Pawlenty Defends GOP Against Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush knows his people, and he knows how much they love Ronald Reagan. So he must have known there’d be some backlash when he suggested that his own party members have turned into the type of Republicans who wouldn’t even elect their own hero if he were running today. And here comes that backlash! Tim Pawlenty took to Morning Joe Wednesday to say that’s not so! In fact, he argued, Mitt Romney is a “Ronald Reagan–type figure.” He countered Bush’s statement, insisting that “obviously the party changes and evolves over time, but to say that, you know, the Republican party currently wouldn’t endorse Ronald Reagan or something like that, you know we just nominated Mitt Romney, or presumptively nominated Mitt Romney, who is in the Reagan tradition.”