Pawlenty Hasn't Made Prez Decision
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has not made a final decision on whether to make a White House bid, but he's laying the groundwork and is confident he could run a serious and well-funded campaign if he decides to go ahead.
In a meeting with reporters last week in San Diego, Pawlenty said he is still contemplating whether he is the right person to lead the country out of an economic crisis.
"I haven't made a final decision yet. I mean, we're obviously looking at it. But as to whether we do it or don't do it, I'm not going to make up my mind internally for probably a few months yet," Pawlenty said. "I've got a set of experiences and skills that might benefit the country. But, I haven't made a decision whether I'm the right person to do that, whether I'm the only person who can do that."
Early polls testing the Republican primary field put Pawlenty well behind the first tier of well-known presidential candidates, which includes Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich, but ahead of some of the names who have generated conservative excitement recently, like Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and South Dakota Sen. John Thune.
The latest Quinnipiac poll of Republican primary voters put top-tier contenders within a narrow range of each other, with Palin leading at 19%, Romney at 18%, Huckabee at 17% and Gingrich at 15%. Pawlenty boasted backing from 6% of respondents, while Barbour, Daniels and Thune all scored 2% of the vote.
Pawlenty said he doesn't worry about building his name recognition. And despite Minnesota's unusually strict campaign finance laws, he believes he can raise the money necessary to do so, and to run a credible campaign.
"I think if you're a serious candidate for president, you become well-known. So over time that resolves itself. And early polls, early handicapping I think are just mere speculation," he said. Asked whether he would have the resources to mount a big campaign, Pawlenty is optimistic: "In terms of what it takes to run a Cadillac, or even a Buick, campaign in a bunch of early states, I mean if I decide to do this I think we can raise the money."
Pawlenty and Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, have been taking the most traditional steps toward a real White House campaign, hiring key staff, traveling around the country on behalf of other Republican candidates, raising money and giving the requisite speeches. That they are the only two engaging in such forward activities has built up what sounds like a rivalry between them. Pawlenty himself has stoked those flames, bashing Romney's Commonwealth Care program in Massachusetts as the basis of President Obama's health care reform measure. And that's not the only shot, overt or covert, he's taken at his possible rival.
"There is ... a new day in the conservative movement, the Republican Party," Pawlenty said. "The tradition is you take the establishment candidate who also can get support with social conservatives and came in second last time and nominate him or her. I think that's probably going to change this time."
Pawlenty also took what could be interpreted as a subtle dig at Palin, the former Alaska governor, for quitting her post after just half a term. The 2012 contest, he said, will be as much a question of personal character, measured by fortitude, as it will be about policy positions.
"You're going to have 5 or 6 people middle-aged men and maybe some women, saying, on the Republican stage, whether that's in California or somewhere else, talking about taxes and health care reform and education reform and Iran and New START treaties and jobs and you know, pro-growth, job policies that are going to sound pretty similar around the policies. I mean there'll be differences, but they wouldn't be huge differences," he said.
"I think the more interesting and important question is going to be as you look at the personal and political records of those individuals what does that tell you about their fortitude personally? Do they have the record to actually back up the rhetoric?" Pawlenty asked. "In other words, are they just giving you pretty rhetoric or do they actually get it done? And also have they demonstrated the willingness to take the hit to actually get it done? Because I think the next president is going to have to be unpopular for a while, casue there's some really tough stuff he's going to have to get done. And I think that's going to be the fuller measure of this thing."
Then again, getting through the primary election is just the first step. Were he to beat out his Republican rivals, Pawlenty would then face an incumbent president who remains personally popular and who is capable of raising perhaps a billion dollars. But with a sluggish economy that has been slow to rebound, Pawlenty said, Obama is very vulnerable.
"You know, two years is an enternity in politics, but, uh, a lot can happen. There's always intervening events. So anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen two years from now is blowing smoke at you," he said. "But if the election were held today and a reasonable Republican candidate who could market our message effectively President Obama would be defeated."
Meanwhile, the Republican governors he helped elect this year can show the way forward for the GOP, Pawlenty said. But, he acknowledged, the party now has responsibility on its shoulders.
"You have an entire crop of really gifted and talented and principled governors who just got elected, and in most cases with Republican legislatures, and in many cases in Republican or at least swing states that are going to do amazing things," he said. "And I think the country is going to look at that and say, 'Wow, if they can do that in Michigan and take a state that was on the ropes, economically depressed and have somebody like [Gov.-elect] Rick Snyder come in and bring that state back then I think you can say we can do that nationally."
And if Republicans fail to do so: "Then we should throw 'em out," Pawlenty said.
More highlights from our interview with Pawlenty:
On the electorate as it stands today: "They're finally coming around on some issues that I think are historic. You know, George Bush got reelected in President of the United States in 2004. And back then he was still pretty popular. And he said he had political capital and he was going to use it. He teed up entitlement reforms, specifically Social Security and Medicare. He couldn't even get a hearing in one committee of a Congress controlled by his own party. I mean it was a complete non-starter back then. The country wasn't ready, the Congress wasn't ready, the Republican Party wasn't ready."
"Now you fast-forward just 6 years, not a generation, but just 6 years, 2010. And you ask people, 'What's your number one concern?' And of course it's the economy and jobs, for understandable reasons, but number two is government spending or something. You know, cousin of government spending. And 10 or 15 years ago, you talk about that, you know, the deficit spending, [and] people say, 'Yes it's a concern.' But does it really drive your vote? Does it really motivate you? Does it really tick you off? Are you really going to act on that? Eh, down the list a ways. But today? You've got average people, you know grocery stores, the Home Deport, coming up saying, 'Governor, this thing's out of control. You know, we're in deep trouble.' They're getting the spending deficit and debt. You know, they can't list the six things that need to be done to fix Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid. But they know we're in deep trouble, they know it has to do with entitlements, they know it has to do with run-away government. And now they're ready, at least conceptually.
"You know, there's an old adage that when the pupils are ready, the teacher will appear. The pupils are, maybe not fully ready, but they're warming up. And they're a lot more ready now on that issue than they were in 2004. I give President Bush credit, it took a lot of courage to say, and put a marker down, we're going to try this. But it tells you something about the Congress and the Republican Party back then that they wouldn't even touch it. They wouldn't even take a vote in a committee. And now you have the whole debate, in addition to the pro-growth and the pro-job policies, coming around to 'We gotta fix spending' and, really, it leads you back to the whole question entitlements."
More: "You've got to shoot it to them straight. You gotta try to make it a sense that there is a way forward, there is a future. And you've got to show them the way forward. And I think that the country is sufficiently concerned and, at some level, worried that they're willing to hear you out and most of them, I think, would be willing to sacrifice if they knew it was for the betterment of the country and if it was a fair deal."
"And frankly, it's not that hard. I mean this stuff has all been white papered, studied, seminared to death, think tanked to death. I mean every think tank has done every possible view of what needs to be done on the spending and entitlement reform. So the question isn't what needs to be done. The question is do you have the fortitude to actually do it? And that's why I get back to where I started this discussion. There's not a lot of mystery about the kinds of things you need to do to fix the entitlement programs. The question is do you have the fortitude to tell the American people the truth and get it done. And again, in Minnesota we've done all that. It's obviously smaller scale, but we have cracked down hard on the government, particularly structural spending, in a place that has a very different culture."
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