The Iowa debate takeaway: Pawlenty and Bachmann can’t both fit in the lifeboat

TPaw turned up the heat at the Fox News Iowa debate … because he has to.

Of all the supposedly top tier Republican presidential candidates, none is more imperiled than Tim Pawlenty. His poll numbers are embarrassing. He’s raised less money than Ron Paul. He wimped out on his “Obamneycare” slap during his last tango with Willard. Rick Perry is looming on the horizon. He’s down to lowering expectations as a campaign strategy. And most importantly: he and Michele Bachmann cannot both be on the ticket. They’re from the same state, so one of them has to go.

For Tim Pawlenty, Romney is tomorrow’s game. He’s got to get past Bachmann.

And so…

Home-state rivals Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann are already going straight at each other, less than 20 minutes into the debate. Fox’s Chris Wallace touched off the blowup, listing a series of issues Pawlenty has raised about Bachmann — her migraines, her scant record of accomplishment in DC — and asking: “Is she unqualified or is she just beating you in the polls?”
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Pawlenty first pushed back on the idea that he’d questioned Bachmann’s health, saying: “I have not questioned Congresswoman Bachmann’s migraine headaches … The only headache I hear about on the campaign trail is the headache” Obama’s given the country.

“She’s done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things,” Pawlenty said, then dropping the hammer: “It’s an undisputable fact that her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent.”

Offered the opportunity to respond, Bachmann unloaded on Pawlenty’s record as governor: “When you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandate … You said the era of small government is over. That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama if you ask me.”

But wait — there’s more!

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