WASHINGTON - About a half-dozen advisers to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are volunteering their services or working for very little pay, two campaign aides said on Wednesday.
Pawlenty's camp portrays it as a sign of dedication. But according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story, the revelation "raises questions about the campaign's resources" to compete against the likes of presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann.
Pawlenty aides, feeling burned by the Post's account, pushed back against the story.
"The demonstrated motivations of the senior team on this campaign have nothing to do with money and everything to do with friendship and belief in Tim Pawlenty," said campaign consultant Phil Musser, one of five top aides identified in the Post as working for next to nothing.
Although Musser says he has a modest contract with the Pawlenty campaign, campaign finance records show Musser's firm has collected at least $131,000 between November 2009 and March 2011 from Freedom First PAC, Pawlenty's political organization, and from Pawlenty's presidential exploratory committee.
Musser, a top GOP strategist and senior adviser to Romney in 2007, noted that both he and his wife have given the maximum $2,500-per-election in contributions to the Pawlenty campaign.
"I'm doing this -- as are the others -- because we believe in Tim Pawlenty, we're committed to the success of the campaign, and we want to set an example that reflects frugality," Musser said. "It's an approach we've taken since the first day, and has nothing to do with events."
Musser's take is similar to the account of a Pawlenty aide quoted anonymously in the Post. "Our consultants are either volunteering their time or working for peanuts," the source told the paper. "This may be hard for some in Washington to accept, but they're on Team Pawlenty for the right reasons."
