This seems to be, as far as I can tell, a complete misreading of the GOP field. Pawlenty is running as the all-of-the-above candidate; he stands to win if Republicans want a normally credentialed nominee who is solid on every issue without being crazy and if, for a variety of possible reasons, the party rejects Mitt Romney.

As such, he certainly needs to demonstrate at least some ability to draw votes in Iowa, but that’s about it; most of what matters to Pawlenty is whether any other candidate shows up who encroaches on his turf, and then what happens to Romney. Bachmann is mostly irrelevant to that. ~Jonathan Bernstein

Bearing in mind what Bernstein has said here on plausible nominees, Bachmann is more relevant than he thinks. She does hurt Pawlenty in a few ways. Among activists right now, she is both better-known and more well-liked, and she probably steals some of the support Pawlenty would receive in Iowa as the governor of a neighboring state. Bachmann encroaches on his “turf” in that she is arguably more “solid” on every issue than he is, and what others may regard as her craziness is the very thing that generates greater enthusiasm among her supporters. There was a spot in the crowded field that Pawlenty was going to have, and Bachmann now largely fills that spot or takes up enough of it to render Pawlenty as an also-ran rather a top-three finisher in Iowa. Buchanan didn’t become the nominee in ’96, but his success in Louisiana led to Gramm’s early defeat and withdrawal. The Politico article on the two described them this way:

She’s a lightning rod for political controversy, a conservative provocateur with strong tea party credentials and a significant grassroots following. The former governor, who is more closely affiliated with the business-oriented conservative wing, is often criticized for being boring.

It’s easy to imagine how Pawlenty could share Gramm’s fate, and that would be to a large degree because of Bachmann.