Tim Pawlenty A few minutes ago, I interviewed Gov. Tim Pawlenty about his official entry into the race, which will occur this afternoon in Iowa, and his campaign theme of “Time for Truth.” As I noted earlier today, Pawlenty offered a sneak peek of this new approach by specifically focusing on farm subsidies, a particularly difficult issue in Iowa. I asked Pawlenty whether Iowans are ready for that much truth, and he believes they are. “We can’t fix this the fiscal crisis if we take the position that we’re only going to cut someone else’s stuff.

Pawlenty says. “We’re going to look the people of Iowa in the eye and talk about the need to gradually reduce over time ethanol subsidies. We’re going to go down to Florida and talk about the need to fix Social Security to seniors,” he explained, not by changing it for current recipients but by making changes to the retirement age “for the next generation.” Pawlenty says that afterwards, he’ll go to Wall Street and tell them that the era of bailouts are over: