"Mr. Nice Guy"

Amplio perfil de Tim Pawlenty en Time:

It was after 8 p.m. at the public library in the quiet town of Adel, Iowa, and staffers were folding up the metal chairs. Tim Pawlenty's question-and-answer session had wrapped up some 30 minutes earlier, but a handful of voters were still here, and therefore so was Pawlenty, tall and lean in his dark suit, staying as always until no one was left to talk with him. When the polls show you in the low single digits, you make time for everyone.

Presently, one middle-aged man in a blazer was telling Pawlenty why Republicans need a tough-talking presidential candidate like Donald Trump. "We need to be bold," he implored. Conservatives were going to be attacked in 2012, and they had to be willing to fight back hard. Was Pawlenty up to it?

The candidate smiled patiently, crinkling the crow's-feet around his eyes. He'd heard this before. "Don't confuse being loud with being strong," Pawlenty told him. The man began to protest — something about threatening to shoot illegal immigrants at the border — but Pawlenty gently interrupted him. Republicans had to pick their fights wisely, he said. "You and I already agree with each other. The question is, The people we need to get — how do they respond? We need to reach out and get new people to join the team."

That, in a nutshell, is the dilemma facing Tim Pawlenty as he launches his campaign for the GOP nomination. Conservative activists want a political ninja to kickbox his way to the White House. There's a reason a brash loudmouth like Trump was a brief Republican sensation this spring. But that's not Tim Pawlenty, he of the Minnesota-nice demeanor and goofy sense of humor. His appeal is in the middle, not the margin. He's smart, likable and decent and, as the blue collar son of a truck driver, has a powerful American story to tell. He cut taxes and reined in spending in his two terms as governor of Minnesota, proving himself a solid conservative but not a fanatical ideologue. Those credentials have earned him the respect of Republican insiders. But poll after poll shows that he's yet to catch on with voters.

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