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November 11, 2009

Our View: Pawlenty still has long way to go

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty appeared before Iowa Republicans on Saturday in what was billed by the media as an unveiling, of sorts. Though Pawlenty hasn’t yet announced he’s running for president in 2012, all of his moves indicate he’s angling for the job.

Iowa is the funnel through which every presidential candidate worth his salt must pass through.

So how did Iowa react?

Well, Iowa Republicans were polite and generally receptive.

That seems to be the mood around the country as Republicans consider the man Minnesotans call “TPaw” — at least among those who know who Pawlenty is. Though he has crisscrossed the country and made TV appearances on numerous occasions to talk politics, his national persona is still fuzzy. Even after his Iowa appearance, where he dropped a memorable line about Democrats “acting like a manure-spreader in a windstorm,” his ability to generate enthusiasm is suspect.

Candidates, in order to be allowed the chance to become president, need to excite the party faithful. According to reports, what some Iowa Republicans like in Pawlenty is his low-key Midwestern approach and his image as a two-term governor in a “left-of-center” state that has stayed true to fiscal conservatism.

If that’s his “hook,” Pawlenty may have to work on it. Presidential hopefuls usually need stronger messages than that, and even then, it only works when the timing is right.

Jimmy Carter captured the nation’s mood by mixing a southern freshness with an appeal to openness and honesty — just what the nation was looking for while still recovering from Watergate. Reagan followed an ineffective Carter with a vigorous call of national renewal and strength. Again, the timing was perfect. Just what the country will be looking for after one term from Obama (whether the country will be ready for a change, at all) is still uncertain. But one senses that Pawlenty will need more to set him apart.

At present, Pawlenty struggles for a place among a Republican field that may feature two holdovers from the 2008 campaign, Mitt Romney (with strong business credentials and name recognition) and Mike Huckabee (who holds court regularly on his own Fox-TV show). No one knows if Sarah Palin might run, but the former vice presidential nominee is a celebrity whose latest book is a best-seller even before it’s written.

To a lot of Americans, Pawlenty is only famous for the general agreement that he was “almost” 2008 presidential candidate John McCain’s vice presidential pick. To others, even Republicans, he isn’t even remembered as that.

One attendee of the Iowa event responded thusly when Pawlenty’s name was dropped. “He’s a gubernatorial hopeful in Illinois, isn’t he?”

This is not to say, of course, that Pawlenty doesn’t bring many positive attributes to the field. He comes off to most people as a very articulate, fairly reasonable, fairly competent, fairly likeable, rather unexciting governor (and isn’t that what a lot of people said of Carter in the earl-going?). Still, we suspect Pawlenty will need to come up with a stronger hook than that to capture America’s fancy.

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