Throughout virtually all of Tim Pawlenty’s tenure as Governor of Minnesota, the local (and sometimes national) media have been touting him as a future presidential candidate.
Sure, the talk died down after he failed to deliver Minnesota to Bush in 2004, but, now that he won re-election, the talk is back. It started with George Will, who said:
If Minnesota’s Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty is re-elected, he goes on every Republican presidential candidate’s shortlist of possible running mates.
Recently, Pawlenty essentially endorsed John McCain for Presidient during a Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida this week, prompting this article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: Pawlenty's time at McCain's side has observers talking about 2008.
The article practically gushes about Governor Pawlenty’s national appeal, noting:
Youthful and photogenic, Pawlenty, who after his reelection downplayed any national ambitions, is seen as appealing on the national stage, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
"He can appear almost Reagan- esque. He’s a solid conservative with a happy face put on it. He doesn’t come across mean or antagonistic," Sabato said.
(Although he does come across as a nice guy most of the time, all you really need to know about him is that when the budget got tight, one of his first proposals was to slash funding for Minnesota Care, a program that gives health care to Minnesota’s working poor. Really nice.)
But the thing is, although he is about to start his second term as Governor, Pawlenty is not really the conservative hero the press often makes him out to be. Sure, he was a rare success story for the Republicans last election, but it’s not like he is a rock star. In 2002, he won with only 45 percent of the vote. His main opponents were a Minnesota democratic fixture who was long on experience but short on charisma and a third party candidate captured 16 percent of the vote (though, in fairness, it was not clear that he siphoned the majority of his votes from the democrat).
This year, he increased his share to 46.7 percent of the vote, an underwhelming increase of less than two percent after four years to work on his cross-over appeal. Still, it was enough to win against a stonger – but very unlikable – democratic opponent and a third party candidate who took 6.4 percent of the vote (this time, almost certainly from voters who would have overwhelmingly supported a better democratic candidate).
Anyway, the point is, Tim Pawlenty is something of an anomaly in Minnesota politics, and despite much conjecture leading up to the 2004 elections and again in 2006, he has not caused Minnesota to become a so-called Purple State. This is not to say that he may not fit the bill for a presidential ticket, but people focus too much on the fact that he was elected, and not enough on the circumstances under which he came into – and successfully kept – the Governor’s office.
In addition, the democratic gains in the state legislature are close to veto-proof, pretty much ensuring that Governor Pawlenty will have to make some pretty big concessions in the coming months in order to get anything done. Let’s see how much conservatives like Pawlenty after he is forced to go along with policies that don’t involve cutting health care for the working poor or banning gay marriage. Hopefully by the end of 2007, he will be damaged goods and the talk of him on a presidential ticket will go away.