Pawlenty tells 700 Club his family is ready for 2012

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and First Lady Mary sat down with Pat Robertson’s 700 Club last week to discuss presidential ambitions and the family’s faith. In the interview, Pawlenty says his family is ready to take on a presidential campaign even if Pawlenty himself is still coy about his ambitions for higher office. He also talked at length about his blue-collar credentials and how he’s been successful in “perhaps the most liberal state in the country.” Asked who he would sit down to dinner with living or dead, Pawlenty picked Jesus Christ.

“We need to understand that our relationship with God is extremely important and how we order ourselves in a moral society is extremely important,” Mary Pawlenty told David Brody of the 700 Club. “It is no small matter to suggest that traditional marriage ought to be redefined. Traditional marriage is incredibly important to who we are as a society, to the family, to how we raise our children so while Tim has correctly indicated that the most important issues right now are jobs and the economy, as importantly is the focus on our families.”

On his success in Minnesota, Gov. Pawlenty said, “I’m a conservative, both fiscally conservative and socially conservative, but I’ve been successful in perhaps the most liberal state in the country.” (It’s a common talking point when Pawlenty speaks with conservatives; he used the “most liberal” designation at CPAC in February, for instance.)

Wife Mary added, “One of the things that I think Tim does particularly well is that he connects with people who are at least considering whether perhaps a more conservative candidate might be one for them, so he’s someone who connect with people who are blue collar, people who are really looking for someone whose life experience connects a bit more with theirs. And I think it’s a significant part of who he is and his upbringing and so I think he reaches a cross section of people that perhaps sometimes other candidates may not.”

“Whatever he chooses to do, however you choose to live the next years of your life, I’m with ya!” said Mary Pawlenty. Gov. Pawlenty added, It’s a whole other level if you run for national office; but, I was walking the dog with my younger daughter, I don’t know a few months ago, and she says, ‘Dad are you gonna run for president?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, honey, I’m not sure.’ And she paused for a second and then said, ‘Well ,just don’t embarrass the family.’ OK. Well, at least we got that standard set.”

Pawlenty became an evangelical Christian in the 1980s and attends Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie whose pastor is also the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a group that boasts a membership of 30 million.

More clips of Pawlenty’s interview can be viewed on Brody’s blog.