Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who once had his eyes focused on the White House, said Monday that he is absolutely not vying to be vice president.

"I'm going to take my name off the list, so if you are a pundit, if you're a journalist, an observer, remove my name from the list," Pawlenty said. "I went through it before it with McCain."

The former governor was passed over for the vice presidential slot for Sarah Palin in 2008 and has been mentioned as a possible contender for Mitt Romney, often followed by the sobriquet, "boring."

On Monday, Pawlenty lived up to the description. He gave a policy heavy speech to a half-filled University of Minnesota auditorium. The former governor spoke of the "casino" atmosphere of big banks, his "evolution" on cap-and-trade environmental policy, the transformational nature of natural gas to the energy markets and the need raise the retirement age and use means testing for people not yet near retirement age.

He was more vague about his own future. Asked whether he may run for U.S. Senate or governor in 2014, he replied: "I haven't ruled anything in or out."

The former governor, who is now spending his time stumping for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and serving on corporate boards, was more sanguine than some establishment Republicans about the influence of Ron Paul on the GOP order.

"They're working hard and so we want them to be part of the Republican team and the conservative coalition and the Romney effort but it is going to take some time for them to feel that they've had a full and fair hearing and they're still working on it," Pawlenty said. "This happens every generation. There's some insurgency group or candidate ...or perceived insurgency group that threatens the established order and overtime that energy gets channeled in a constructive way."

He said that anyone is going to be successful would need to build a coalition that taps into the Paul excitement.

The governor, who was heckled at an Oklahoma Republican convention over the weekend that was later shutdown as Paul and Romney supporters brawled, said he does not plan to attend this weekend's Minnesota Republican convention. He plans to stump for Romney elsewhere this weekend.