Kevin Krawczyk is disappointed. A manager at the Family Christian Store chain, he is hosting a book-signing for Tim Pawlenty in Lombard, Ill. “We were expecting more,” he says. The shelves are lined with many untouched copies of Courage to Stand: An American Story. Under the author’s name, the book cover identifies him: “Former Governor of Minnesota.” Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney don’t need such lines on their book covers.
As Pawlenty prepares to run for the Republican nomination for president, his main problem is simple: Most Americans have never heard of him. Republicans tend to prefer known commodities: Every winner of the Republican nomination in the last 70 years had a national reputation a year before the primaries. Courage to Stand is not selling well. Yet Pawlenty may just be the Republicans’ strongest presidential candidate for 2012. Compared with his competitors, he is either more conservative, more electable, or both.
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Pawlenty, 50, has made no formal announcement, but his schedule — including the book tour, a second speech in two years at CPAC, and plenty of stops in Iowa — means he is running for president. His campaign will probably emphasize two colors: blue and purple, describing respectively the collar of his family background and the political alignment of his state.
The book, which is pretty good by the dismal standards of the genre, describes the South St. Paul of his childhood as a meatpacking town where the milkman (and the beer man) still went door to door. He has fond memories, but it was not an idyll. Ovarian cancer killed his mother when he was 16. His father lost his job with a trucking company soon afterward, and Pawlenty had to work in the produce department of a local grocery store to make ends meet and pay tuition at the University of Minnesota. He was the first kid in his family to get a college degree. Pawlenty doesn’t peddle resentment of the rich. But he does want voters to know that he has seen hard times and struggled to succeed.
In high school, Pawlenty started to get interested in public affairs: reading U.S. News and World Report, arguing with his dad about Social Security. At college he handed out brochures for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign, which he says led to people shouting at and, in one case, spitting on him. Still in college in 1982, he worked on Republican senator David Durenberger’s reelection campaign. Then it was on to law school, where he met his wife, Mary. By all accounts she is responsible for turning him from a dutiful but somewhat shallow Catholicism to a deeper evangelicalism. She became a judge, while he plunged headlong into politics.
He got in succession a top job in Durenberger’s 1988 campaign, a spot on the Eagan, Minn., city council, an advisory position with a gubernatorial candidate, and a seat in the state house of representatives. When Republicans took the majority in 1998 — the same year Jesse Ventura won the governorship — he became the majority leader. Four years later, he sought to run for statewide office but found the road blocked. State party leaders favored a wealthy candidate who could fund his own bid for governor. The Bush White House wanted former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman to have a free ride in the Senate primary. Pawlenty decided to seek the executive position, and narrowly prevailed in the primary even after a late start.
As that thumbnail sketch suggests — U.S. News, not National Review; Senator Durenberger — Pawlenty is not a movement conservative. But he was conservative, if not a conservative, to apply William F. Buckley Jr.’s distinction. He ran on liberalizing gun laws, tightening abortion laws, and opposing tax increases, and won a three-way race.
Governor Pawlenty dealt with a Democratic senate for his entire two terms and a Democratic house for his second one. But “dealt with” may not be the best choice of words. Pawlenty set a record for vetoes, partly shutting down the government during a budget battle in 2005. During another budget fight, this one in 2009, Pawlenty withstood pressure from the two previous Republican governors of Minnesota — both well to his left — to agree to raise taxes. He took on the transit workers’ union, which believed that the state should have to provide its members with health insurance for life after 15 years on the job. It went on strike, and lost.
Pawlenty guided Minnesota’s political culture firmly and sharply to the right. From 1960 to 2003, when Pawlenty took over, the state budget grew, on average, by 21 percent every two years. Under Pawlenty that average fell to 4 percent. Some fees rose, and so did cigarette taxes, but Pawlenty managed to resist all income-tax increases. He is one of four governors to get an A on the Cato Institute’s most recent “fiscal-policy report card.” Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana is widely lauded in Republican circles as a budget-cutter. But in each year they were both governor, Cato ranked Pawlenty ahead of Daniels.
