Tim Pawlenty Formally Steps Into 2012 Race With Attack on Obama.

Of course, Pawlenty starts his campaign off attacking the President. Just like Herman Cain, at some point he will have to give us his credentials about what he will do and not what the President has not done. Hopefully, we will begin to hear a little more about his term as governor of Minnesota. Did he have a favorable rating when he left office? Once again, only time will tell.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty formally entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination Monday with a broadside against President Barack Obama’s leadership and a vow to tell the truth about the nation’s finances, backed up with a pledge to phase out subsidies for ethanol.

The ethanol pledge, delivered to a small crowd in corn-dependent Iowa, provided the surprise for a speech that has been years in the making. Mr. Pawlenty has been preparing for a presidential run since he almost joined John McCain’s Republican ticket as vice president in 2008.

After all that preparation, the rollout had its problems. Mr. Pawlenty delivered his speech without flair, in front of the State House in Des Moines, a backdrop that seemed to dwarf the crowd. As he tried to build to a crescendo, television cable stations switched to President Obama’s far more boisterous speech before tens of thousands of screaming Dubliners.

The contrast underscored the challenge facing Mr. Pawlenty, as he takes on a charismatic incumbent and tries to turn his own low-key style into an asset and convince voters he will be the anti-Obama.

“Fluffy promises of hope and change don’t buy our groceries, make our mortgage payments, put gas in our cars, or pay for our children’s school clothes,” Mr. Pawlenty said.

On Monday, the Minnesotan positioned himself as a truth-teller, willing to level with the American people about the sacrifices that would be needed to tame the $1.5 trillion budget deficit and get the economy rolling, something he said Mr. Obama has failed to do.

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