RUSH: We welcome for the first time to the EIB Network Republican presidential candidate former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who announced just today that you're in, you're going for it. Welcome to the program, governor.
PAWLENTY: Great to be with you, Rush. Yeah, we're in Des Moines and we made that announcement just about an hour on and so we're locked and loaded and heading forward.
RUSH: Let me ask you as just a general set-the-table question. You obviously want to be president because there are things you want to accomplish, and you want to see the country accomplish. You gaze out across the country, what do you see? What's the American situation today? What about it needs to be improved or changed?
PAWLENTY: Well, a few things, Rush. You know, as I travel the country there's a sense amongst people that the America that we knew and love is perhaps slipping away and that the future may not be as bright; and so people describe that in different ways, but it comes back to one thing: The government is getting so heavy, so expensive, so discouraging, so slow that it's suffocating the American spirit -- and if you believe this country isn't about government but it's about people and individual responsibility and industriousness and hard work and faith and family and the like, government's crowding that out, and people are discouraged. And so we've gotta get the government under control, back into its limited original role and get the deficit and the debt fixed and get this economy growing. Those are the big issues facing the country -- and, of course, we gotta be secure and focus on national defense and security as well.
RUSH: Okay, now, I'm not trying to stir anything up here -- seriously -- but I do have a 2006 quote of yours and I want to run by you and in advance to preface the quote. Within the Republican Party and the conservative wing of the Republican Party, there are many disagreements about how the Democrats should be fought and how they should be opposed, and one of the prevailing points of view in inside the Beltway conservatism is that big government is not all that bad with the right president. There are people that believe in an active, powerful executive -- an engaging government that's big enough to handle the requests and demands of the people. These conservatives are saying, "The American people have spoken. They do want government benefits. They do want this." In 2006, if I have it right, you said, 'The era of small government's over," that the government has to be "more proactive, more aggressive," which is somewhat similar to what I've been hearing not recently, within the past year from the inside-the-Beltway Republicans. What you just said seems to be in conflict with that, though.
PAWLENTY: Well, actually I'm glad you brought that up, Rush, because it gives me a chance to clarify. Th-the other side has pushed that falsely for a number of years. What happened is in the Minnesota Star Tribune -- not exactly a conservative publication -- I made reference to an article that David Brooks wrote which was entitled, "The Eera of Small Government is Over." I didn't say those words myself; I was referencing his article.
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