Politico reports that the Obama campaign was most worried that Mitt Romney would pick Tim Pawlenty as his running mate.
For the past several months, Obama campaign officials and Democrats close to the campaign have privately expressed the opinion that Pawlenty’s primary season flaws would have been transformed into virtues in a general election. A lengthy paper trail is a noose in national politics, so the fact that Pawlenty was a virtual unknown outside the Midwest might have been his greatest asset.
Obama’s team doesn’t dismiss Ryan’s strengths — youth, energy, brains and a policy-grounded integrity that contrasts with Romney’s shape-shifting reputation.
But they have a ready-made line of attack rooted in the Ryan budget, the most potent weapon in the Democratic attack arsenal perhaps since the Iraq War, according to some in the party.
They had nothing comparable with which to hammer Pawlenty.
I have to admit, of the original Republican primary field, Pawlenty made me the most nervous. He's as conservative as you can get and still be elected statewide in Minnesota, and yet he has a moderate image that is even more convincing than the one Mike Huckabee puts on. Granted, there's no guarantee he would have delivered Minnesota to Romney (from what I know about that state, Romney would have had to run the table in the rural areas and go gangbusters in the outer Twin Cities suburbs and Duluth to have any chance of winning it), but he would have been able to peel off a lot of swing voters. He's also a blue-collar guy, and would have more than balanced Romney's image as a stuffy elitist.
How nervous was Team Obama about Pawlenty joining the ticket? They had a press release ready to go in case Pawlenty got tapped--one that would have sounded a lot like the one with which they welcomed Ryan to the ticket. But a lot of Democrats don't think the attacks would have stuck, because Pawlenty has no obvious vulnerabilities. None that we know about, anyway--I'm sure the Minnesotans on here would have dug up a good-sized file of them.