The overriding theme of the Romney campaign is “competent” as in “Romney is competent to fix the economy, and Obama isn’t.”
It’s likely Romney will pick a governor who has done a good job at the state level to reinforce the “competent” theme. This sets up a contrast between the GOP ticket and the Obama/Biden ticket which can be portrayed as incompetent.
Pawlenty fits that meme. He may be boring, but nobody doubts he has done a good job as governor.
Hate to disagree w/ you....but Pawlenty in not widely considered ‘competent’ anymore. He left MN in a HUGE financial hole by his use of short term borrowing to ‘balance’ the state budget. ***see below some Pawlenty numbers.
R’s and D’s alike in MN believe that Pawlenty used short term accounting tricks w/ the idea that he would make himself look better for his Presidential run. Alas, Pawlenty does not look good back in MN or in the rest ot the country w/ Paw’s lame run for President.
I’m still guessing Romney will pick some avg person who won’t cause a stir or detract from Romney. I ‘hope’ he proves me wrong and picks a very strong conservative as a running mate.
**The state department of Management and Budget reports that the two-year budget starting in July 2011 is projected to come up $4.4 billion short; he borrowed more than $1 billion from the tobacco settlement (money set aside for heath care), borrowed more than $1.4 billion from K-12 education funding, borrowed more than $400 [million. The result was a $5 billion deficit, the seventh largest in the United State and Minnesota property taxes rose $2.5 billion, more than the previous 16 years combined, and Moody’s lowered the state’s bond rating.