Back in 2009, I looked up the frontrunners for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination on one of those betting sites. There was a three-way tie between Sarah Palin (whom I had heard of), Mitt Romney (whom I had heard of), and Tim Pawlenty (uh ...). Presumably, the smart money figured that nobody else could win, so through process of elimination, Pawlenty would be the last man standing. This theory remains popular today.
Since then, I've tried to read the long Wikipedia article on Pawlenty several times. Each time I get through the identity politics basics: he was governor of Minnesota, a nice, respectable Canadian-border state; he's half German and half Polish (which gets me musing on how that would be nice for Poles who seem like quiet people who don't make much of a fuss and it would be nice if they got part of a President to claim); so that sounds like he'd be Catholic but he's actually an evangelical Protestant, which should appeal to Southerners even though he's from the far North.
So, I get the theory of Tim Pawlenty, but as soon as I start reading about the individual, my eyes glaze over. I've never come close to finishing anything about Pawlenty. In contrast, with potential candidate Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, maybe just because I've had dinner with him a couple of times, but I can observe themes emerging from the biographical minutiae: like, what a huge role selling drugs has played throughout his life. That's interesting. But with Pawlenty, I can't force myself to pay attention long enough to notice patterns.
So, tell me something interesting about Tim Pawlenty.
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46 comments:
You think Mitch Daniels is interesting?
Geez, the guy can't even have wife problems in an interesting way.
He's the Pawlenty of Indiana.
-Osvaldo M.
He won two close elections for Governor of Minnesota in 2002 and 2006, winning the latter in a poor year for Republicans. He has the image in Minnesota of being a moderate and reasonable fellow, but in terms of policy he was quite conservative, some say the most conservative Minnesota governor in 50 years. He was raised a Catholic but became an evangelical Protestant through marriage and conversion. He fits the bill of an electable but fairly conservative Republican with a moderate demeanour but quite conservative policy views. He is from the outlying middle class suburbs of the Twin Cities, but ran well in both gubernatorial campaigns in small towns and rural counties.
This is a big problem for the GOP field. The only Republicans that are charismatic enough to compete with Obama's megacelebrity are the ones the media have dismissed as insane: Palin, Paul, and Trump.
It appears that the Scotch-Irish lobby will not veto his nomination.
Steve is right -- Mitch Daniels famously campaigned for Governor by riding around Indiana on his Harley and staying at random people's homes.
I too like the idea of Pawlenty but fear his lack of charisma. I was also disappointed he said he supported waterboarding in South Carolina, so I don't know who I should support this year.
Half Sigma predicted Tim Pawlenty will win the nomination.
Pawlenty is reasonably good on immigration. So I suppose that's good.
Start thinking of him as "T-Paw." That might help.
After 4 years of Obama, I think a boring white guy from the midwest will look awful good to many Americans.
I think Pawlenty is much better on immigration than Daniels.
"Pawlenty is reasonably good on immigration. So I suppose that's good."
Reasonably good? That doesn't sound enthusiastic. Will he be reasonably good after the US Chamber of Commerce and LULAC et al. housebreak him?
As for Daniels, he gets no support from me until he comes down hard on a recent Indiana Supreme Court ruling that shredded the 4th Amendment.
Mitch Daniels is obviously cringing in fear of signing the illegal alien bill in his state. And he has had jack-squat to say about the worst judicial decision in 50 years, written by one of HIS appointees.
Please Lord, give us another Obama term before one of the current RINOs wins.
Formulating a winning campaign against Obama is easy: run against affirmative action, mass immigration, porous national borders, and government overreach. The only problem is that every qualified white guy with the nice guy bona fides needed to win refuses to run under this banner for fear of being called a racist. It doesn't bother Republican politicians that white children are now in the minority, yet are still being officially discriminated against for the sin of "white privilege." It doesn't bother Republican politicians that the white middle class in California has been systematically dismantled, with criminal Latinos taking over the bedroom neighborhoods and Asians taking over all the higher education facilities. No, Republicans want to play nice; they so deeply fear the accusation of racism that even if they could beat Obama, they would be worse than Obama because they would attmpt to appease all the "people of color."
It's a shame. The man we need right now is Pat Buchanan, but he's too old. Perhaps Jared Taylor should throw his hat in the ring. The loudest denunciations would probably come from Republicans, but that's okay. He'd have a megaphone for his ideas, and his inherent reasonableness will make his detractors look like the evil kooks they are.
I'm pretty sure the Republicans have already struck an understanding with the Dems that Obama will be reelected in return for cooperation on other issues.
The next election will just be theatre. The job of the Republican ticket will be to fundraise and get the cheerleaders out in full regalia to make a lot of noise with their pom-poms.
