Why don’t you think Pawlenty could put McCain over the top in Minnesota? Polling in Minnesota has been all over the place... there was just a poll recently that had McCain down by only 3 points or something like that. A popular governor could be worth 5 points, couldn’t he?
That having been said (and I've pointed this out in previous posts), there's nothing wrong with Pawlenty other than his recent conversion to the Global Warming hoax.
He fought (unsuccessfully) for the death penalty and parent notification on abortions, and (successfully) for concealed carry; all in a state that is so blue it's damn near purple.
He's not a lib.
My biggest concern about the guy is that he supported McCain back when most figured McCain didn't have a prayer.
Pawlenty would be a good pick for conservatism in general, but he's not going to put MN in the Republican column.
Browsing through the polls over at RCP, I just see WAY too many 13-17 point leads for Obama in the last couple of months to make me feel comfortable with it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/mn/minnesota_mccain_vs_obama-550.html#polls
And then there’s the state’s history. It hasn’t gone Republican in almost 40 years.