The campaign trail displayed a new urgency as candidates sprinted through breakfast gatherings and television interviews and the celebrated Iowa State Fair, a must-do for presidential hopefuls who share the spotlight with a cow sculpted from butter and deep-fried candy bars.
Pawlenty said that regardless of the fact that Bachmann is the only woman in the GOP field, it’s not about gender. It’s about the issues, results, and leading and saving our country.”
The exchange came just hours after Pawlenty and Bachmann engaged in their fiercest and most direct confrontations of the campaign so far, and a day before the critical Ames straw poll that could ultimately make or break Pawlenty’s candidacy. Pawlenty’s more sharp-edged approach was a break from the June debate, when he awkwardly backed away from earlier criticisms of front-runner Mitt Romney. But Pawlenty said Friday that he’s just answering the questions asked of him.
“No matter which way you calibrate that, a bunch of people are upset one way or the other,” he said. “So you just gotta answer the question.”
He played down a joke he made during the debate that jabbed at Romney’s considerable wealth.
“I was just having some fun with that and pulling Mitt’s chain,” he said.
Pawlenty insisted there’s no personal bad blood between him and Romney.
“I like Mitt,” he said. “We don’t have any personal tension or animosity.”
Asked by POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin whether he’s prepared to slim down his campaign if Ames doesn’t go well and a state-by-state slog emerges, Pawlenty expressed confidence that he’ll make a strong showing at Ames but acknowledged that he may be forced to pare down his campaign if he doesn’t. “We may not have any choice if it went that way.”
“We’re seeing some nice movement in the numbers. I can’t tell you that we’re gonna win it tomorrow or that we need to win it,” he said. “I think it’ll be a good result.
A win for Pawlenty could give him the momentum he needs, while a loss, depending on its severity, could doom his ability to draw crucial donors heading into the fall. Bachmann hopes to show that she can sustain her catapult to the top of the standings in Iowa since declaring her candidacy in June. Less clear are the consequences of a victory for Paul, whose libertarian and isolationist views attract intense support from a narrow band of Republican voters but are not in step with the mainstream of the GOP.
Adding uncertainty to the significance of the straw poll was the list of candidates not competing in it. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is expected to announce his candidacy Saturday morning, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who will visit the state fair Friday, will not appear on the straw poll ballot. Palin’s presidential plans remain unknown, but Perry’s widely anticipated announcement could prompt a write-in campaign on his behalf at the straw poll.
Similarly, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will not participate in the poll, but his standing as the presumed national front-runner could attract significant support.
Poor showings by candidates lower down in the standings, including former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and businessman Herman Cain, could begin the process of winnowing the Republican field as the presidential campaign heads into the fall.
Pawlenty had harsh words for the so-called congressional super committee charged with finding more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction.
“I think it’s super stupid,” he said to laughter. “We have a Congress and we have a president, do your job.”
Pawlenty dodged several questions about what he thought would have happened if the debt ceiling hadn’t been lifted by the Aug. 2 deadline, but pressed repeatedly, he came down somewhere between the conservative debt-ceiling skeptics and economists who say it would have been disastrous.
“It probably would have been very negative for a while, but it’s very negative right now anyway,” he said.
Pawlenty said his news diet includes The Economist, USA Today while he’s on the road, the Star Tribune in Minnesota and clips from other outlets his campaign staff sends him. But his news consumption habits have changed of late: Pawlenty said he lost his iPad a couple weeks in San Francisco and still hasn’t bought a new one.
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