A fixed fight that has a lot of people watching has to look real; the loser must look like they're putting up a furious battle and take some genuinely hard shots before going down. People will then applaud the loser for his bravery.
After it's over we'll all be assured, over and over, that the election demonstrated the greatness of our democracy, we're a beacon unto the world, and yada yada. Then it'll be back to the same old thing.
that would be nice for Poles who seem like quiet people who don't make much of a fuss
Does the name Daniel Rostenkowski ring any bells?
Zbigniew Brzezinski? He endorsed Obama for President.
Edmund Muskie?
According to "A History of the Polish Americans":
As for the rank-and-file Polish-American voters, while 51% had voted for Reagan in 1984, 49% had not! This was a impressive showing compared to the vote totals of, for example, Irish Catholics (56 percent to 44 percent) or Italian-Americans (58 percent to 41 percent) Less a part of the new ethnicity than the old, nearly a majority of Polish-Americans remained Democrats. Presidential balloting tells only a part of the Polish-American political story and so tends to obscure it. While a slim majority of Polish-Americans were giving Reagan their votes in 1984, in neither the 1982 nor the 1984 Congressional races did Polish voters shift to the Republican party.
I believe that Pawlenty will get the nom.
The others just can't win.
Newt just committed political suicide and Daniels has 4 strikes against him:
1. Arab.
2. LSD.
3. Remarrying the same woman? That's going to strike a lot of people as odd.
4. Princeton, the alma mater of President Wilson, Justice Kagan, Justice Sotomayor, John Rawls, Cornel West, Norman Finkelstein, Paul Krugman and Michelle Obama.
- Risto
I think Pawlenty is much better on immigration than Daniels.
He's much better on a lot of things than Daniels, who comes across as this cycles Rudy Guliani.
Chuck Norris for president!
If I am elected president
Boring is good. I'm sick of this country picking guys with 'personality' who drive the country into a ditch.
"Perhaps Jared Taylor should throw his hat in the ring. The loudest denunciations would probably come from Republicans, but that's okay. He'd have a megaphone for his ideas, and his inherent reasonableness will make his detractors look like the evil kooks they are."
Hey, they can't call anti-Semitism ;)
He's originally from South St. Paul which is an infinitely more interesting place than Eagan. Home to the St Paul Union Stockyards one of the largest in world in the day, So. St. Paul was a working class community populated by Eastern and Central Europeans. T-Paw's dad drove a milk truck.
He's also good at hockey.
Lefties here irrationally hate him. Sort of a Teflon quality to him.
As somebody mentioned he's Catholic (we don't believe in letting you leave). I think the evangelical non-sense is bs.
His wife is/was a judge.
One time back in the '80s the Paw (we callled him "the Paw") was sitting around in this bar in Olangapo with us, you know, having a few beers and whatnot, when suddenly we hear this ruckus from up front and we're all like "what the f--k?" We look up and there's this Flip pimp and he's got this thirteen-year-old whore by the hair and he was just, like, whaling on her. He's trying to do her some damage but he's about 98 pounds sopping wet and she's whaling him back. She was one of those strong street whores and she was giving him back, punch for punch, screaming, and so forth. It went on like this for a minute or two, when suddenly that whore draws back and nails him right in the eye with one of those scary Filipino fingernails, and, man, the blood went everywhere. That pimp like fell back and then reached down and pulled out a knife.
Paw puts his beer down and walks over and grabs that pimp by his knife hand, and that pimp jerked back and turned around and said "Man, I cut you, I got a knife." Paw, man, he doesn't move, he just says "F--k you and f--k your knife" in that Minnesota accent. That pimp starts to jab at him, then Paw just reaches out and slaps him in the face. Right in the face, like you'd slap a bitch! Well, we all jump up and get ready to rock, but nobody moves, then, I sh--t you not, that little Flip falls on the floor of that bar and starts crying! Crying, like a girl! Paw reaches down, takes the knife, and walks back to the table, like nothing, picks up his San Miguel and finishes it. Man, we busted a gut laughing.
About that time, though, that thirteen year old whore had gotten up and picked up a beer stein off the bar, one of those big, heavy glass steins. She comes over to where that pimp is crying on the floor and lifts that stein as high as she could and then busts that stein right over the top of that pimp's head.
Bam! Blood and glass flying everywhere! That pimp went down like a column of wet s--t. The whore screaming in Tagalog, that pimp laying on the floor in his own blood, and here come the Shore Patrols.
They ask us what happened. Paw just says "Nothin'" man, and walks out of there with that pimp's knife, laughing his ass off.
He still has that knife. True f--king story, no s--t.
Okay, that's interesting.
