Tim Pawlenty was supposed to be different. He was going to be the architect of a new Republican Party that focused less on the needs of the country club and more on the needs of the kind of people who shop at Sam’s Club. Then, when he began his run for president, he introduced a tax plan that “offered the bottom 20 percent an average of $23 and the top 1 percent an average of $260,000.” In June 2011, while his campaign was very much still alive, Pawlenty was asked, “What is your truth message to Wall Street?” He responded:

“It will be, ‘Get your snout out of the trough just like everybody else.’ If I am president, we will not have any more bailouts, carveouts, handouts or special deals. We will reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%. We will get rid of all the deductions, credits, or exemptions, and you will compete not based on your connections to a congressman, but connections whether you can convince consumers if you have a good product.”

Tim Pawlenty is the only man who managed to be on both John McCain and Mitt Romney’s short list for running mate. Until this morning, he was co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s campaign. He would undoubtedly be offered a top position in a Romney administration, but today he decided to jump ship.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will take over one of K Street’s most prestigious jobs as CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable.

The group announced Thursday morning that the former GOP candidate for president would replace longtime CEO Steve Bartlett. Pawlenty will step down as co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to take the position.

“Tim’s leadership, vision and ability to find common ground make him the right choice to represent the broad membership of the Financial Services Roundtable,” said Tim Wilson, the group’s chairman and CEO of Allstate.

“He is exactly the kind of leader we need to continue to improve our industry’s reputation, advocate firm-but-fair regulation and help maintain our global leadership of the financial markets.”

In his new job as a top lobbyist for Wall Street, he will be the one making connections to congressmen and women, and he won’t be seeking to take away Wall Street’s “deductions, credits, or exemptions.” But, of course, he was never going to do those things as president, either. That was all a pretense.

I don’t think there is much difference between lobbying for Wall Street and serving as co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s campaign, but this spectacle shows how empty all these gestures to the middle class really are. Tim Pawlenty can take his Sam’s Club card and bite me.

If you need any more proof that the GOP is all about the plutocrats look at a speech Paul Ryan gave back in 2005 that people are looking at anew. In that speech, Rep. Ryan describes Social Security and Medicare as “socialistic” and “collectivist” and says that the Republicans’ long-term goal must be to privatize them. In his world, having your retirement money in the hands of a mutual fund manager turns you into a “capitalist” and an “owner” who won’t consider voting for the Democrats. It’s both ideological and rawly political. But, I’m sorry, a guy or a gal who is working on a General Motors assembly line is not suddenly an “owner” or a “capitalist” just because his Social Security is now dependent on the vagaries of the stock market.

These are plans to screw the middle and working classes. If you care to look with open eyes, this is as plain as Mitt Romney’s condescending attitude.