The Republican presidential nomination fight for 2012 has been reset after a hard-fought straw-poll win, the entrance of a new contestant and the withdrawal from the race by Tim Pawlenty.

The former Minnesota governor announced today in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program that he’s ending his campaign after finishing third yesterday in the Iowa Straw Poll.

“I thought I would have been a great president, but obviously that pathway for now isn’t there,” he said. 

U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who won yesterday’s straw poll, said on the same ABC program that Pawlenty had brought a “really important voice” to the race.

Like Bachmann, Pawlenty, 50, had concentrated his campaign on Iowa. The straw-poll results showed that Bachmann’s efforts had been more successful than his, though she didn’t formally announce her candidacy until June 27.

“The party is going to be now more broadly discussing who they want for their candidate, not just in Iowa, but in other places around the country,” Pawlenty said.

For himself, Pawlenty said he knew that his fundraising would be hurt by his straw-poll finish and that he wouldn’t “have the fuel to keep the car going down the road.”

Pawlenty, who made his first high-profile speech in Iowa in November 2009, said he would probably eventually endorse another candidate. He said he wasn’t interested in being vice president, after being on the short list of prospective running mates for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who picked then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Pawlenty’s “common-sense conservative voice will remain prominent and influential as we work to beat President Obama in 2012,” said Texas Governor Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy yesterday hours before Bachmann’s straw-poll win. 

(Bloomberg)