Pawlenty says Republicans have some strong candidates. He's not one.
Former Minnesota Governor and Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty says his political career has come to an end.
Pawlenty tells U.S. News and World Report there are a number of strong Republicans positioned to run next year and in 2016 but he is not among them. Pawlenty tells the magazine his current job leading a group that lobbies on behalf of the financial services industry is not a pathway to future office.
As for Republican political prospects, Pawlenty says the party seems to have taken a hit over the recent government shutdown but has time to recover before next year's elections.
Last week he said on CNN that the Tea Party faction of Republicans "overplayed their hand" when they pushed for the shutdown in hopes of defunding the health care law. Pawlenty tells U.S. News he's advising candidates to "pay attention first and foremost to the bread and butter issues of interest to average Americans, like' how is the economy doing?'"
Even though he's not running for anything, Pawlenty is still a campaigner of sorts. In an interview with MinnPost this summer he said his group, the Financial Services Roundtable, expects that the new Federal Reserve Board chair will further regulate the banking industry. "But our members want these regulations to be common-sense, without strangulation of capital investment," he told the website.