Larry Jacobs, who studies politics at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School, comments, “In Minnesota, Pawlenty was always seen as the state’s most charismatic and politically talented politician. Here’s a guy who was a conservative fending off often large Democratic majorities and [he] consistently had over 50 percent approval and dominated public debate. He had a remarkable knack for appealing to people on non-political grounds. . . . Mostly it was the way he talked about public policy and politics. People who fundamentally disagreed with him on public policy found him appealing.”
The reason Pawlenty can’t win was mentioned briefly, his transformation from “nominal” Catholic to committed Evangelical. Catholics have never had a problem voting for Protestants, evangelical or otherwise, but one who left the Church of his own accord?. Maybe its Irish Alzheimer's talking, the way the word “souper” became an expletive for the ages, but I doubt it.
When I think of Tim Pawlenty, I first think of the bland convention speech in 2008. I like Tim's stand on many issues. I do not currently support a particular candidate. But over the years I've come to the realization that if a candidate comes across as 'bland', he's doesn't have much of a chance to win against a more charismatic candidate. This pretty much started with Bush 41 and has carried forward in each election. I'm a bit of a policy wonk, and it is frustrating to me that we have a large number of people who are great on the issues, have backgrounds of over-coming adversity, and on the whole seem to be decent people, but they will not win. Tim has not struck me as someone who will mix it up with Obama should he become the nominee. He'd be genial like McCain, and get chewed up by the misinformation and innuendo thrown from the Left at whatever nominee we put up. We need a fighter, not just on issues, but personality-wise. Fair or not, Tim comes across as milquetoast. If he is serious, and doesn't want to be part of a group of candidates who will wind up splitting the serious conservative vote so a squishy gets in, he needs to add more Gingrich/Palin combativeness and get himself in the national spotlight as a fighter. Otherwise, he'll just be another in a long line of Brownbacks, McCains, Doles, etc. Nice guys who fall short.
In addition to Pawlenty's change of heart on cap-and-trade, he has recently signaled a change in attitude (to the negative) on global warming. His earlier position had me doubting his conservative bona fides. Unfortunately, this article suggests, by ommision, that Pawlenty has no stances of importance on foreign affairs. He'd better get some if he intends to run. Hmmmm... Pawlenty/Bachmann anyone?
itchycoo84, if Catholic voters have had no problem supporting Catholic Democrats like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry -- men who balked at their church's positions, e.g., on abortion without any real integrity -- I don't see why Pawlenty's conversion to Protestantism is a deal-breaker. Not after the ecumenicalism of John Paul II, and especially because Pawlenty converted because of his marriage (where unity in belief and practice is essential) and become more devout as a result.
He is not the ideal candidate, ie Chris Christie. However, he's is by far the best of the people who'll run. He's a full spectrum conservative who is at least electable. There's literally no one else out there. Moreover, he looks decent and can appeal to blue collar voters. Put his Minnesota nice with Rubio's fireworks and we may have a real shot in 2012.
What is Team Pawlenty (or any of the others) going to do when Sarah Palin announces her candidancy on a live video feed from the frozen tundra of ANWR with the promise to the American voters that President Palin will ensure that, within a few short years, oil and natural gas will be flowing from her home state?
If the avg gas pump price is in the $4.00 to $5.00 range throughout 2011, Candidate Palin will probably not to have exert a whole lot of time and resources to win the GOP race in a landslide.
Like it or not, this will be one of the top 3 issues to the average American voter, and no one can articulate energy and how to develop it domestically like Sarah Palin.
"But he was conservative, if not a conservative...."
I suppose we have no choice but to endure another NRO search for the next John McCain to save the Republican Party from those heathen tea partiers. But do you all have to capitulate so early?
"McCain Once More" was the title of the editorial endorsing John McCain for the last election's primaries. Maybe you can create a new sub-blog with that title for this type of article.
