nhboy
08-03-2012, 04:02 PM
Link to original source. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/03/tim-pawlenty-tax-vice-presidential?CMP=SOCxx2I2)
Former Minnestota governor Tim Pawlenty, a leading VP contender, was forced to correct his campaign disclosure forms after questionable telecom payments were revealed.
The touting of Tim Pawlenty as potential running-mate for Mitt Romney has reignited questions over his refusal as governor of Minnesota to release tax returns during a scandal over payments from a company owned by a close political ally.
Democrats have been digging into a web of allegations from nine years ago which involved Pawlenty's use of a shell corporation to shield $60,000 in payments from a telecommunications group during his election campaign that were not declared to the state's campaign finance board. The money came from a firm run by a prominent Republican strategist. Pawlenty had until recently been a board member.
Opponents accused Pawlenty of accepting an unethical and possibly illegal salary to campaign. The scandal widened because the telecommunications group making the payments was exposed for scamming customers, many of them elderly.
Pawlenty is touted as a leading candidate to be Mitt Romney's running-mate in part because his background is seen as a political antidote to Romney's life of privilege. He is the working class son of a truck driver, who knows adversity after his mother died while he was a boy and his father lost his job.
But if he is on the Republican ticket, a fresh airing of the allegations from 2003 is not only likely to undermine Pawlenty's attempts to portray himself as the voice of the working man but threatens to draw unwelcome attention to difficult issues for Romney – the pressure to release his own tax returns, the morality of his business practices and the parking of millions of dollars in shell companies.
Former Minnestota governor Tim Pawlenty, a leading VP contender, was forced to correct his campaign disclosure forms after questionable telecom payments were revealed.
The touting of Tim Pawlenty as potential running-mate for Mitt Romney has reignited questions over his refusal as governor of Minnesota to release tax returns during a scandal over payments from a company owned by a close political ally.
Democrats have been digging into a web of allegations from nine years ago which involved Pawlenty's use of a shell corporation to shield $60,000 in payments from a telecommunications group during his election campaign that were not declared to the state's campaign finance board. The money came from a firm run by a prominent Republican strategist. Pawlenty had until recently been a board member.
Opponents accused Pawlenty of accepting an unethical and possibly illegal salary to campaign. The scandal widened because the telecommunications group making the payments was exposed for scamming customers, many of them elderly.
Pawlenty is touted as a leading candidate to be Mitt Romney's running-mate in part because his background is seen as a political antidote to Romney's life of privilege. He is the working class son of a truck driver, who knows adversity after his mother died while he was a boy and his father lost his job.
But if he is on the Republican ticket, a fresh airing of the allegations from 2003 is not only likely to undermine Pawlenty's attempts to portray himself as the voice of the working man but threatens to draw unwelcome attention to difficult issues for Romney – the pressure to release his own tax returns, the morality of his business practices and the parking of millions of dollars in shell companies.