2012 Presidential Campaign Blog

Tim Pawlenty Invited to Speak At The 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference

Tim Pawlenty Invited to Speak At The 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference

Tim Pawlenty Bio From The 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference

Tim Pawlenty is regarded as one of the nation’s most innovative, energetic, reform-minded and accomplished governors.  Now serving his second term as the 39th governor of Minnesota, Governor Pawlenty has brought increased accountability to state government, held the line on taxes, improved K-12 education standards and made Minnesota a leader in energy reform.

As Governor, he has balanced Minnesota’s budget three times without raising taxes, despite facing record budget deficits.  Governor Pawlenty’s most notable accomplishments include proposing and signing into law significant new benefits for veterans and members of the military; enacting a property tax cap, eliminating the marriage penalty and cutting taxes; toughening the state’s education standards; reforming the way teachers are paid through a nation-leading performance pay plan; instituting free-market health care reforms that increase accountability and provide tax credits to encourage the use of health savings accounts; and implementing a plan to Americanize our energy sources by generating 25% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Under Governor Pawlenty’s leadership, Minnesota leads the nation in a variety of measures.  Minnesota ranks first among states in Fortune 500 companies per capita, first in overall quality of life, first in homeownership, first in percentage of residents with a high school diploma, and first in residents over 25 with a bachelors degree.  Minnesota has the highest average ACT scores in the nation and is among the “Healthiest States in America.”

Southern Republican Leadership Conference 2010 Blog Post

As the host of the first straw poll for the Republican Primary, SRLC is generally regarded as the unofficial start to the presidential cycle. All full-conference registrants and VIP registrants will be able to voice their opinion and vote for our next presidential candidate. And Republicans are ready for some serious action.

We’ve seen the outrage across the country - the tea parties…the town halls…Conservatives are coming together like we haven’t in years to fight back against the Obama machine and SRLC is just the ignition boost we need to get us on track.

Its time for us conservatives to rev our engines, come up with a plan, and take victory seriously. We have a lot to discuss next year at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, as we kick off the next presidential election cycle off in style in the Big Easy. Hearing from potential candidates and sitting governors, senators, and representatives from across the south is the first step of the process. We must see which of our candidates and elected officials stand strong for our fundamental beliefs. We must also hear from our nation’s leading experts in campaigns, communications, grassroots, so we can be smart and tactical in our approach. And finally, we must each voice our opinions in the first straw poll of the presidential cycle.

Joe Lieberman 2004 Website: Expanding Affordable and Quality Health Care

Joe Lieberman: Expanding Affordable and Quality Health Care

Throughout his career, Joe Lieberman has fought to extend quality, affordable health care to all Americans. He believes it is an insult to the American Dream that the richest nation in the world now leaves some 41 million of its people, including more than 8 million children, stranded without health insurance. As President, he will fight to guarantee access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Advancing Universal Health Care. Joe Lieberman voted to create the highly successful Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) and in 2000 fought alongside Al Gore to expand that program so that, within five years, no American child would be uninsured and their parents could also enroll in the program.

Ensuring Quality Care. Joe Lieberman has a long record of ensuring quality health care. Lieberman supports a patient’s bill of rights to hold HMO’s accountable, he sponsored a law to require Medicaid managed care plans to issue report cards to give consumers the information they need to make informed choices. Lieberman also led the fight in the Senate to lower the incidents of medical errors in our health care system. He has also opposed mandatory overtime for nurses, because he understands that in addition to being unfair, exhaustion puts both nurses and patients at risk.

Fighting for a Prescription Drug Benefit under Medicare. Joe Lieberman believes no American senior should have to choose between food, rent, and the prescription drugs needed to live a decent life. He has fought to provide all seniors a prescription drug benefit through the Medicare program, and has staunchly opposed Republican efforts to force seniors into HMOs to get the lifesaving drugs they need.

Protecting the Health of Children. Joe Lieberman has fought to improve the health and well-being of our children. In addition to supporting the establishment of the S-CHIP program, he co-sponsored the Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act of 2001 to allow states to offer S-CHIP and Medicaid to eligible women and children who are legal immigrants. Also, Lieberman has been a leader in protecting children from lead poisoning, authoring bills that track lead contamination and expand lead screening.

Enhancing Preventive Care. Like millions of Americans, Joe Lieberman's lost a loved-one, his father, to cancer. Dedicated to giving more men and women access to the screening and prevention that can save their lives, Senator Lieberman introduced the Colon Cancer Screen for Life Act which would remove barriers to screening at hospitals and clinics and encourage more people to take advantage of early intervention that can protect their health.

Fighting for Mental Health Parity. As a longtime believer that mental health illness is an illness like any other, Joe Lieberman cosponsored a bill to require equal coverage of medical and mental health benefits. Supporting Basic Research. Joe Lieberman knows that America must support basic research today if it is to continue developing the cures to diseases tomorrow. He has successfully fought to increase funding for research into breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other ailments afflicting Americans and people around the world.

Tim Pawlenty To Speak At NRSC Fall Meeting, November 16 and 17, 2009

Tim Pawlenty To Speak At NRSC Fall Meeting, November 16 and 17, 2009, Washington D.C. (Letter Follows)

A few weeks ago, I launched Freedom First PAC, an organization dedicated to turning back the growth of the federal government and renewing the promise of freedom. America is successful in large part because we are the freest people the world has ever known. These freedoms are now being threatened by the rapid expansion of our government led by liberal Democrats in Washington.

The NRSC is committed to electing more Republicans to the Senate to stem this encroachment on our liberties, and that's why I'm pleased to be speaking at their Fall Meeting held in Washington, D.C. November 16th and 17th. I look forward to sharing the message of Freedom First with supporters from across America who are helping us rebuild our conservative ranks in 2010.

I support the work of the NRSC, and I hope that you will as well. That is why we will be selecting one individual who makes a contribution of at least $50 to the NRSC between now and November 6th to come to Washington and attend this important event. We'll even pay for your travel expenses. That person will be invited to attend each session of this meeting, including a photo opportunity with me, and will be seated at my table during the Kickoff Luncheon.

Our principles as conservatives are being tested. The values of our country are being tested. Please join me and Senate Republicans in helping to fight back by supporting the NRSC today. If you do so by November 6th, I hope to see you in Washington.

Sincerely,

Tim Pawlenty

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Pawlenty Begins His Move By Barry Cassleman

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Pawlenty begins his move
By Barry Casselman on October 26th, 2009

"Tim Pawlenty is already emerging as the major dark horse of the 2012 GOP race. Definitely stay tuned. This could be history in the making."

Tim Pawlenty Freedom First PAC Launch Photo

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty speaks at the Pretzels and Pints! reception. Over 500+ showed up to the Freedom First PAC launch held at the Capitol City Brewing Company in Washington D.C.

Republican Party Of Iowa’s “Leadership for Iowa” Reception, Featuring Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Will Air Live On C-SPAN

Iowa GOP: Gubernatorial Line-up Set for Leadership for Iowa Event
Party officials also announce C-SPAN will nationally televise the event live from the Iowa State Fairgrounds

Des Moines, IA -- National attention is building for the Republican Party of Iowa’s “Leadership for Iowa” reception as Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn today announced that C-SPAN will televise the November 7 event, featuring Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, live to a nationwide audience.

Strawn also announced that the event’s gubernatorial portion of the program has been finalized as Iowa Republicans and a nationwide audience will hear personally from Senator Jerry Behn, Governor Terry Branstad, businessman Christian Fong, Representative Chris Rants, Representative Rod Roberts, and businessman Bob Vander Plaats.

“Iowa Republicans have a strong field of candidates for governor and I’m proud we have an opportunity to showcase these leaders to both a statewide and national television audience,” said Strawn.  “Iowans are hungry for leadership, and our candidates for governor will lay out their vision for the type of principled, competent leadership the Hawkeye state desperately needs and only a Republican governor will provide.”

The “Leadership for Iowa” event will be held at the Elwell Family Center on the Iowa State Fairgrounds.  Event details include:

Saturday, November 7, 2009

5:00 p.m. – Doors Open
5:30 p.m. -- General Reception
6:00 p.m. -- Program
Elwell Family Center, Iowa State Fairgrounds
Des Moines, IA

President Obama To Hold Presidential Forum On Service Hosted By Former President George H.W. Bush

President Obama to Hold Presidential Forum on Service Hosted by former President George H.W. Bush

October event at Bush Presidential Library will celebrate Daily Point of Light award winners, build upon United We Serve summer service initiative

WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Friday, October 16th, President Barack Obama will hold a Presidential Forum on community service hosted by former President George H.W. Bush and the Points of Light Institute at the George Bush Presidential Library Center on the campus of Texas A&M University.  The event builds upon President Obama's "United We Serve" call to service challenging all Americans to help lay a new foundation for growth in this country by engaging in sustained, meaningful community service.  It will also celebrate the contributions of more than 4,500 Daily Point of Light award winners and honor President Bush's legacy of service and civic engagement.
 
