Courage to Stand
An American Story
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
Long before he was considered a top prospective presidential candidate for 2012—even before he landed on John McCain’s short list of potential running mates in 2008—Governor Tim Pawlenty had already earned legendary status in conservative circles. In his hard-left-leaning home state of Minnesota, the man known as “T-Paw” somehow erased a $4.8-billion budget deficit while simultaneously reforming health care, creating jobs, improving education, and supporting renewable energy reform—all without raising taxes.
In Courage to Stand, Pawlenty reveals, for the first time, how he found the resolve to get the job done, taking readers all the way back to the lessons he learned as a boy in the gritty meatpacking town of South St. Paul. From the devastating early death of his mother to the struggle to work his way through college and law school and his epic political battles as governor, Pawlenty opens up about his deepest beliefs and shares his vision for a better America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Minnesota's soon-to-be-former governor might have chosen a Christian publisher for his memoir, but his story is not principally a religious one. Pawlenty, who was one of Sen. John McCain's finalists for the vice-presidential spot in the failed 2008 Republican campaign, has written a readable political manifesto intended to position him for a future presidential run. It describes his upbringing near the stockyards of South St. Paul as the great-grandson of Polish immigrants. The closing of the stockyards and the death of his mother from ovarian cancer while he was still in high school shaped Pawlenty's fighting mentality and drew him to Ronald Reagan and Republican politics. His marriage to Mary Anderson, a member of Leith Anderson's Wooddale Church, led him to leave the Catholic Church and become an evangelical. His rise from city councilman to state legislator to governor was swift in a traditionally blue state, but his "no-new-taxes" and fiscal austerity platforms are familiar to the point of being clich d. This book will not surprise his ardent admirers or endear him to many Democrats.
