Gov. Tim Pawlenty spent the weekend schmoozing with other Republican politicos at the Arizona home of Sen. John McCain, once again fueling speculation about his political future.

The name of Pawlenty, one of the national co-chairs of McCain’s presidential campaign, has persistently popped up on short lists of potential vice-presidential running mates for the Arizona senator.

McCain and Pawlenty have consistently dismissed speculation about Pawlenty’s future role, saying they’ve never discussed it.

The presence of Pawlenty at McCain’s vacation home outside Sedona was noted Monday in several political blogs, which had been buzzing about the weekend off the campaign trail.

Among the other GOP officials who stopped over the weekend were longtime McCain ally Sen. Lindsay Graham, of South Carolina, and South Dakota Sen. John Thune (who’s also ended up on some vice-presidential lists).

The weekend was billed as a chance for McCain to kick back before the primaries Tuesday that are expected to clinch the Republican nomination for him. Characteristically, he also served up barbecue for the traveling press corps he used to jokingly refer to as his “base.”

Here are a few of the blog accounts of the get-together in the desert.

From The Swamp.

Politico’s take. (scroll down)

And Fox News…

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm and is filed under John McCain, Presidential, Republicans, Tim Pawlenty, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.