While he was in Washington to speak to the Young Republicans Friday, Gov. Pawlenty stopped by for an interview with CBS veteran Bob Schieffer on a web-only program called "Washington Unplugged." It was another view of the rollout of Pawlenty's fairly unconvincing I'm-not-running-for-anything tour.

The video is just below and if your browser is like mine, it's already starting. If you want to stop it until you've read my humble analysis, use the pause button. (I couldn't get it it to show up without going directly to play.) The Pawlenty section is the first six minutes and 15 seconds.

I still say he comes across as likeable, and that's not nothing. But he also comes across as lacking in candor and devoid of specifics.

When Schieffer asked him if he was even thinking about running for president Pawlenty began his response with the word "no." 

It went like this:

Schieffer:"So, in all candor, you’re thinking about it?"

Pawlenty: "Well, no, I really don’t know what the future holds for me.  I do want to try to be a voice about improving the Republican Party. And I don’t know, three years down the road, whether I’m going to cutting grass the city of Eagan or continuing in politics or in business."

Which seems a bit much. The grass-cutting line is cute, humble, regular guy. Fine. And we're accustomed to people in this mode being coy about their plans. But would it really be so dangerous to say: "Yes, of course I'm thinking about it. But I have a lot more thinking and exploring to do before I would be ready to commit to running for president."

Pawlenty also used the interview to preview the pitch he is making, at least at this stage, to be considered for the role of future Repub nominee. It suffered from extreme vagueness. My rough transcriptions:

Schieffer: Why does the Republican Party need new ideas?

Pawlenty: "Because we’re getting our tails kicked in elections? So one definition of success in politics is: Do you win? Can you govern? And do you have ideas that can help people and make a positive difference? So, some things I would like to talk about on behalf of the Republican Party is the need to be positive and hopeful and optimistic. I think people want to follow that kind of leadership. As opposed to negative and cynical and demeaning."

This is clearly an effort to contrast himself with some unnamed members of the rest of the potential Republican field or other leading voices of Republicanism, who are deemed negative, cynical and demeaning. there's also some magic words in that statement associated with Ronald Reagan's political style.

"Number two: ideas and values matter.  The idea factory on the Republican side has grown a little stale. And we need some fresh ideas and fresh approaches to new and modern issues."

You may notice that he is not specifying any of these fresh ideas or approaches. Presumably, he will do so elsewhere.

"And lastly we need to do a better job of growing the party. And reaching out to groups that are not yet Republican. Including doing a better job with younger voters and women and more diverse communities."

Right. How?

Schiffer asked about the elements of the party, Rush Limbaugh was mentioned, that are after purity, who can't tolerate people who disagree with the party line on any issue.

Pawlenty: "I think it’s true that we need to be a party of values and principles, starting with remembering what those principles are and why we believe in them. And then being able to articulate them in ways that educate voters and persuade voters.

But we also should keep in mind that if people agree with us 90 percent of the time or 85 percent of the time, as Ronald Reagan used to say, those people are our friends, not our enemies. So we need to be about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division. So, Rush Limbaugh is a really important voice for the party for the conservative movement. His ratings demonstrate that. But we also need to make sure that we are growing the party. And he can help do that and it's not just about one person, me or anyone else, it's about how do we grow this thing...

Our task and our opportunity is not to pretend like we’re Democrats or liberals and dilute our values or principles or diminish them, but to try to get more Democrats and independenta to become Republicans."

Having declared himself to be a new idea man, Pawlenty expressed no policy ideas. Having advertised himself as a voice for positive, optimistic attitudes, he showed none of it when Schieffer asked him what he thought about Obama's leadership so far, TPaw kept smiling but predicted doom:

Pawlenty: "His policies, I think are going to be viewed in historical terms as having been horribly misdirected for our country. We are looking at the nationalization of the auto, industry, the partial or full nationalization fo the health care industry, the partial or full nationalization fo the energy industry. I think you're going to see the further federalization of  the education infrastructure in the country. We're seeing monetary and fiscal and spending policies that are in my view reckless and that's going to come back to haunt us in, I think, very dramatic ways. I don't know if that's going to be in six months or six years, but that's coming."

I share a general fiscal conservative concern about adding trillions to the debt. Pres. Obama claims to also share this concern. If Pawlenty is offering himself as the alternative to Obama, he must eventually say what he would have done instead of, for examplke, all the bailouts. (He has said that he would not have bailed out the auto companies and allowed them to go through bankruptcy without infusions of government money.)

Lastly, Schieffer tried to get something on Pawlenty's plans for signing an election certificate in case the MN Supremes rule that Al Franken won the Senate election. Pawlenty said again that he will follow the court's direction, but once again -- and it's uncanny how he manages to repeat this verbatim aside every time -- Pawlenty inserted language to seems to indicate he might not issue the certificate unless the Supremes directly order him to do so:

"I’m gonna follow the direction of the court... When the Minnesota Supreme Court finally rules, and if they direct me to sign that certificate, I’m gonna follow the direction of the court."