I read this article in the print edition, and I must say that, unlike the cover story for Jeb Bush and the bizarre admiration online for Romney and Daniels, this article doesn't strike me as preposterous.
I'm not convinced that I will support Pawlenty in the primaries. I've hinted about this in other comments, but I think we really need a Churchill or a Reagan to defiantly oppose the increasingly existential problems that put our very liberty at risk: the stealth radicals of the subversive and collectivist Left, the jihad-and-taqqiya of sharia-pushing Islamists, the paralysis induced by political correctness and multiculturalism, and statism run completely amok -- of which the impending consequences of government insolvency are only a symptom.
We need a statesman who's on the same page as Steyn, McCarthy, Kurtz, Sowell, and Goldberg. One who can diagnose the problem clearly and as a "happy warrior," and one who can outline and fight for even the beginnings of a solution.
It's clear that we don't have that. Worse, most names that are mentioned have unacceptable and insurmountable problems.
With the central premise of his book "To Save America," Newt Gingrich seemed almost to get it, but he's too erratic to run and serve as a reliable conservative, his support of an incompentent RINO during a primary being pretty much the last straw.
I like Sarah Palin, and she's certainly presidential material AT LEAST in comparison with the current occupant, but Buckley's rule is to support an electable candidate, and I don't think she qualifies -- NOT because of the current negative polling among independents and NOT EVEN because of the vicious media. Any conservative candidate nominee needs the GOP's Beltway moderates to provide at least nominal support, and it's clear that they would rather destroy the Republican Party and ensure Democratic dominence (starting with Obama's reelection) than see Sarah Palin reside in the White House.
(I hate to say it, but while their viceral contempt for Palin may be emotional and even irrational, it's not inconsequential, and it's insurmountable. I am quite serious that they would prefer to see the GOP destroyed and the country governed by dangerous radicals than see Palin win this or any other presidential election. Palin cannot possibly win with that sort of self-destructive hate coming from within her own party, and -- as someone who admires her tenacity and agrees with her positions more often than not -- I think the Palin supporters should realize this and act accordingly.)
Mitt Romney is simply not a principled conservative, and even some of his supporters here have, in the comments, suggested that his inauthenticity is not a bug, it's a feature: a politician ought to be responsive to the public, they say, and Romney has the fewest principles to keep him from being blown by even the slightest breeze. His only seemingly principled stand against the popular zeitgeist -- his continued vague defense of Romneycare -- may only be because even he realizes that a flip-flop on this issue is a bridge too far. He cannot possibly renounce his signature act in office AND DO SO PERSUASIVELY, and so he has chosen not to try. Because I believe he must but cannot do this to be a credible candidate, he's a non-starter.
Mitch Daniels' appeal to the pundits remains inexplicable. His proposed "truce" on social issues is a unilateral surrender, and he undercut his Republican colleagues on spending issues even when a golden opportunity fell in his lap, all because it distracted from his preferred focus on education. He's not a fighter and not even a smart tactician.
Jeb Bush? No Bush should be nominated ever again. He's supposedly different from his relatives, but there's not a hint of an indication that he's a true fiscal conservative who breaks from his family's so-called "compassionate conservatism." In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, and I would need strong evidence even to consider him, I must assume that he's a progressive just like his father and brother. We don't need another progressive running with an "R" next to his name, not even a socially conservative one.
Mike Huckabee? I reiterate: No Bush should be nominated ever again.
Pawlenty at least seems to have none or few of the problems that these other candidates have.
About LincolnR's concern that Pawlenty is too bland, I'll note that Coolidge was bland!
Ponnuru writes:
"Pawlenty set a record for vetoes, partly shutting down the government during a budget battle in 2005. During another budget fight, this one in 2009, Pawlenty withstood pressure from the two previous Republican governors of Minnesota — both well to his left — to agree to raise taxes. He took on the transit workers’ union, which believed that the state should have to provide its members with health insurance for life after 15 years on the job. It went on strike, and lost."
