Candidate P'lenty: Campaigning as All Things to All Republicans
By JEFF ZELENYNYT
CONCORD, N.H. — Many aspiring Republican presidential candidates are going to great lengths to avoid the spotlight, but not Tim Pawlenty. He is doing whatever he can to step into it.
Few audiences are too small for Mr. Pawlenty, who turns up at Tea Party rallies, church forums and beer and pizza parties with College Republicans. He even hit the ice to play hockey here, with a local television crew following closely along.
Mr. Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota, is trying to make equal appeals to the diverse constituencies of the Republican Party as he introduces himself as a potential candidate. He stands out among the major contenders in trying to assertively court all factions that will help select a nominee to challenge President Obama.
“I want to be every person’s candidate — that’s my goal,” Mr. Pawlenty said. “The notion that you can’t do more than one thing at a time, I think, is a flawed premise.”
(More here. LP note: In Minnesota we've had plenty of P'lenty.)
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1 Comments:
Jeff Zeleny has done a good job bring voters up to speed on what is happening in the GOP field … Pawlenty’s key to the nomination seems to be continually gaining based on others dropping out.
I made a comment earlier (I think on this site) about Pawlenty’s “plowin ahead” comment being mocked by the locals, so I am glad that Mr. Zeleny picked it up. I found Pawlenty’s response to his foreign affairs credentials to be as strong as “I can see Russia from my backyard.” He has no military background, so his answer sounded really stupid.
We know that as Governor that he went to visit troops … so did other state Governors (he had joint trips with WI and IA governors as I recall) … what Pawlenty should have said that “we are in a global business world and I have lead trade missions all around the world and they have proven to be beneficial for Minnesota … my last trip was to Brazil and Chile and since then Minnesota exports have grown substantially. I can, and will, sit down with foreign leaders and work to improve America’s business opportunities.”
Shockingly, is how poorly Pawlenty continues to poll. Heck in Iowa, after the Faith and Freedom event (which is where Pawlenty started “plowin”) that had Newt as the other big name, there was a poll link of 885 like Iowa Republicans … margin of error 3.29 … Pawlenty barely beat that at 3.5% … and he’s been in Iowa for years and was governor of the neighboring state where at least the northern part of Iowa would have gotten some television broadcast coverage of his performance. Heck, Indiana’s Governor Mitch Daniels got 1.8% so that tells you how unknown (or unimpressed?), Pawlenty is.
I wonder today, if John Kasich is wondering if he made the right decision to run for Ohio Governor in 2010. Kasich, a 9-term Congressman (who developed an alternative budget {with Tim Penny} to Clinton) ran for President in 2000 but could not overcome George Bush. Since then, Kasich did some FOX TV and worked for corporate boardroom stuff (Lehmann Brothers) and decided to challenge Ted Strickland for Ohio Governor. Kasich won with the TEA Party support but now that he has been in office for less than two months his poll numbers have plummeted and he now sits with 47% disapproval proving that governing ain’t easy.
I suspect that if he decided instead to seek the Presidency in 2012, Kasich would have been leading Romney on the strength of his fiscal talk, FOX experience and being acceptable to the social conservatories.
I am afraid that if the voters had a “No of the Above” option, that would win.
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