The Daily Point of Light Award - created by President Bush in 1989 - honors individuals and volunteer groups around the country who are helping to meet critical needs in their communities and creating change every day and has a bi-partisan presidential legacy over the past two decades.
 
President Obama's United We Serve call to service began on June 22nd and runs through the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11th. Service projects marking the eight year anniversary of 9/11 will take place today in all 50 states, and will include over a dozen Cabinet Secretaries and high ranking government officials.  Projects range from food drives and home repairs to neighborhood cleanups and disaster preparation activities.

The National Day of Service and Remembrance was developed by 9/11 families and established into law by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which President Obama signed in April.  The most sweeping overhaul and expansion of national service programs in 18 years, the Serve America Act will triple the size of AmeriCorps and strengthen service opportunities for Americans at all stages of their lives.

GOP 2012: Huckabee 29% Romney 24% Palin 18%

GOP 2012: Huckabee 29% Romney 24% Palin 18%

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Republican voters nationwide say former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is their pick to represent the GOP in the 2012 Presidential campaign. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 24% prefer former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney while 18% would cast their vote for former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gets 14% of the vote while Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty gets 4%. Six percent (6%) of GOP voters prefer some other candidate while 7% remain undecided

RNC Launches New GOP.COM

RNC LAUNCHES NEW GOP.COM

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee today announced a newly redesigned, revamped and reorganized online platform, GOP.com, that links together the RNC’s new website with various social media applications. The new GOP.com will promote increased grassroots participation and innovation, better communication, improved platform compatibility and smarter marketing and fundraising tools for the GOP.

“When I ran for RNC Chairman, I committed to improving the Republican Party’s online ability to inform our grassroots supporters and mobilize them behind important issues, while also electing our great candidates. With the new GOP.com that went live today, the RNC will be able to accomplish exactly that. The new GOP.com embraces the Republican Party’s structure as a bottom-up party by promoting organic activism among Republicans.  It takes advantage of various online tools to connect Republicans and concerned Americans across the country to each other and Party leaders, creating a larger, more informed, more organized, and more energized Republican community. The new GOP.com will help Republicans compete in any race, in any state, at any time.” – RNC Chairman Michael Steele

GOP.COM FACTSHEET

GOP.com – The RNC’s New Online Platform

• The RNC has built not just a new website, but a new web platform that is the most interactive the Party has ever presented.
• The web platform provides message and content, while allowing online grassroots communities to grow and flourish.
• New Platform Designed To Leverage Social Media’s Increasingly Important Role in Politics
• Never before has social media been used more to get political information than during the 2008 presidential election – 74% of internet users, representing 55% of the entire adult population, went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get information. (Pew Internet and American Life Project, “The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008,” April 2009)
• One in three Internet users forwarded political content to others in 2008. (Pew Internet and American Life Project, “The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008,” April 2009)
• Young voters were heavily engaged in the political debate on social networking sites – 83% of those age 18-24 have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of them took part in some form of political activity in 2008. (Pew Internet and American Life Project, “The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008,” April 2009)

The RNC’s Increased Online Presence

• The RNC’s new web platform will give Republican leaders the ability to engage directly with voters, as well as hear from them and exchange ideas with them.
• It will allow the RNC to provide significantly more customizable information to our grassroots supporters and mobilize them more effectively as a result.
• The RNC’s new web platform is the first major party website to allow people to create applications for it – in the same way that people can create games, widgets and computer code for Facebook.
• Visitors can sign-in securely using their Facebook credentials instead of creating a new account.
• It will enable our supporters to communicate with each other and organize events both through GOP.com and various social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, as well as the websites of state parties and local Republican organizations, enabling our grassroots supporters and volunteers to collaborate and organize events online like never before.
• We will also rely on our Republican supporters to contribute their ideas and add content to the new GOP.com, increasing their involvement in the Party and making the new website a constantly growing online destination.

