Tim Pawlenty will officially announce his presidency in Iowa today with a speech that attacks President Barack Obama for misleading the country in his campaign, and promises to be honest with Americans about the issues the country is facing.
“President Obama’s policies have failed,” Pawlenty will say, according to prepared remarks. “But more than that, he won’t even tell us the truth about what it’s really going to take to get out of the mess we’re in. … I’m going to take a different approach. I am going to tell you the truth.”
Based on the video announcement with which Pawlenty preempted the announcement last night, “truth” looks to become the former Minnesota governor’s watch word in his campaign.
“Politicians are often afraid that if they’re too honest, they might lose an election,” he will say in Iowa Monday. “I’m afraid that in 2012, if we’re not honest enough, we may lose our country.”
Pawlenty will promise that not only can he run a good campaign, but that he can win.
“No president deserves to win an election by dividing the American people — picking winners and losers, protecting his own party’s spending and cutting only the other guys’; pitting classes, and ethnicities, and generations against each other. The truth is, we’re all in this together. So we need to work to get out of this mess together. I’ll unite our party and unite our nation, because to solve a $14 trillion problem, we’re going to need 300 million people,” he will say.
He will also tout his record as a Republican governor who was elected in a blue state.
“In Minnesota, I cut taxes, cut spending, instituted health-care choice and performance pay for teachers, reformed our union benefits, and appointed constitutional conservatives to the Supreme Court,” he will say, contrasting his actions with those of Obama. “That is how you lead a liberal state in a conservative direction.”
Pawlenty will announce at a town-hall style meeting in Iowa on Monday afternoon.