It's unlikely he accomplished all this, in Minnesota no less, without being able to articulate his position in a way that's forceful without sounding forced (to address the article's concerns about his recent tone at CPAC).
Hopefully he'll find his "voice" for a national campaign, so we don't lament his self-destruction the way we do for Fred Thompson and the ambivalence and disinterest he showed through the entire process last time.
I'm sure his political positions have changed over the years (e.g., on global warming), and I imagine he's had to make some compromises that we won't like. I need to see him give more speeches, I want to know more about his beliefs regarding foreign policy, and I hope that the media's thorough vetting process (noticably absent for one significant candidate last time) doesn't uncover anything that would be unseemly.
I don't think Pawlenty's ideal, but so far he's a candidate I could live with and POSSIBLY support, quite actively, by the end of this summer.
Regarding Pawlenty's supposed milquetoast nature: Pawlenty is smart enough to be able to capably deliver satirical take-downs of Obama. And the satire practically writes itself, whether it's by quoting Obama's own fleeting opposition to an individual mandate when running against Hillary or reminding voters that Obama's media and intelligentsia supporters were so obseqious that they awarded him a preemptive Nobel Peace Prize. McCain was deeply disliked by a huge portion of his own party. Pawlenty is not similarly encumbered. McCain's opponent in '08 was a cipher with a smile who benefitted immensely from a stock market crash a month before the election. Pawlenty's opponent in '12 is a dissembling hypocrite with a smile no longer so endearing. Pawlenty could have a much easier time against Obama than many imagine.
@Gary..."McCain Once More" was the title of the editorial endorsing John McCain for the last election's primaries. Maybe you can create a new sub-blog with that title for this type of article."
Sixth point, although you already alluded to it before, Ramesh: unlike Romney, Pawlenty isn't too proud to admit he was just flat-out wrong without making all kinds of lame excuses and justifications or worse yet, refusing to admit he was wrong at all.
We've been plagued in recent years by candidates too prideful and stubborn to admit they were ever wrong: Bush himself foremost, but also McCain, Giuliani, and Romney. McCain did eventually admit he was wrong about amnesty, but he may simply have meant the timing rather than the concept.
We're not going to find a spotless candidate with a perfect record. Someone like TPaw, not too proud to just come out and say he has learned his lesson, is far preferable to another self-justifying Bush or Mitt.
Lawrence, "Any conservative candidate nominee needs the GOP's Beltway moderates to provide at least nominal support...."
That was the point of the last primary cycle, wresting control of the party from the "moderates." If they have a veto over the party's presidential nominee, there will never be another conservative president.
I hope Palin runs just to put a stake through the heart of that beast (the moderate veto). If conservatives can't win control of their own party, they have no business leading the country.
"Come visit National Review Online so you can meet our Republican presidential candidate of the week! We'll eventually find somebody that's worthy of discussion."
Talk about throwing fecal matter against the wall and hoping it sticks...LOL.
The current crop of presidential candidates is so detestable that you'll find people willing to say they'd vote for Obama before 'that' guy. I believe them. If Romney, Huntsman or Daniels is the candidate, I'll vote third party or I won't vote. That's not puffery and I'm not alone on that. I don't like the other candidates and don't think they'd win anyway, but I'd probably vote for them if I had to. It would be a dutiful vote for the loser like my vote for McCain.
300 million people in America, about a third are men elibile to be president and lead this nation. This is our field of candidates; sad.
Results are what should matter to conservative voters and Tim Pawlenty has plenty of results. I know: Tim Pawlenty has been my Governor for eight years and before that he was my representative in the Minnesota State House and before that he was my City Council representative. Tim Pawlenty has a good conservative track record on the fiscal as well as social issues that Republican voters ought to demand from their candidates. A perfect track record? No, but strong none the less. Tim Pawlenty also has the executive experience, gained in tough battles with the liberal democrats that have dominated the Minnesota political landscape for so long, that shows he has the grit needed to address the tax, spend and debt problems the Obama administration is happily leaving.
