Tim “T-Paw” Pawlenty just picked up Republican wunderkind Nick Ayers to be the campaign manager of his presidential campaign. T-Paw has a decent chance of winning the nomination. In fact, if there were an office pool, I’d put my money on him to win the nomination – not because he’s the first choice of anyone except his close family and his roommate from his freshman year of college – but simply because every other candidate will eventually prove themselves as unpalatable in some key way. Pawlenty may be bland, he may be almost unspeakably boring, but he’s not unpalatable. At least not since he got a haircut and lost his “Fisher-Price Baby’s First Mullet” a few years back.

Right now, his main problem is relatively low name recognition, which is why he’s getting such an early start. Mitt “I was for healthcare reform before I knew Obama liked it” Romney, Newt “my patriotism made me drop trou and have sex with with a much younger member of my staff while I was married to my second wife” Gingrinch, and Michelle “crazy eyes” Bachmann have more national fame and can afford to wait longer.

One of the most interesting things about this pick up is that Ayers real moment of fame came last year when the Republican Governors Association (RGA), for which he was their executive director, was led by Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi. That was when the RGA became a true fundraising juggernaut and took the sort of leadership that the RNC failed to do under Michael Steele (and, frankly, under Mel Martinez, too – the jury is still out on the current chair, but you could argue that the RNC hasn’t had a truly competent chair since Ken Mehlman).

What I’m saying is, you would have expected Ayers to go over to Barbour’s team.

This suggests a couple of possibilities. The first is that Ayers didn’t think he could compete with the influence of Barbour’s long time political strategist and nephew, Henry Barbour (it sounds like pure nepotism, but Henry has earned his spurs). The second is that during the time that Ayers worked hand in hand with Barbour, he got a close look at the Mississippian’s flaws and weaknesses and concluded that the jovial looking drawler with the weirdly small feet couldn’t win.

As always, caveat lector: I lost an election to Haley and Henry Barbour eight years ago.