain inner circle than from conservative Republican governors and is in the running for vice president.”

See previous VP or not VP items.