All politics is local, but T-Paw might prefer national politics not to be

Two new takes on Tim Pawlenty show how the gap between national stature and local knowledge could actually serve him well in a presidential campaign.

ABC News has a rundown of possible GOP contenders for 2012 that puts Pawlenty’s cons entirely in terms of Mitt Romney:

Con: Pawlenty’s weakness is that he does not enjoy Romney’s personal wealth and he is overshadowed by Palin’s star power. He also came under scrutiny last year when Dan Balz of the Washington Post characterized his moves to the right as being “Romneyesque.”

At Politics in Minnesota, Steve Perry ruminates on how long of a shadow T-Paw’s Minnesota shortcomings might cast over his White House hopes. If “lantern-jawed rich kid” Romney falls short as a Republican leading light, Perry writes, that could leave only Sarah Palin and these three very local things between T-Paw and the GOP nod:

The unallotment lawsuit. Pawlenty’s High Noon move to balance the budget by cutting $2.7 billion on his own has been provisionally upended by a judge’s ruling … And that could mean the mother of all balance-sheet nightmares …

Short-term borrowing. Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) officials have been warning for a couple of months that the state could have to borrow to keep the general fund’s cash flow in the black … If the state’s credit took a hit on Pawlenty’s watch, or while his chair is still warm, it would go a long way toward unwinding his role as the national GOP’s poster boy for jeremiads about the federal budget.

The school shift. …[Pawlenty] has to maintain his reputation for putting a premium on K-12 education. This is why the governor needs the 2010 Legislature to codify the ad hoc $1.8 billion “payment shift” he cobbled together … Otherwise schools take a very public whacking and Pawlenty’s resume is tarnished as a result.