For months if not years, Tim Pawlenty has been considered a serious presidential contender for 2012.
And then the first debate in New Hampshire happened.
You remember, the one where Michelle Bachmann leaped over T-Paw and every other candidate not named Mitt Romney to capture the attention of the mainstream political press in America?
It was also the debate where Pawlenty failed to attack Romney in person for his health care plan in Massachusetts, a day after he had bashed it on a Sunday news show. The former Minnesota Governor has paid dearly for that ever since, with some commentators saying his candidacy is over, before it barely began.
In fact, that was one of the questions posed to him in a lively interview on Meet The Press on Sunday with host David Gregory:
MR. GREGORY: I want to ask about the state of your campaign because, frankly, by most accounts, it's not doing very well. Here's how The New York Times put it on Friday, the headline, "Will Republican Race's First In Be The First Out? Pawlenty, Seeking to Regain Momentum, Plants His Nomination Hopes Squarely in Iowa." Are you on the ropes here at this early time?
This article appears in Jul 7-13, 2011.