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Tim Pawlenty, whose previous experience with Wall Street consisted mainly of telling them to “get their snouts out of the trough,” has taken a job as the head of the Financial Services Roundtable, one of the main trade groups for Wall Street.
The Roundtable is one of a handful of Washington groups, including the American Bankers Association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, that are lobbying financial regulators as they implement the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.
The groups often coordinate their efforts but they are also competitors when it comes to establishing which one is the voice of the banking and financial services industry in Washington.
Pawlenty would immediately elevate the Roundtable’s profile in political circles.
Google isn’t what it used to be now that it weights more recent stories more heavily, and Pawlenty’s Presidential campaign website doesn’t exist anymore. But I can’t really find any substantive statement from Pawlenty on financial services matters throughout the past two years. Really that’s true of the Republican Party as a whole, particularly at the Presidential level. “Repeal Dodd-Frank” is about as substantive as it gets. In this interview with Larry Kudlow Pawlenty says, in addition to the famed “snouts out of the trough” comment, he opposes the re-appointment of Ben Bernanke, and that he opposes devaluing the dollar because he thinks that the Fed is trying to “inflate their way out of this deficit.” In another interview in March 2011, Pawlenty opposed “fiat money.” He didn’t explain whether he wanted to return to the gold standard or not. His ideas on monetary policy, then, are miserable from the standpoint of exports and costs the US millions of jobs, incidentally. But it’s the closest I could find to an actual comment about finance. The guy came up as an avatar of “Sam’s Club Republicanism.”
But as the quote I pulled alluded to, Pawlenty isn’t being chosen by the Financial Services Roundtable for his vast knowledge of financial services. He was chosen because he has a familiar name to members of Congress and he can get into offices and lobby them with relative ease. This is the whole point of the revolving door – find someone with contacts and name recognition and use that as a lever to get your lobby’s goals into the Congressional consciousness. His predecessor at the Financial Services Roundtable, Steve Bartlett, was a Congressman from Texas.
Pawlenty, by the way, quit the Romney campaign to take the Financial Services Roundtable job. Talk about rats jumping off the sinking ship.
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Isn’t that the real story? He’s a campaign “co-chair” yet he’s leaving now. That speaks volumes that he couldn’t wait 50 days.
Getting out while the getting is good. In 50 days it’ll be like the Titanic and T-Paw is heading for the lifeboats now.
This is quite likely the one and only time I could say this, “If I were Tim Pawlenty, I’d do the same thing.” My momma did’t raise no stoopid chilren.
No sense waiting ’til the last minute. Good seats for fast.
BTW, best to be in the middle of the boat. Avoid the stern at all costs.
Another wingnut jumps onto the welfare gravy train. CHA-CHING! Will T-Paw’s soon to be ill-gotten booty make him into one of Bishop Snobby-Snotty’s moochers?? Or will T-Paw be part of the few fortunates to be looked on with favore by Mormon Mitt, I’m in the 1% but you’re not nanny nanny boo boo??
Never particularly impressed with Pawlenty, who at one time was touted as some kind of “reasonable” conservative or something equally nonsensical. Pawlenty just proved exactly who he is & what gets him up in the morning.
Like the rat that T-Paw has always been, T-Paw flees a rapidly sinking ship. T-Paw’s making sure he gets HIS, and in this case, EFF Bishop FAIL.
If articles like this
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/health-care-tax-penalty_n_1898005.html?utm_hp_ref=business&icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D208158
keep hitting the headlines, Romney’s chances may improve. This kind of announcement couldn’t have been written better by Fox. Any nominee of just adequate accomplishment should be, on the Democratic side, crushing Romney or on the Republican side, outside the margin of error over the incumbent. Neither of these derelicts is a clearly better choice and pretty much all the voters know it. The bases are just clinging desperately to Johnson’s triumph of hope over experience. Or Coleridge’s willing suspension of disbelief. Me, I’m third party or write-in. Haven’t really decided yet.
The whole story in a nutshell. When your campaign co-chair quits 50 days out, it tells you all you need to know about his expectations of the outcome of the upcoming election.
I doubt very seriously this ‘opportunity’ just became available; it has probably been in his hip pocket for awhile. But when the “In case of emergency, break glass” lights came on, he ran for it before they changed their minds and offered it to some other deserter of the SS RMoney.
This was his baksheesh to get out of the race himself. Earlier would have been obvious and unseemly; now no point in delaying the move since sticking with Romney will not add anything to his “put me on your board” resume.
This could actually be seen as a promotion for “I-35 Bridge” T-Paw.
L’il Timmy is an empty suit for sale to the highest right-wing or corporate bidder. That this schmuck could add perceived value to anything is beyond me. I live in Minnesota and have seen this clown in action for too many years.
If the Financial Roundtable is pro-Romney (they must be, right?) whyever would they want Tim to announce this change, including his departure from the Romney campaign, with only 45 days to go until Election Day?
Sounds like the MOTUs have given up. I mean, Congress is out of session, what’s a lobbyist got to do between now and the lame duck session, anyway?
Very strange optics to create for a candidate they supposedly support.
Pawlenty jumps from a sinking ship onto a pirate ship.
The number is higher than projected, I’m guessing, because the number of unemployed people without health insurance has risen.
Pshaw, the private sector is fine, don’t you know?
Well, the REAL story will be “Oh, the Romney campaign is going sooooo well, that we felt only one campaign chairman was needed!” The popular media, of cuss, will swallow this whopper whole and in a manner that would make a boa constrictor look on with envy.
All right….I’ll see your worthless gov Timmy and raise you one useless and confused gov Rick Perry who can’t remember items in a set of three.
So there. If you wanna compare worthless, schmucky, idiot governors, Texas has no peers. :-)
However, to be fair, we DO bow down to Illinois in the criminal category.
The story here IS about his political connections & not Romney. The main reason we are in this mess here in the USA is because the rich & powerful have total access to the inner workings of the entire USG. The rest of us do not and until we recognize & fix it – nothing will change for the better.
Yes. No arguments from on that score.
The USG is a wholly OWNED subsidiary of the BigCorp/MIC/WAR, Inc.
Agree with all you say, except that you are insulting clowns , who have better work ethic, by associating them with TPaw. Tpaw narrowly scraped through both times in the governor’s race. Thank God we don’t have to put up with him in the 2014 Senate race or 2016 Prez contest.