Tim Pawlenty’s unlikely Iowa ally: Michele Bachmann



PELLA, Iowa – Down in the polls, his fortunes after next month’s Ames straw poll uncertain, Tim Pawlenty is grinding it out through the dog days of summer.

He’s aided by an unlikely ally: Michele Bachmann.

Her blazing entry into the GOP presidential race has at once starved the former Minnesota governor’s campaign of oxygen and breathed life into it. By racing to the front of the pack in Iowa, Bachmann has dramatically reordered expectations for the much-anticipated straw poll.

The congresswoman’s surge in the polls has made Pawlenty scramble. But her ascent has been so rapid and his recent press so brutal that he’s better positioned now to frame the results. Few expect him to win, so if he can defeat her at Ames, he’d have a case to make that he’s the “Comeback Kid.â€