In hindsight, it was probably the wrong strategy for former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to focus almost exclusively on ahead of the GOP Straw Poll, according to one of his advisers.

Vin Weber

Former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, who joined the Mitt Romney campaign as an unpaid adviser after Pawlenty dropped out of the race for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, defended the underlying premise of the Pawlenty campaign — that the two-term Minnesota governor could appeal to both conservatives and independents in a general election showdown with President Obama — but told MinnPost.com it wasn’t the right strategy for the early stages of the race.

“Earlier in the process, what we have learned, at least in this environment, is that people are more interested in making an ideological statement, and I think that’s what happened,” said Weber, who was a Romney adviser in 2008. “Tim Pawlenty passed all the litmus tests, but he wasn’t the symbolic, ideological statement that I think people at this stage in the process [wanted].”

Tim Pawlenty

For the full MinnPost.com interview with Weber, click here.