I stand fast in my belief (shared, apparently, with Andrew Sullivan) that the decision has already been made to offer the #2 spot to Tim Pawlenty.

Predictions aside, The New York Observer’s Steve Kornacki writes that the Governor may be a little too “white bread” to change the electoral dynamics of the 2008 election:

Just yesterday, in what amounted to an informal audition for McCain’s No. 2 slot, Pawlenty gave a flat performance on ABC’s This Week, where he was paired against Democratic Representative Rahm Emanuel in a dueling-surrogates segment. Pawlenty was faithful to the McCain’s campaign’s message of the week – that Barack Obama, unlike McCain, has never risked the ire of his own party in pursuing his political principles – but there was nothing distinct or memorable about his presentation. His arguments, his tone, his cadence and even his attempts at humor (“The Obama and Hillary Clinton rally shouldn’t have been in Unity, New Hampshire – it should have been in “Political Expediency, New Hampshire!”) were utterly formulaic.

Most voters will probably think about McCain’s vice-presidential candidate only three times: when McCain announces his choice, when the V.P. candidate addresses the Republican convention, and during the V.P. debate in the fall.

So what value would Pawlenty add to the ticket? His first opportunity for publicity – when McCain announces the pick – would be a wasted venture because no one (outside of Minnesota) knows Pawlenty and there’s nothing dramatic in his background (he’s spent his life in Minnesota politics). He’ll come across as another late-middle-aged politician with talking points.

Nor would Pawlenty be likely to excel in his convention speech or in the fall debate, the other two occasions when he’d be in position to sway mass opinion. As his appearance on ABC on Sunday showed, and as just about all of his appearances elsewhere have shown this year, he is a competent speaker and debater, fully capable of delivering exactly the kind of performance that voters would expect from someone who strikes them as a generic politician. Lloyd Bentsen, the Democrats’ ’88 V.P. pick, used his debate with Dan Quayle to transform himself from a generic-seeming politician into a player in his own right. There’s been little to suggest that we can suggest any such transformation from Pawlenty, who struggled to stand out on Sunday against Rahm Emanuel.