VP or not VP: T-Paw the working class hero

The vetting of Gov. Tim Pawlenty by the national press continues. Most notably The New Republic worked over the veepstakes candidate in a lengthy profile. While the piece is primarily flattering, focusing on Pawlenty’s humble roots and nimble political skills, author Noam Scheiber ultimately concludes that his much-ballyhooed Sam’s Club populism is more rhetoric than reality.

Pawlenty may genuinely want to ease the strain on working people. But what he’s selling them is a self-help manual, albeit in language they can relate to. It’s not the party of Sam’s Club per se–but of moving from Sam’s Club to the country club in ten simple steps.

But the real revelation for T-Paw tea-leave readers is this nugget about the Governor’s infamous 2001 chat with VP Dick Cheney.

When you look back over Pawlenty’s career, it’s not hard to discern an ambitious climber–even flashes of Nixonian cunning. Back in 2001, for example, Pawlenty was preparing to run for U.S. Senate while his GOP rival, former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman, made a bid for governor. But the White House had other plans. It believed Coleman would be the stronger Senate candidate and persuaded him to change course. As the story goes, no less an eminence than Dick Cheney called Pawlenty the morning of his campaign announcement and asked him to step aside. Less well-known is that the call, according to people close to the situation, was engineered by Pawlenty himself–and that there were no plans for an announcement. After the White House privately threw its weight behind Coleman, Pawlenty negotiated the dramatic call as a kind of consolation prize. He reasoned that a personal plea from such a high-profile Republican would demonstrate that Washington took him seriously.

TNR isn’t the only national news source focusing on Pawlenty. Today he receives another inspection from Washington Post scribe Chris Cillizza, who has consistently placed T-Paw at the top of the VP shortlist. In making the case for Pawlenty, Cillizza also focuses on his blue-collar background:

Pawlenty grew up in the working class environs of South St. Paul. He was a teenager when he lost his mother. His father was a truck driver. He was the first member of his family to graduate from college. He still plays ice hockey whenever he can. He caught a 17" walleye on opening day of fishing season this spring.

But Cillizza also delves into Pawlenty’s evangelical cache, in particular citing his close ties to Wooddale Church pastor Leith Anderson  — a boon to his VP prospects that few national pundits have considered.

Anderson is a powerful force in the evangelical community, having served as the past and current president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

"If [Pawlenty] were chosen it would reverberate with the 30 million members of those churches almost instantaneously and very publicly," said [Vin] Weber.

Tomorrow Cillizza promises to make the case against T-Paw.