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Contributors in Minnesota: Jennifer Brooks, Baird Helgeson, Mike Kaszuba, Patricia Lopez, Jim Ragsdale, Brad Schrade and Rachel E. Stassen-Berger. Contributor in D.C.: Kevin Diaz.
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A new one for the Pawlenty files: Named 'least influential' person alive
Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger under 2012 Presidential election, Gov. Tim Pawlenty Updated: November 29, 2011 - 2:17 PM
Sometimes politics just gets mean.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the presidential race in debt, with sad sack poll numbers and amid critiques that he was the boring friend who took you to the prom when your real crush didn't ask.
GQ Magazine added to the pain in their December issue, which just went live online Tuesday, by naming Pawlenty the "Least Influential" person alive.
Pawlenty measuring his own influence??
What did the boy from South St. Paul do to win such an honor?
The magazine says:
"Every election season produces a number of hilariously pointless candidates who have no chance of winning. Some of them have value as novelty items. Look! It's Alan Keyes, the token black Republican! And over there! It's David Duke! He's a racist! These are the fun, fringy candidates. The Sharpton Sector, if you will. Then there are folks like Pawlenty, who fail to register even as novelties. T-Paw (as he calls himself) spent much of 2011 as a six-foot-tall paperweight, an aggressively forgettable fellow perfectly suited to the role of debate filler. The $1 million he spent to lose the Iowa straw poll might as well have been burned in front of a group of orphans."
In politics, Pawlenty beat out former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak (No. 9), former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (No. 14), husband of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, Marcus Bachmann (No. 19, whom GQ not so subtly suggested was gay) U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (No. 24) and the least least influential person whom Pawlenty once hoped to unseat, President Barack Obama (No. 25.)
Update:
Making Pawlenty's new designation seem almost like sour grapes, Pawlenty folks handed over a letter that they got from the GQ folks when the former Minnesota governor was still in the race. The letter calls Pawlenty intriguing and one of the "most serious" candidates in the race. Read it.
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