Gee, Steve yóu're missing the point. Donald Trump is the interesing Republican candidate - or was. Pawlenty is the plausible candidate.
I wrote a comment on why Pawlenty was the likely Republican primary winner weeks ago. Can it be that you don't pay close attention to my musings?
I'll go over it again. The first requirement is that the focus remain on Obama. Obama has a record now and the Republicans want to get it before the public. They don't want someone like Gingrich or Palin who will be attacked by the media - however unfairly.
Secondly Pawlenty looks right. This is a televison age. Someone has to stand on the same stage with a 6'2" thin Barrack Obama. Who should that be?
It shouldn't be someone like McCain - a old and decrepid white dwarf. Mike Huckabee lost something like 100 pounds to run the last time. Alas the weight is coming back. He's too fat, as is Gingrich. Mitch Daniels is too short.
Mitt Romney looks perfect as a Presidential candidate - indeed he's better cast than Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen, or Kevin Klein. But it's unlikely he can survive his health care package.
Pawlenty doesn't have a perfect record. For example he once supported ethanol from corn. But unlike Romney he cut his losses by reversing his position. For Romney that opportunity is probably now past.
Michelle Bachman appears to be the front runner for VP.
The Black guy Cain will probably be out after the first primary. The poor SOB will get some votes from Whites trying to prove to themselves that they are not racists, but he will also be rejected by many voters because he's Black. That's not prejudice it's postjudice.
Black politicians lately haven't done too well. Besides the disastrous Obama, there has also been Repuplican chairman Michael Steele, the rapper "Common", Van Jones, Eric Holder, the censored Charlie Rangle, and the yet to be censored Maxine Waters.
Maybe the electorate has had enough of Blacks for a while.
Pawlenty looks and acts very damn White. Not a bad thing at all these days.
Albertosaurus
Tim Pawlenty may have a knife, but Carl Paladino has a bat.
I got Pawlenty of nuttin'
And nuttin's Pawlenty for me
The fix seems to be in for Tim, Mitch, or Mitt. The way it always works for Conservatives, is the establishment pushes some RINO who talks conservative to get the nomination. Then, the dumb conservatives make statements like,
"well, Mitt will have to back off his Romneycare before I'll support him" or "Mitch will have to disavow VAT taxes before I support".
Of course, they'll SAY anything conservatives want to get nominated. But the very fact that they were hostile or indifferent to the Right's pet issues, means they'll act the same way in office. Their change of heart during the primaries is worthless.
McCain pulled this scam in 2008. Polls in SC showed two-thirds of the stupid Republicans thought McCain was AGAINST Amnesty.
They haven't got any smarter.
Good hockey player. He seems pretty beta, but you gotta have some T to play hockey at any level, I'd guess.
I saw a video of him participating in some hockey match for charity, and yep, he can skate.
I presume that though he's rather angel-faced, he can, therefore, throw an elbow when needed and maybe even resort to a high sticking.
That'll be useful for anyone hoping to beat BO since the media will try to browbeat the Prez' opponent.
I think it would be great to see a decent guy stick it to him.
Steve, you've written about the Tim/Tom dichotomy. There's never been any presidents named Tim. It's kind of like height - presidents tend to be tall. Have there even been any Hollywood leading men named Tim?
Black politicians lately haven't done too well. Besides the disastrous Obama, there has also been Repuplican chairman Michael Steele, the rapper "Common", Van Jones, Eric Holder, the censored Charlie Rangle, and the yet to be censored Maxine Waters.
Maybe the electorate has had enough of Blacks for a while.
Blacks have a very short window right now for national success. This is right before more whites wake up about black dysfunction and before hispanics (with their numbers swelling) really start arriving on the political scene to both vote and be voted in. Unfortunately, the white window probably only has another 25 years or so too, but blacks are not regarded well among hispanics, so their days as the Democrats' pets are numbered. Hispanics will not give them most favored status like suicidal whites do.
I'm sorry that Trump dropped out. I wanted an alpha attack dog that was unafraid to take on Obama head on.
We're left with milquetoast RINOs... again.
Seems like a tough bar bruiser.
The variations on "Pawlenty" are, well, pawlenty.
The land of Pawlenty.
Pawlenty to smile about.
The Dems are in Pawlenty of trouble.
Etc., ad nauseam.
Until the final NY Post smear headline, in 2014 (or 2012):
"Pawlenty of explaining to do."
Shut it down boys. Bruce Lewis wins the thread.
Pawlenty is an empty suit. Whoever wins the nomination will be the front man for the same GOP corporate establishment that gave us Bush, wants to transfer everyone's money up to Wall Street, and doesn't give a damn about illegal immigration.
Little Timmy Down the Well Pawlenty did nothing while Al Franken, of all people, stole the Senate Election. Ballots "turning up" everywhere, all Democratic. Pawlenty was relentlessly Beta Male. No confrontation, bending over, like ... Beta Male Mitch (Daniels).
Short story was that Daniels Wife Cheri saw her old HS sweetheart at her HS reunion, then a plastic surgeon, ran off with him and divorced Beta Male Mitch and left her four daughters age 8-14 with Beta Male Mitch. [Translation, his beta maleness so repulsed her that her daughters were "tainted" by his lack of sexiness vs. her old boyfriend.]
Beta Male Mitch gets a $40 million payout from his drug company, and zammo, his wife is back there, and he being a BETA MALE takes her back.
That's Beta Male Mitch for you.
Rick Perry's possibly in the race. I hope so. Neither Beta Male Mitch nor Timmy Down the Well have the stones to go at Obama, which is what it will take.
[Herm Cain is a big fan of the individual mandate, ObamaCare, AA, and yes OPEN BORDERS!]
Could fans of a human biodiversity website ever vote for a guy who doesn't believe in evolution? Maybe, but you would have to hold your nose.
Whiskey, enough of this "beta male" crap, it's retch-inducing. You may have grown up in a baboon troop, but most of us didn't.
I think Paw's likely to get the nomination, and I think he'd be a good president. But yeah, a minor scandal might actually help the guy.
Paw needs to learn to smile and joke more, might help, not sure.
Chris Matthews was blasting Daniels for being a cuckold (looks weak). It's not a fair attack but it might stick.
The bigger question - why do all the Republican candidates suck?
Michelle Bachmann? Not so crazy. And in any match up between a white female candidate and any black candidate, the black candidate will appear menacing to the white electorate, whether they wish to admit it or not. After all, rape statistics don't lie. Black men do target white women for rape: 40,000 a year. Of course, you need to double any stat about rape because nearly half of sexual assaults go unreported.
"The only Republicans that are charismatic enough to compete with Obama's megacelebrity are the ones the media have dismissed as insane: Palin, Paul, and Trump."
Paul is not charismatic. He's a smart, reasonable and honest politican. But he does show any social dominance or one-to-one charm. I would guess that he is too rational to be charismatic. Instead of dominating his opponent or sending of a glorious speech, he just debate in a intelligent and polite manner. You want that in an university setting or in a HBD-discussion, but it doesn't work in winning the masses.
Palin? Well, charisma is quite a masculine trait. She's certainly charming and got a lot of star quality. I wouldn't call her charismatic though. She can't win either. And shouldn't.
Trump is charismatic.
Pawlenty came off poorly in the debate - as just another establishment republican trying to do the folksy Reagan schtick. That was at least better than Santorum, who seemed to be running on George W. Bush's record as if it were a good thing. (The debate was lame anyway - the questions posed to the candidates weren't bad - but I'd like to hear every candidates response to them)
However, I recently saw an interview of Pawlenty, and he - remarkably for a modern politician - spoke in complete sentences, with an above average vocabulary, and without the use of hackneyed stock phrases. He evidently has a brain in his head. He's still too much an establishment republican to be much good however.
You gotta admit--the name "Mitch" and motorcycle riding give some alpha cred to Daniels.
I like Pawlenty's record a great deal, but "Tim" is not a power name.
In June 2009, I wrote:
My reasoning for predicting that Tim Pawlenty will win is based on the fact that he’s the most boring candidate who’s commonly mentioned as a possible contender in 2012. Boring seems to be a big plus factor when it comes to raising money and not doing anything to screw up.
It is almost 2 years later, and T-Paw hasn't risen to the front yet or even close to it. T-Paw's failure to launch makes it more likely that Mitt Romney will win.
Whomever the GOP nominates will not have to out-charisma Obama.
2012 will not be about making a CHOICE between Obama and GOP candidate. 2012 will be a REFERENDUM on whether Obama should be president for a 2nd term.
Therefore, as long as the GOP candidate does not scare the Independents more than Obama now scares them, the GOP candidate will win.
A boring leader who is competent is good. The media can't make a boring leader look scary--too boring. The media--who are themselves emotion ridden fame whores--will stop paying attention.
What we want is for people to fall asleep and wake up 8 years later wondering when the country got so transformed.
-Osvaldo M.
I'm pretty sure the Republicans have already struck an understanding with the Dems that Obama will be reelected in return for cooperation on other issues.
Probably true. Or at least, the Republicans are probably very willing to knuckle under in exchange for table scraps.
None of the field provides much interest for me, but Daniels and Pawlenty are especially unimpressive in both presence and in relation to paleoconservative positions on issues. Ron Paul has reverted to 1980's open borders libertarianism, so I no longer support him.
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