Pawlenty: 'Anybody, including me, would be honored' to be VP

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty sounds quite a bit more open to being Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick than he did a few weeks ago.

"If asked anybody, including me, would be honored to serve," Pawlenty said on a conference call Friday.

That answer is quite a bit different from the one he gave just two weeks ago. Back then he said his name did not belong on anyone's list of possible vice presidential candidates.
"I'm going to take my name off the list, so if ... you're a journalist, an observer, remove my name from the list," he said at the time.

He maintained then, as he did Friday, that he could "best serve Mitt in other ways" but his VP reticence appears to have softened.

"We just don't talk about the VP process," Pawlenty said Friday, of Romney's campaign.

Pawlenty, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for president last year, was a possible vice presidential pick for 2008 Republican candidate John McCain. Ultimately, he was set aside in favor of then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

This year, Pawlenty had said that he had been through the vice presidential process before and had little interest in doing it again. But, on Friday, his words belied a lack of interest.