Time Magazine has a lengthy profile on former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty who I have currently rated as the best choice for the Republican Presidential Nomination pending Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels, entering the race. A quote from a much longer profile:
Pawlenty has long argued that the GOP must remind Americans that they're "the party of Sam's Club, not just the country club." He grew up in South St. Paul, a blue collar town fragrant from the nearby stockyards and meatpacking plants. He was one of five siblings in a pro-union Catholic family. His father, Eugene Pawlenty — the name is Polish — was a truck driver who worked side jobs on weekends. (Including one cleaning meat hooks: "I tossed my cookies" at the stench when helping out one weekend, Pawlenty has recalled.)
In the 1970s, the meatpacking jobs dried up; his father would eventually lose his. Worse, Pawlenty's mother succumbed to ovarian cancer when he was just 16. On her deathbed, she insisted that Tim be the first in the family to attend college. He put himself through the University of Minnesota by working in a grocery store.
That story is crucial to Pawlenty's appeal, his supporters argue. "The guy has a genuine connection to average people," says his friend Vin Weber, a former Republican Congressman from Minnesota. "Every candidate I know tries to establish some roots in what I call real-world middle America. A lot of them have to invent it. With Tim Pawlenty, it's real. He is not a person who has lost his connection to the working-class folks he grew up with."
To read the rest click on the title for a link.
