Defining Pawlenty As Palin

That seems to me to be the take-out of Axelrod's chat with Tapper. This struck me as worth noting from the Ax:

I can see that this as a concern that, that Republicans on the right are threatening to purge moderates who have the temerity to say, "Yes, we are going to cooperate with the president or our Democratic colleagues to solve a health care problem, to help solve the economic problems that we have." And it has a chilling effect. And one hopes that they are not intimidated. You saw the other day Gov. Pawlenty taking off against (Maine Republican) Senator (Olympia) Snowe for having worked with us to try to solve the health care problem. I think that sends a very tough message and you know we're going to have to work our way through that.

So from a governing standpoint I don't think this is a great development. From a political standpoint I think it's disastrous for the Republican party.

Lose-lose in other words.