Campaign 2008

Pawlenty: Obama is too liberal

by Tim Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio

St. Paul, Minn. — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama can't formally claim his party's nomination for the White House. But Republicans weren't waiting to start running against him ahead of this fall's election.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the Illinois Senator was ranked as the most liberal member of Congress, which Pawlenty said was hard thing to do given how liberal some Congressional members.

"He also was ranked recently as the number one most liberal senator in the country," Pawlenty said in a press conference earlier today. "That's pretty hard to do when you think about other senators across the country and in certain states that have such a liberal tradition."

Pawlenty said Obama was far out of the political mainstream to be president.

"To be the number one most liberal United States senator, shows that he is out of the mainstream of American politics and voting patterns, even amongst Congress that has a majority of Democrats at present," Pawlenty said.

Pawlenty is national co-chair of Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. Pawlenty said McCain will launch his campaign against Obama in New Orleans tonight.