Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images
Tim Pawlenty is bailing on Mitt Romney's floundering presidential candidate to become Wall Street's top lobbyist.
The former Minnesota governor announced he's signed on as CEO and president of the Financial Services Roundtable, the leading Washington trade association for the financial services industry, and will step down as a national co-chair of the Romney campaign.
Pawlenty ran unsuccessfully in the GOP presidential primary and was considered a top contender to be picked as Romney's running mate. He might have been in line for a cabinet position should Romney win this fall. In recent weeks, however, Romney has fallen behind President Obama in the polls, after running virtually neck and neck for most of the summer.
Pawlenty's new job starts November 1st, five days before Romney faces voters.
The Financial Services Roundtable was a major player in lobbying to weaken the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation passed in response to the 2008 banking crisis.
As a presidential candidate, Pawlenty talked tough about reining in Wall Street. "[L]ater this week I'm going to New York City to tell Wall Street that if I'm elected, the era of bailouts and handouts for big banks is over," he wrote in a 2011 USA Today op-ed.
For his new gig, he'll likely need to change his tune.
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traitor
Mr. Pawlenty, instead of working for Wall Street to STOP Dodd-Frank, why don't you take all that energy and work TOWARD making the system better within those parameters????
I'm not at all surprised. After all, the republican party IS the party of "every man for themselves." You should be congratulating Gov Pawlenty for holding to this party principle.
And this gig pays better.
Maybe he will make another financial mess like he did when he was Mayor of Bloomington, MN and when he was the Governor of MN. They should have checked his credentials before making him CEO of Financial Services Roundtable.
WOW Another RAT jumping ship, How predictable they are.
I am not completely sure, but I think this may actually be a boost to the Romney campaign. What I am more sure of is this is not going to help the wall street banks at all. Tim Pawlenty appears to me to be a loser and nothing more.
they want to be a STAR spell it backwards RATS!!!!!!!! THEY just like snakes shed there skin an slider off for the next person to robbed
With the election only 47 days away - this is an interesting move....
WHO? WHO? Who bloody well cares? Pawlenty, just another Tea Party oddball who didn't make the grade, is quitting a losing cause.