Romney to announce running mate on Saturday @9am ET in Norfolk, VA

[Bull Moose Base]

I don't think Pawlenty is the frontrunner, though yeah, a couple of different sources have said that he's popular in Romney's inner circle.  National Journal mentioned it, as did Chuck Todd on MSNBC:

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-daily-rundown/47764844

Btw, McCain has floated Hoeven as a possible Romney running mate:

http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/162705/group/homepage/

but there's nothing to suggest that the campaign itself is considering him.

It's also interesting that North Carolina is the "audition state" for the VP prospects:

http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/06/hie-thee-to-north-carolina.php

I think Pawlenty has always been the frontrunner in Romney's mind, at least as the safest default candidate.  TPaw is the safety school of VP candidates.  There are a lot of wildcard options and newish politicians like portman and rubio.  But as far as potential VP candidates from the batch of presidential debaters this year, its always been TPaw.  TPaw was the finalist to Palin in Mccain's camp.  For some reason, he is held in high esteem by certain gop campaign members.  He has an easy-going, pleasing personality.  He's young, mildly attractive.  He's very safe, like a naive younger brother. 

But I think Romney can do better in VP picks, but only if he wants to do better, and take a risk with someone more well-known, more established, but also his own man, and not a romney suck-up.  Americans don't want idiotic yes men, they want visionaries. 

I think Romney wants a safe anti-Palin; and TPaw is at the 50-50 mark that he is not as bad as Palin in experience or intelligence or scandals.  But being scandal-free should not be the only deciding point for a VP. 

I think Pawlenty is easily the frontrunner.  Romney campaign's risk averse, especially with economy soft.

[Bull Moose Base]

It'll be a couple days before the convention as per convention. Can't imagine it's not Pawlenty.  I guess Portman is possible.