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Pawlenty auditioning for VP slot?

Would a certain someone, namely a former Republican candidate from Minnesota, consider the VP slot on a Romney ticket?

Would a certain someone, namely a former Republican candidate from Minnesota, consider the VP slot on a Romney ticket? msnbc's Lawrence O'Donnell teased former candidate Tim Pawlenty about it on the show last night.

And how could he not? You gotta admit, Pawlenty totally sang Willard's praises on the show and defended him when others in the Republican party have been pushing the "not-Mitt Romney" campaign on the hush hush.

The ever-so humble Pawlenty has repeatedly shot down that kind of talk. But, the former Minnesota governor has wholeheartedly thrown his support behind the former Massachusetts governor, even becoming his national co-chair. But when Pawlenty was running for the Republican nomination, he took on Romney over his flip-flops on healthcare and even coined the phrase "Obamaneycare."


At one of the GOP debates many moons ago Pawlenty said, "Look, Obamacare was patterned after Mitt's plan in Massachusetts. And for Mitt or anyone else to say there aren't substantial similarities or they are not essentially the same plan — it just isn't credible. So that's why I called it Obamneycare, and I think that's a fair label."

Now, he brushes that criticism under the rug by defending Romney's healthcare mandate as a good thing specifically for Massachusetts and reiterated Romney "does not support it as a federal initiative."

T-Paw gave a tough defense of Romney's recent attack on President Obama, widely hailed as a big fat lie to voters. "Most people are concerned about the economy," he told Lawrence. "Barack Obama mocked John McCain's campaign" for how they dealt with the economy. He said "now it's time to have President Obama held accountable for his record of performance on the economy."

"Beautiful" audition indeed.