Despite abandoning his own 2010 re-election bid earlier this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty maintains that the Republican party as a whole needs to focus on next year’s elections rather than look ahead to 2012.

“We need to make sure that we have ideas that matter, that help people ,that are consistent with values and principles,” he said in an interview with the Ripon Forum, a publication of the Republican policy group the Ripon Society. “So nobody should be looking ahead to 2012.”

And Pawlenty has plenty of advice for what type of ideas the party should embrace.