Pawlenty’s figures lagged well behind those of other potential GOP contenders. Mike Huckabee was deemed worthy of serious consideration by 71 percent of Republicans, while Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney were judged credible contenders by 65 percent of GOP respondents. Among all of those surveyed, just 25 percent deemed Pawlenty qualified to be president, while twice as many held the opposite view.

The Gallup survey polled 1,021 adults across the country. It had a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. It’s the third recent poll to indicate that Pawlenty has considerable work to do if he intends to make a credible bid for the GOP nomination in 2012.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is the top choice of roughly one third of Republicans for the presidential nomination in 2012, according to a new CNN poll. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was the second most popular choice, with support from 25 percent of Republican voters, while former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney drew backing from 21 percent of respondents. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty trailed well behind with support from just five percent of likely Republican voters.

The CNN results echo those of a poll conducted earlier this month by Rassmussen Reports, which found Pawlenty with support from four percent of those surveyed. Pawlenty has been criss-crossing the country and making frequent cable talk-show appearances while testing the waters for a potential 2012 presidential bid.

The CNN poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for questions asked only of Republicans.

Ambinder notes that the Republican base has grown more stridently conservative since 2000, and that rightward drift will only continue leading up to the 2012 primaries, given that there’s a liberal Democrat in the White House. While Pawlenty’s conservative bona fides are pretty solid — anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-taxes, etc. — he may not be sufficiently strident to appease the GOP ground troops. T-Paw, Ambinder notes, used to support climate-change legislation — a position anathema to many of the party faithful:

The point is that Pawlenty is going to have to make some adjustments. It’s not enough that he checks most of the boxes; he’s going to have to check more than most. His instinct is not to demagogue pro-choicers, or gays, or even liberals, but that instinct will be tested as he faces pressure to prove himself acceptable to the guardians of GOP orthodoxy in Iowa.

The standard strategy for Republican presidential candidates is this: Run to the right in the primaries, but not too far to the right; run to the center in the general election. This strategy assumes that general election voters don’t pay attention to the primaries. In today’s technological and political environment, that’s no longer true. The moment Pawlenty sets himself down in Iowa is the moment that the national default opinion of him will begin to be formed. If he stretches too far to the right, he won’t be able to stretch back to the center. There is little give. There is too much tension.

But if Ambinder’s analysis is correct, it would seem to beg a question: Can Pawlenty compete anywhere?

Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Should Gov. Tim Pawlenty skip the Iowa caucuses? Yes, it’s ridiculously early to be contemplating such questions about the 2012 presidential campaign. But The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder raises that question in a post today. He notes that only candidates with strong Christian conservative bona fides will have a chance in the caucuses, meaning that Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee are the prohibitive favorites (and Mitt the Mormon doesn’t have a chance in hell).

Ambinder essentially lumps Pawlenty in with Romney in weighing whether he should skip the caucuses and head straight to New Hampshire:

Pawlenty’s main strategic challenge would be New Hampshire — figuring out how to defeat the Romney machine there. It might not be hard; since there won’t be a Democratic primary, as many as 60,000 independents could decide to vote Republican. Appealing to these independents on economic issues — and comforting them on social issues — is the test.

But Ambinder might be underestimating Pawlenty’s appeal to Christian conservatives in Iowa. As noted in this piece by Andy Birkey, Pawlenty is an evangelical Christian and attends Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie. The pastor of Wooddale is Leith Anderson, who just happens to be the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. That organization represents 45,000 churches and roughly 30 million evangelical Christians across the country. Those ties, along with the fact that Pawlenty has served two terms as governor of a neighboring state, might make him a formidable opponent in the Iowa caucuses.

While polls this early in the election cycle are likely gauges of name recognition more than solid support, it suggests that Pawlenty has considerable work to do if he’s going to become a household name in national GOP circles. Which might explain why he called into his own radio show this morning from California, where he’s attending the Western Conservative Political Action Conference.

The Rasmussen Reports poll surveyed 750 likely GOP voters across the country and had a sampling error of +/- four percentage points.

Presumably Pawlenty knows this (since he recommends Google to reporters), but “Freedom First” is also a suburban Washington, D.C. credit union with dibs on the web address “freedomfirst.com.”

“Freedom First” is also the name of a political group in Colorado that believes “the most powerful and ruthless Conspiracy in the history of mankind has a grip on world affairs and is seeking rapidly to eliminate the last bastions of potential resistance to its world hegemony.”

And “Freedom First” has already been taken as the name of a political committee in Florida, where one Republican state senator used it to help a colleague named “John Thrasher” thrash his opponents in a special election on Tuesday — the same day news of Pawlenty’s PAC went public.

