Iowa State Can't Afford Speaking Fee for Former GOP Presidential Candidate Tim Pawlenty

Losing in the Iowa Straw Poll isn't all bad as some contenders for the Republican presidential nomination learned in 2012.

Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota Governor who sought the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, now charges a speaking fee of $25,000, according to emails from Iowa State University's Harkin Institute of Public Policy, reported on in an Associated Press story.

Emails released by ISU show that the Institute asked Pawlenty to speak about Iowa's first in the nation Caucus status but couldn't afford the fee plus expenses and dropped the idea after Pat Miller, Iowa State University lectures program coordinator objected to the payment, according to a report from the Associated Press.

Pawlenty ended his bid for the White House in August 2011 after coming in third place at the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames. His display on the grounds of the Iowa State Center was among the largest of the Republicans who showed up. 2012 GOP Nominee Mitt Romney, didn't participate in the August 2011 fundraiser for Iowa's Republican Party.