None of you remember this, but way back in the early days of the 2012 election, there was a candidate named—I know this is going to sound unbelievable, but bear with me—"Newt Gingrich." I know! He launched a presidential campaign that immediately crashed into a brick wall. In the span of a week, he completely decimated his chances of becoming president. That was millions of years ago. Newt Gingrich was never heard from again.

Now, it looks like Tim Pawlenty is taking the Newt Gingrich way out of the 2012 campaign. First, he attacked Mitt Romney behind his back, then refused to attack Romney to his face during Monday's debate. This caused a lot of folks to accuse Pawlenty of wishy-washiness, which is maybe the worst label you can slap on a presidential candidate. Now, Pawlenty's proposed budget makes George W. Bush's budget look positively stingy:

Today a new analysis revealed that Pawlenty’s economic plan — unveiled last week in Chicago — would benefit the wealthiest Americans far more than even the Bush tax cuts did. Using a breakdown by the Tax Policy Center, the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities found that Pawlenty’s tax cuts for the rich would be four times larger than Bush’s were.

“Specifically,” wrote the CBPP’s Chuck Marr, “in 2013 the Pawlenty plan would give people in the top one-tenth of 1 percent on the income scale (ie. people with incomes above $2.7 million) an average annual tax cut of $1.8 million — which is more than four times what they got last year from the Bush tax cuts.”

That's a whole lot to ask even the hardiest of Republicans to swallow, and it ties Pawlenty directly to George W. Bush, which is the kiss of death in this Republican field. All he needs is one more Gingrich-like mistake this week, and he'll fade into the mists of memory, too.