Pawlenty on the Individual Mandate

Via Dave Weigel, a new web video of mysterious origins is highlighting some Tim Pawlenty's more moderate statements. His past support of cap-and-trade is well known and he's already walked it back. The video includes a soundbite that might be problematic for Pawlenty.

In the video (around the 40-second mark) Pawlenty says while discussing health care: "I think a mandate by itself is potentially helpful." It's not clear when Pawlenty made that statement. As Ben Smith reports, Pawlenty was "open" to a mandate in 2006, but said "a mandate by itself does not much."

"If you are poor and don't have the resources or don't have the ability to access insurance because there are barriers to that, a mandate by itself is not much of a solution," Pawlenty said.

"And so, the question then becomes - if you're going to require insurance -- and I think that is a worthy goal and one that we're intrigued by and I think at least open to, how then do you enable people to access the insurance?" Pawlenty said 

Read Smith's report here.