Tim Pawlenty pursues Fla. stronghold strategy

Florida voters won’t get a chance to weigh in on the GOP nomination until weeks after Iowa and New Hampshire, but Tim Pawlenty’s already treating the Sunshine State as prime presidential campaign territory.

The former Minnesota governor announced Friday that he’ll be taking time off from an all-out effort in Iowa ahead of next month’s straw poll for a two-day swing through Florida next week, taking him back to a state where he’s focused an intense amount of early energy — especially for a candidate who’ll need every last vote in Ames to prove his campaign’s still viable.

Pawlenty will arrive in Florida on Monday. He’ll start his multi-city series fundraisers and huddles with potential endorsers in Orlando, where he’ll be joined by the three Florida state representatives who’ve already been chosen by their conference as the next three House speakers. The group will then head to Tampa on Tuesday, where the candidate will host a meet-and-greet at Buddy Brew Coffee, his first big public event in the state. Then Pawlenty heads south to Miami, for more donor and supporter meetings.

He’s not copying Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 Florida-or-die strategy, but Pawlenty’s campaign has identified a so far largely uncontested donor- and delegate-heavy state as a major resource for campaign cash and support. And while he’s been struggling to gain traction elsewhere, he’s found a growing number of people so attracted to his personality, education positions, immigration enforcement stance and strong Second Amendment rights record that they’ve been willing to go out on a limb and publicly back his campaign. If there’s an extended primary fight next year, Pawlenty’s set up the second-round Florida primary to be his campaign firewall.

“Our focus is of course on Iowa, but we’ve been to Florida a lot primarily for fundraising,” said Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant, who noted that the campaign is making a play in New Hampshire as well. “But we also have a lot of friends down there and a growing political organization.”

Politico/ Marr/ 07/29/2011

Tim Pawlenty pursues Fla. stronghold strategy

FLatinConnect/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor