COLUMN: Pawlenty Wants Same-Sex Marriage Ban

Tim Pawlenty reversed field and decided to sign a pledge to seek a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The National Organization for Marriage pledge had already been signed by Republican presidential contenders Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. A campaign spokesman said Pawlenty wasn’t hedging on signing the pledge, but rather that he was simply taking time to review it carefully.

Conservative pundit George Will weighed in on the chances of the various GOP candidates as the Aug. 13 Iowa straw poll approaches. He refers to Pawlenty as the tortoise to Michele Bachmann’s hare: “Pawlenty emphasizes, as tortoises will, the long run. His campaign believes Bachmann is potentially a flash in the pan whose campaign is brittle because of her propensity to say peculiar things… Pawlenty's problem is the short run -- between now and Saturday."

Pawlenty must have liked the sound of Will’s characterization. He told reporters in Urbandale, Iowa, on Monday that he doesn’t see himself as a “shooting star” – suggesting that another Minnesota native running for president might be – and indicating he’s in this thing for the long haul. “Our goal is to try to move up substantially from there,” he said. “Our goal, generally, is to show some good progress from towards the back of the pack to toward the front of the pack."

Pawlenty also bragged up changes to Minnesota’s health care policies that became law during his time in the governor’s mansion, and speculated that similar changes would be ideal for the country at large. Former Sen. Dave Durenberger, however, points out that it was Democratic legislators who pushed for many of the changes Pawlenty now touts.

Oh, and climate change? Not our fault, says Citizen Tim. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Pawlenty said that while climate change is certainly a reality, “the more interesting question is how much is a result of natural causes and how much, if any, is attributable to human behavior… it’s fair to say that, as to whether and how much -- if any -- is attributable to human behavior, there’s dispute and controversy over it.”