TINY TIM – AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota, and candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, is not having a good week.  From the Daily Caller:

As a result of Tim Pawlenty’s poor performance in its latest national poll, Public Policy Polling will no longer include the former Minnesota governor on the list of candidates it polls in a direct match-up against President Barack Obama at the state level. Pawlenty will still be included in PPP’s Republican primary polls.

PPP is set to release the results of its national poll this week. Teasing those results on Monday, Tom Jensen, PPP’s director, tweeted: “Rick Perry debuts in our national polling at 12%. Will replace Pawlenty in our state level general election polls because T-Paw is now 8th.”

He later clarified to The Daily Caller that Pawlenty was “only being dropped from our general election polling at the state level [from] the people we test against Obama. That’s limited to the top 5 in our national polling. He’ll still be in the Republican primary polling.”

COMMENT:  Pawlenty is a decent, competent guy, but his quiet personality counts against him, and doesn't have much cred with Republican primary voters.   He is being outdistanced by fellow Minnesotan, Michele Bachmann.  When Rick Perry gets into the race, I suspect Pawlenty will pretty much disappear. 

And then there's Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, and Obama's ambassador to China, who announced his candidacy recently.  Anyone see him around?

July 21, 2011