UPDATE: MnIndy reader blueJ (see comments, below) adds that the National Rifle Association is another organization that got to “Freedom First” first.

Other less politically hospitable associations include a political ad titled “Freedom First” by Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana (about his opposition on privacy grounds to the Patriot Act), and a group called “First Freedom First” that fights to maintain a separation between church and state.

For some, “Freedom First” brings to mind the presidential campaign slogan of U.S. Sen. John McCain: “Country First.” Pawlenty was a big part of that campaign, right up until he wasn’t, so the slogan may have bored its way into his subconscious then.

(Pawlenty’s PAC name sent MnIndy commenter Minnesota Central down memory lane: “Ah, I remember the days of ‘Country First’ … but now it’s States Rights … it must mean that individual freedoms are more important than our collective good.”)

Politics in Minnesota had a field day with “Freedom First,” starting with Sarah Janacek mostly lauding the name as a welcome departure from the identity politics of Huck PAC and Sarah PAC (committees for GOP presidential rivals Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, respectively).

Then Bill Clements noted that 39 PACs already include the word “freedom” in their names, making it such a favorite that, he wrote, “I’m not sure using ‘freedom’ in a PAC name means anything at all, really. Except maybe, as songwriter Kris Kristofferson puts it, ‘freedom’ really is just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

There are even more PACs with “first” in their names: by OpenSecret.com’s count, 132. They’re mostly banks (including the unfortunately named “Bankers First Federal Savings and Loan”), but there are also PACs named “America First,” “Texas First” and “South Dakota First.”

Huh: “Minnesota First.” Now that would have been a really terrible name for Pawlenty’s new PAC.

With his membership in their Former Governors Club still pending, Pawlenty placed respectably behind Mike Huckabee and nearly even with Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin at the Values Voters Summit straw poll last weekend.

It was a fair showing for a guy who is still building name recognition in his own party, but the Values Voters remain behind the curve on foreseeing his eventual ascendency.

Minnesota voters are also of two minds about Pawlenty’s out-of-state travel to build his national profile. Another (and presumably different) 50 percent of respondents say they’re concerned — either “very” or “somewhat” — about it.

Pawlenty’s job-approval ratings stay stable in the new poll, with 56 percent saying they approve (”strongly” or “somewhat”) of his work as governor.

But it’s unclear whether Rasmussen’s results were affected by the confusion about Pawlenty’s gender in the question the pollster posed:

How would you rate the job Tim Pawlenty has been doing as Governor… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job she’s [sic] been doing?

Whatever his gender-identification, Pawlenty is likely to run for president. That’s the opinion of a solid 62 percent in the poll.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen has U.S. Sen. Al Franken still mired in job-approval ratings no better than the low 40s he polled on Election Day last year. By contrast, 56 percent say Sen. Amy Klobuchar is doing an “excellent” or “good” job.

The How to Take Back America conference, to be held in St. Louis Sept. 26, will tackle topics like “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists” and “How to counter the homosexual movement.” And one of its featured speakers will be Minnesota’s own Rep. Michele Bachmann.

So how do you “take back America?” The workshops at the conference give some hints, offering topics like ”How to stop the killings: pro-life solutions,” “How to defend America vs. missile attack, ” and a made-for-Bachmann event, “How to deal with vote fraud, the Census and ACORN.”

The conference is hosted by some heavy hitters in the religious right and will include speeches from Mike Huckabee and Reps. Tom Price and Steve King. Organizations collaborating on the event include anti-gay groups like the American Family Association and Eagle Forum, the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Counsel, the Home School Legal Defense Association and right-wing media outlet WorldNetDaily.

Hat tip: Right Wing Watch

A new Marist Poll puts Pawlenty at the back of the pack of likely 2012 GOP contenders. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led the field with support from 21 percent of those polled, while just trailing were former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (20 percent) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (19 percent). Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich drew support from 10 percent of those surveyed, while Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was the top pick of five percent of respondents. Pawlenty’s draw: just one percent.

A straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference last February made it clear Pawlenty wasn’t at the top of the 2012 heap despite his status as the leading 2008 vice-presidential also-ran on the GOP ticket. He placed ninth out of 10.

Then in a Rasmussen survery last week, Pawlenty was the choice of only 1 percent, tied with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Today, the Gallup Poll puts Pawlenty 1 percentage point up on Barbour (3 percent to 2 percent).

In both recent polls, the two current governors trail four leading lights, all of whom have “former” attached to their names: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, soon-to-be former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Pawlenty can only hope that some of Gingrich’s fourth-place magic rubbed off last night when they made a joint appearance at a University of Minnesota health-care forum.