Pawlenty apparently decided on the latter, perhaps swayed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s emergence as the the GOP favorite for 2012. While Pawlenty has repeatedly denied plans for a presidential run, he’s getting some high-profile advice:

“Anyone who is running for president who is not governor has more leeway on what issues he wants to weigh in on,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and an adviser to Mr. Pawlenty. “I think that gives you more freedom to pick and chose. But I don’t know which is more valuable: being able to pick and chose like that or being in a state adding to a record of accomplishment.”

Conant served as press secretary for the Republican National Committee during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Richard Schrader, a senior staff member for a national environmental organization, lives in Amherst, Mass., where politics start liberal and traipse left. He is fairly liberal, but his neighbors worry that he does not worry nearly enough. “They wake up, drink that pot of coffee and hit the polling Web sites,” Mr. Schrader said. “Too much good news has to be a lie.”

Recently he sat down with a friend who was sweating about Minnesota.

“Minnesota?” Mr. Schrader told his friend. “What, are you kidding me? Obama’s up 14 points there.”

The friend shook his head sadly. Take off seven points for hidden racial animus. Subtract another five for polling error. It is down to two points, and that is within the margin of error in sampling, and that could mean Mr. Obama might be behind.

“It was perversely impressive,” Mr. Schrader said.