Ryan Streeter
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Tim Pawlenty’s consistently poor showing in the polls has been one of the surprises of the nascent GOP 2012 presidential race.
He is routinely described as the main rival to frontrunner Mitt Romney, and yet other contenders continue to poll somewhere below Romney but above Pawlenty. He is the #2 man because of his organization and the talent he has attracted, not because he is consistently capturing the second-most tallies in the opinion polls.
I recently asked a handful of Washington insiders, all of whom are well-known political writers or bloggers, why Pawlenty hasn't been faring better than he is. I promised I’d withhold their names so they could speak freely.
Reasons Pawlenty has been having problems:
- Lack of name recognition: This stems mainly from his lack of a forceful presence. He doesn’t dominate a stage, and he doesn’t make a memorable impression on people.
- Wrong kind of humility: He’s not exciting enough to draw attention to himself, which means that there will always be someone in a debate who overshadows him.
- Lack of cheerleaders: He hasn’t had a group of people promoting him and his ideas loudly enough to get and keep the kind of attention he needs. It’s doubtful many are reading his book, and very few people know what he achieved in Minnesota. More people seem to know what Mitch Daniels thinks and what he has achieved as a governor than they do Pawlenty, in part because of a lot of enthusiastic support from writers, commentators, and activists.
- The debate: it wasn’t that last week’s debate hurt him so much as a stand-alone event; it hurt him because it reinforced a pre-existing impression many have of him, namely that he’s too soft for a big fight – as in the kind of fight our candidate will need to have with Obama. It also had the effect of dulling the enthusiasm of those who had been enthused about his effective rollout.
- Too slow: His introduction to the nation has been “slow motion.” He should have been more aggressive in getting around the country the past few years to introduce himself to voters.
- Problems with his 5% growth plan: it hurt him with Washington types who think his growth rationale is utterly unrealistic (tax cuts and the other provisions don’t result in that kind of growth on their own) and hurt him with the base, which consists not of Wall Street Journal editors but middle class parents and workers.
But, they all say, there are reasons Pawlenty has hope:
- Ideas: He has shown a willingness to develop bold policy proposals and has the opportunity to lead with his ideas more than retail politics.
- Short memories: His debate performance last week, despite depicting him as weak, can easily be forgotten as time passes and if he makes up for it with consistent boldness.
- Iowa: He stands a chance of winning, if he works hard there. And if he wins, his name recognition and fundraising will shoot upwards. Of course, if he loses, he could fade fast. So his national profile isn’t as important right now as doing extraordinarily well in an early state.
- Media’s influence is less than people think: The press insists on a frontrunner (it was Giuliani at this time four years ago), will talk up a popular conservative (Bachmann) too much as it did with Pat Buchanan in 1992 and Pat Robertson in 1988, and highlight the candidate who disappoints (McCain four years ago). All of this should suggest to Pawlenty that media criticism over the past week or so matters quite little.
- Possible campaign of attrition: Maybe, just maybe, leading Republicans will fizzle for a variety of reasons, as they did four years ago, and Pawlenty’s steadfastness will serve him well.
- The great unknown: It's only June before an election year, and there are plenty of unknowns out there before we have a nominee. So, taking the long view, anxiety over low numbers today means very little (the great unknown, of course, is as much a reason for worry as hope).
On Friday, we ran our poll results on Tim Pawlenty, which showed what grassroots conservative Republicans think are his strengths and weaknesses. You can view them here.
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