New Grassroots Tools

• GOP.com – This is the core website for our messaging and information dissemination. All content created will have a permanent home within the website and RNC principals and division leaders will actively use it as a way to directly communicate with Republicans across the nation.
• GOP.com: The Republican Action Network – This is the RNC’s new ACTION NETWORK and hub for interactions between grassroots Republicans as they work to help the Republican cause by creating groups, organizing events, hosting contests and blogging.
• Microsites – these focused-topic or issue sites are powerful tools for delivering a message to a targeted audience.
• Widgets – GOP.com will have a number of widgets users can deploy on their smart phone, website, blog, or other digital property to showcase content and information created on the new web platform.
• Email footers – Supporters can give the web platform the ability to show a customized email banner graphic around a topic or call to action. This can be customized with the supporter’s information as well.
• Browser bars – By integrating GOP.com into the major web browsers, the browser bar can get critical information to a user about news, content and action items. The browser bar also lets the user provide back important crowd-sourcing information.
• Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn status updates – Users can give GOP.com the ability to push a status update through their account for their friends to see. The user can choose the message types and frequency.
• Text messaging and email – GOP.com can push content through these two channels directly to the individual. While they don’t reach a larger viral audience, they can be personalized to the individual.

New Website Tools

• With our new platform, the RNC finally has the ability to tap into the army of Republican coders who want to build online tools to help us win elections, raise money, and build awareness.
• The RNC’s old website was completely closed to developers, forcing us to rely on contractors to build applications that would work with our infrastructure.
• The new GOP.com shifts to an open platform that will allow our existing developer community to not only make our digital presence more powerful, but will also encourage innovation from the grassroots.

2010 and Beyond

The RNC’s new web platform will provide the RNC with the following key strategic values for 2010 and beyond:

• Smarter marketing and fundraising – Through the integration of multi-channel tools into a marketing-centric database, the RNC can do more effective targeting.
• Increased participation and innovation – The RNC platform encourages developers to create new products and services for the entire community.
• More platform compatibility – The new web platform is built to support the initiatives of our Republican state parties.
• Better communications – Republicans across the nation will have the ability to communicate with each other, educate their friends, organize local events, and collaborate with their state parties and local GOP organizations like never before.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty To Headline Iowa GOP “Leadership for Iowa” Fall Event

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to Headline Iowa GOP Fall Event
“Leadership for Iowa” celebration to include GOP gubernatorial candidates

Des Moines, IA – Matt Strawn, Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, today announced that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will be the featured guest for the Party’s signature fall event, titled, “Leadership for Iowa,” which will be held Saturday, November 7 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. 

Governor Pawlenty, who also serves as vice-chairman of the Republican Governors Association, will be joined by Iowa Republican candidates for governor as the Party starts a 12-month countdown to new leadership that will culminate in the election of a Republican governor and legislative majority in November 2010.

Strawn said, “During his two terms as Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty effectively worked to balance the state’s budget, reduce spending, and enact important health care and education reform initiatives.

“Governor Pawlenty is an innovative, conservative leader and, as Iowa Republicans prepare for a robust gubernatorial primary election and nationally-watched general election for governor, his message of balanced budgets, lower taxes, and market-based reforms for health care and education will resonate with all Iowans,” said Strawn.

The “Leadership for Iowa” event will be held at the Elwell Family Center on the Iowa State Fairgrounds.  Event details include:

Saturday, November 7, 2009

5:00 p.m. – Doors Open
5:30 p.m. -- General Reception
6:00 p.m. -- Program

Elwell Family Center, Iowa State Fairgrounds
Des Moines, IA

Strawn concluded, “On November 7, 2009 the countdown to new leadership in Iowa begins in earnest.  Tim Pawlenty and our exciting field of Iowa GOP gubernatorial candidates will set the stage for a 12-month conversation with Iowans about the competing visions for our state’s future.  This is a conversation in which we are anxious to engage and it is one that will ultimately result in the election of a Republican governor in November 2010.”

Tickets to the event are $25 per person and can be purchased by calling 515.263.8238, emailing RSVP@iowagop.org  or through the Republican Party of Iowa website: www.iowagop.org.