Posted on 08/17/2011 1:49:51 PM PDT by markomalley
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination this week, will not take on Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) in 2012.
Pawlenty told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he did not know what his future plans would be, but he would “not be running against Amy in 2012.”
Pawlenty told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he was ending his presidential campaign after placing third in the Ames straw poll in Iowa the day before.
“I wish it would have been different. But, obviously, the pathway forward for me doesn’t really exist. And so we’re going to end the campaign,” the two-term governor said.
Before he dropped out of the race, Pawlenty told the Star Tribune that he wouldn’t run for Senate this cycle.
Klobuchar won her first term in 2006 with 58 percent of the vote. Fifteen months before the election, she faces what appears to be only nominal opposition from former state Rep. Dan Severson (R). Severson lost his 2010 bid to be secretary of state, 46 percent to 49 percent.
Sniff, sniff... something smells fishy.
He sounds depressed to me. But what do I know?
IMHO, Repubs have had pawlenty of this guy.
Rats. Was really hoping to pick up “Amy”’s seat.
He probably could beat that current senator though. I didn’t want him as a President, but if he could grab a seat from the Democrats, that would be a great thing.
darn. no Norm Coleman version 2.0
This is the problem with a lot of Republicans—Pawlenty, Thompson, Forbes, even Cain. They want to be president or they don’t want anything else. Any of these guys, including Pawlenty, could do a great job advancing conservative values in the Senate. They also would have (or would have had) a good shot at knocking off a Democrat. Its a shame.
I think he’s done politically. I don’t even think he is a viable VP anymore which is what I thought he was really after.
Being from MN I am sorry to hear that Tpaw will not run for Senate he was the best shot we had at “Crazy Feel Good Amy.”
somebody show him some photographs recently?
Don’t include Cain in your group, he did run for Senate, and has never indicated he wouldn’t take another role in government if he isn’t the Republican choice.
If Pawlenty is taking his ball and going home unless nominated for POTUS, so be it. Recruit someone nasty AND effective to beat Klobuchar and another to beat Mr. Franken and let Pawlenty be permanently retired.
Thompson? You mean Fred Thompson? He won the special election when Gore became VP, serving out the last two years of that term, and was reelected for another term of his own for 8 years total in the US Senate.
Tommy Thompson. Ran for president and then didn’t run for a senate seat that could have been his for the taking.
You’re right, Tommy Thompson would have knocked off a Democrat Senator had he run in 1998, or 2000, or 2004, or 2006, or 2010 (that last year we ended up not needing him, as Ron Johnson beat Feingold). It looks like he’s finally running for the Senate in 2012, in an open-seat situation (although the Dems might run Feingold, who served 18 years in the Senate from 1993-2011 so he’s a quasi incumbent).
As for T-Paw, I would have loved him to run against Sen. Klobuchar, but can understand if he wants to forgo another run so soon after an unsuccessful presidential campaign. He might be considering running for the governorship once again in 2014.
I hope that top-tier Republican Senate candidates haven’t shied away from running against Klobuchar because they thought that T-Paw or Bachmann would run for the Senate if and when their presidential hopes fizzled.
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