Tim Pawlenty No Longer Unemployed

It's days like this that remind you why the president has erased Mitt Romney's polling advantage on issues of job creation and the economy. When even Tim Pawlenty is able to land a high-paying job, you know it's Morning in America.

The former governor of Minnesota is stepping down as co-chair of the Romney 2012 campaign — no worries, there's no shortage of wooden things in Mitt Romney's camp — to be the new head of The Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group whose members include JPMorgan Chase and Co., Citigroup Inc. and The Allstate Corporation.

This may be a little incongruous for those who remember Pawlenty for statements like this…

I went to Wall Street and told them to get their snout out of the trough. We're not going to do any more bailouts or carve outs or handouts there.

And it may be a job posting difficult to square with Pawlenty's notion that the GOP should be "the party of Sam's Club, not just the country club." In fact, he'll be a perfect fit. The banking industry loves buying financial regulators in bulk.

.

Related: Proof Tim Pawlenty Is Exciting [GALLERY]

Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Banks, Lobbyists, Tim Pawlenty

Tweet Untweet: You Tax Dollars at Play

House Republicans furious GSA would spend taxpayer dollars on a trip to Vegas when there are so many tobacco lobbyists willing to pay for it

— David Feldman (@David_Feldman_) April 18, 2012

Tags: Corruption, House of Representatives, Las Vegas, Lobbyists, Republicans, Tweet Untweet, Twitter

When Rick Santorum Loved Hot Man on Man Action

In the contest between senator "man on dog" versus governor "dog on car," the divergence in public images is clear. Mitt Romney is the temporizer who will come around to believe entirely, wholeheartedly, unconditionally in whatever it is that you want him to believe at the moment. Rick Santorum is the consistent social conservative scold, who sees Satan in everything from pornography to the "sexualized violence" of contemporary professional wrestling.

Turns out the picture is more complicated, since Santorum is partially responsible for what pro-wrestling has become. Following graduation from snob school, Santorum worked as a lobbyist, whose job it was to remove the World Wrestling Federation from the clutches of Pennsylvania bureaucrats…

Beginning in 1987, Santorum's mission, as dictated by the WWF, was simple: Get the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission out of the ring. There was no need for state officials to act as referees, because wrestling was a spectacle, not a sport. Nor did it need the state to supply timekeepers, announcers, and doctors — the promoters could take care of that…

Santorum, who called the state's regulatory structure "pernicious" in a later interview, had some legitimate grievances. "They go there, they sit ringside, they bring their friends over the barricade…and they watch the match," he said of state athletic officials. "That's how wrestling is regulated in Pennsylvania." Nothing could justify paying state employees to referee a staged contest: "They made you pay all this money to the boxing commission. They used to just rape these guys," he said, referring to the state agency's treatment of wrestling promoters.

So perhaps Santorum had a point, but I'm fascinated by his views on purely metaphorical "rape" of wrestling promoters. If only he was so compassionate to victims of actual rape.

.

Related: Rick Santorum Says Reasonable Thing About Afghanistan

Photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Lobbyists, Primaries, Republicans, Rick Santorum, Sports, Wrestling

Our Endorsements: SNL's Moon President

* SNL takes on the Newt Gingrich moon colony.

* Joe Mande: Twitter's political prankster, from Politico.

* The Many Loves of Mitt Romney, from Vice.com

* From The Onion, a congressman is sad to learn that a lobbyist isn't really his friend.

* An Osama bin Laden zombie movie is coming out, provided it gets enough funding.

Tags: Abortion, BuzzFeed, Daily Links, House of Representatives, Lobbyists, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Osama bin Laden, Planned Parenthood, Saturday Night Live, The Onion, Twitter, Washington DC

U.S. Congress Now Considered Less Trustworthy Than Lobbyists

You've probably heard tell of this trend in a story or two (or fifty-six), but people these days are not particularly keen on the people we have representing us in the U.S. Congress. At all!

Why, you may ask, do people feel this way? Maybe it's just a natural swing of the pendulum public opinion, as pendulums are wont to swing. Or maybe it's because there's overwhelming evidence that they're actively working in opposition to the interests of the voters who gave them their jobs. Who can say?!

Just how low is public opinion of Congress? Funny you should ask. You know those people on whom corporations dump millions of dollars to sway congressional support away from things that you want and towards things that they want? Some people call them "lobbyists." Others call them, "the guy who's picking up the check at dinner tonight."

Anyway, those people were just found to be more morally and ethically upright than your elected representative…

To be fair, lobbyists actually are doing the job that they were sent to Washington to do.

So, you know.

Photo by Visions of America/Joe Sohm/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Tags: House of Representatives, Lobbyists, Polls, Senate