Here, There And Everywhere: Tim Pawlenty’s Media Tour (VIDEOS)

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), a potential presidential candidate who is much less well known to the national public than other Republicans, has been very busy of late. As we saw last week, he criss-crossed the media circuit, and had a lot to say.

From a strategic standpoint, this would make a lot of sense. Compared to other possible 2012 contenders out there – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, etc. — Pawlenty has close to no name recognition throughout the country. Unlike Romney, he hasn’t run for president before; unlike Gingrich, he hasn’t held national office; and unlike Palin, he actually served two full terms as governor without resigning.

As such, many believe that the best thing Pawlenty can do right now is ramp up his book tour, promote himself before the media, and get onto as many TV sets as possible. So let’s take a look at his various appearances from the past week.

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Meet The 2012 GOPers: Ex Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN)]

• Tuesday January 11 was an especially busy day. In an appearance on Good Morning America, he was asked about whether Sarah Palin’s infamous crosshair map might have had an influence in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

“It wouldn’t have been my style to put the crosshairs on there,” Pawlenty said. “But again there’s no evidence to suggest that that had anything to do with this mentally unstable person’s rage and senseless acts.”

• In addition on Tuesday, he appeared on Fox News with Neil Cavuto, where he said that a government shutdown in his state had gone okay: “One of things I wonder is whether I should have let the shut down run longer to get more of my agenda through.”

• And finally on Tuesday, Pawlenty appeared on Parker-Spitzer on CNN.

“The country is going to have to look for a leader who’s going to have an uncommon amount of fortitude,” Pawlenty said. “Not just to flap their jaw out, not just to offer failed amendments, not just to give a speech, but to get it done.”

However, Pawlenty was able to offer only a few ideas on how he would deal with the federal deficit. But he did say that there would be tough cuts in entitlement programs: “You can’t say you’re going to solve these problems without looking the American people in the eye and saying we’re going to have to restructure and reform the entitlement programs with particular emphasis on cost containment and health care.”

• But Pawlenty was only warming up. On Wednesday, he went right into the lion’s den — for an extra-length interview with Jon Stewart, only half of which was aired on TV, and the rest of it posted online.

Stewart asked why conservatives were so afraid of expanded government power, when they weren’t worried about the very broad expansions of power under George W. Bush.

In response, Pawlenty said that there is a “continuum between liberty and tyranny.”

• And that’s not all. Pawlenty sat in with both the left (Stewart) and the far-right on Wednesday. For the far-right, he joined social conservative activist Bryan Fischer, who has previously said that there should be “no more mosques, period,” allowed to be built in the United States, and complained that the Medal of Honor was becoming “feminized.”

During the interview, Pawlenty said he would seek to reverse the recent repeal of the ban on gays in the military, saying he had “been a public supporter of maintaining Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I would support reinstating it as well.”

• On Thursday, Pawlenty spoke to the George Washington University College Republicans, and expanded on the idea of reinstating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” As Pawlenty explained it, such a policy change wouldn’t really make a difference to the services — since the repeal would take time to implement, no actual changes would occur.

• Pawlenty also appeared on Friday all the way down in Florida, at the Hispanic Leadership Network, a conservative group organized by former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) to reach out to Hispanic voters. In appearing there, Pawlenty was the only potential GOP presidential candidate to accept the invitation.

As CNN reported:

On why he is participating in the event, and its importance to Republicans, Pawlenty said, “Well we want to make sure that as a party – and as a conservative movement, a center-right movement – that we’re reaching out to people who are not yet on our team. And you’ve got to do that by showing up.”

Pawlenty continued: “I would say the Republican Party needs to do a better job of reaching out to the Latino community and presenting our case in a more effective way. Not just by flapping our jaw, but also showing ideas that actually work.”

• And finally, Pawlenty appeared on what might be the marquee conservative media platform — Fox News Sunday. Here he stood by his performance in the 2005 state government shutdown, and went further as to what the federal government should do.

“And as to the federal government, they should not raise the debt ceiling. I believe they should pass legislation, allow them to sequence the spending as the revenues come in to make sure they don’t default, and then have the debate about what other spending can be reduced.”

However, Pawlenty did have to deal with a tough question about how he negotiated an end to that shutdown that included…a cigarette tax increase:

Well, we had a compromise, and I picked the one that — one thing that was least harmful to economic growth of the options that we had in front of with us a Democrat legislature. You know, I never had a Republican legislature in my state.

And so, yes, we had a 75 percent — a 75-cent pack increase on cigarette fees. But you look at my record overall, it was transformational in terms of reducing spending, reducing taxes, performance pay for teachers, not just talking about the other cuts for example and pension reform but actually doing it, the leading example in the country on the reforming public employee pensions and much more.