Tim Pawlenty is high on life, and the Paul Ryan budget proposal:
Likely presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty (R) on Tuesday praised House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for proposing his tough budget.
"Thanks to Paul Ryan in Congress, the American people finally have someone offering real leadership in Washington," the former Minnesota governor said in a statement. "President Obama has failed to lead and make tough choices his entire time in the White House."
I trashed David Brooks' column, but he was right about one thing: Ryan's budget will become the de facto platform of Republican presidential candidates in 2012. I'm not sure that this will have a huge effect within the GOP, but it will almost certainly leave the eventual Republican candidate vulnerable to the (accurate) charge that they want to dismantle Medicaid. Next year, I fully expect Democrats to run a liberal variation on this ad:
