“He was uncomfortable with the attack,” said a Pawlenty strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. “It is not his style to attack another individual. He had been burned for not attacking Romney. But he looked uncomfortable doing it, and I think voters to this day are uncomfortable when a man attacks a woman.”…

“We were a tortoise — not a camel,” said Nick Ayers, Pawlenty’s campaign manager. “Campaign camels can go a long time without water. Tortoises can’t.”

And Pawlenty didn’t want to go into debt. On Saturday, after the straw poll was done, he told Ayers, “I’m not personally wealthy. . . . I don’t want to drag this out for two or four weeks and risk not being able to pay my staff on time.”