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Capitol View®
Tom Scheck

Pawlenty gets some friends for 2012

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A Facebook group has been created to convince Gov. Pawlenty to run for President in 2012. I sent a note to Benjamin Simon, the site's administator to see why he created the site.

One side note, Trisha Hamm, Pawlenty's political director, is listed as a member.

Update: Here's Simon's response on why he created the site:

"I freely admit that I was not much of a fan of President Bush; I felt like his administration hijacked the traditional notions of a conservative party. I became even less enthused about the direction (or lack thereof) of the GOP leading up to the election, and that was solidified when the Dems swept both houses of Congress and the White House. I am very nervous for my generation about inheriting the damage of the current bailout and the over-regulatory tax-and-spend approach President Obama is taking. So, I subsequently created the facebook group. I believe the GOP as a party needs to do some serious soul searching and figure out how to get back in independent voters' good graces. That includes not only a new platform, but some fresh faces to lead the party (and NOT Gov. Palin). What attracted me to Gov. Pawlenty is that he is a young, energetic politician who was elected governor twice in a typically left-leaning state. Although his approval ratings have slipped some over the past couple months, I think that could be more of a reflection of the economic downturn than the policies and leadership of Gov. Pawlenty. I also think that many of Gov. Pawlenty's major domestic issues are things that most Americans would agree with - things like a balanced budget, increasing funding for education, a sustainable energy policy, a new approach to healthcare reform, etc.

While I admire how President Obama has been a "game changer" in electoral politics, I disagree with a number of his policies. The same backroom tactics that may have worked for the GOP before are no longer going to work - conservatives and libertarians need to adapt to the game, not try and force the game to regress to the same old school mentality of thirty, forty, fifty years ago. "