Testing the waters
Pawlenty kicks off 2012 campaign
Even though it seems like the last presidential campaign just ended, the 2012 campaign more or less got officially started this week with the announcement by Republican Tim Pawlenty that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee, a nicety that’s all but an official announcement. (In the incremental process of preparing to prepare to run for president, Newt Gingrich has announced plans to form an exploratory committee.)
If you’ve come late to the festivities, you may be asking yourself, “Tim who?” And by so doing, you’ve put your finger on his problem. Despite campaigning continuously since he announced he wouldn’t run again as Minnesota governor, and visiting all 50 states with repeat visits to the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Pawlenty remains an unknown, polling in the single digits nationally. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 6 in 10 Republicans didn’t know him well enough to have an opinion.
Still, Pawlenty took a step other potential GOP candidates have been almost embarrassingly reluctant to take: Stand up and essentially say, “I’m running for president and here’s why.” Haley Barbour won’t say until April; Jon Huntsman until June; Sarah Palin won’t say; and Mitt Romney has all but said.
It may not seem like it to us civilians, but time as measured in electoral politics is running short. The first Republican presidential debate is May 2 in California, and the Iowa caucuses are only 10 months off. As the first one out of the trenches, Pawlenty risks drawing all the fire, but it’s also the relative unknown’s best chance at a head start.
On the Democratic side, President Barack Obama has never made any secret of his plans to run for re-election.
Pawlenty is close to the Tea Party movement – he’s speaking at a Tea Party Tax Day rally in New Hampshire on April 15. His announcement reflected the party’s exclusionary rhetoric: “We, the people of the United States, will take back our government. This is our country. Our Founding Fathers created it” – meaning not your country, not your government and certainly not Obama’s.
His announcement, however, was a tacit nod to Obama’s masterful use of social networks in 2008: Pawlenty announced in a colorfully packaged two-minute video on Facebook. And to show that he’s not quite as stuffy as his social conservatism might suggest, his staff calls him “T-Paw,” and his hockey jersey — he is an avid player – reads “T-Paw 12.”
The 2012 campaign is under way.
Scripps Howard News Service