Armey sees Pawlenty as ‘fresh face’ of GOP

Dick Armey, former congressman and current FreedomWorks chairman, likes him some Tim Pawlenty. In an interview with CBS News’ Declan McCullagh, he cites Minnesota’s governor as a Republican who’s “becoming emergent” as one of the “most effective voice[s]” in the party. “My own view is that Pawlenty is the person standing on the safest ground,” he said. “He has no major disappointments behind him. He has the chance to create a fresh new public understanding of who he is and what he stands for.”

Armey sees Pawlenty, often shortlisted as a 2012 GOP presidential contender, as a clear alternative to the policies of Barack Obama, as well as to the kind of GOPers many Republicans have grown disenchanted with. Armey says the party needs a “fresh face” who can credibly reassert the GOP’s values of limited government. He said the party needs:

a fresh new start with a real central core of American values, with responsible restraint of big government, decent respect for individual liberty, and efficiency and competence in doing those limited things that the government must do and doing them well. That’s why I think Pawlenty is the person standing on the safest possible ground.

ThinkProgress takes issue with the assertion, citing that Pawlenty’s stances don’t always mesh with those of Armey’s FreedomWorks, national tea party organizer, including Pawlenty’s support for the 2008 financial bailout and waffling on cap-and-trade. In 2007, he pushed for a regional cap-and-trade plan; in June, he wrote a letter to Minnesota’s delegation in Washington opposing cap-and-trade regulations, earning him a “Full flop” designation from Politifact.