T-Paw’s Challenge

(NEW YORK) Last Monday, Tim Pawlenty, ex-governor of Minnesota, became the first Republican of caliber to throw his hat into the ring for the 2012 presidential election. Two days later, he was brutally reminded of the challenge that awaits him: Only 41 percent of voters in his own party know who he is according to a survey by Gallup.

But T-Paw, as his supporters have nicknamed him, is convinced that he will have a crucial advantage over the other, better known, potential candidates for the Republican nomination. He believes that he embodies all aspects of the party, unlike Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

“It’s right to say that the majority of them, if not all of them, will mainly appeal to only one category of Republican voters, perhaps to a category and a half,”* he declared last week during a public meeting broadcast on the Internet. “But I don’t think that they can appeal to all of the categories as I can.”*

At 50 years old, Tim Pawlenty thus defines the three large groups that make up Republican voters: the supporters of fiscal austerity, religious conservatives and the supporters of the tea party. In his speeches, he promises the first group that he will attack the programs generating deficits, repeats to the second group that the American Constitution was conceived to “protect the believers from the government and not to protect the government from the believers”* and exclaims in front of the third group that “the government is too damn big!”

Another Trump Card

James Kirkpatrick, President of the Repbulican Party in the county of Fayetteville, Iowa, sees another trump card in Tim Pawlenty’s deck.

“He has successfully managed to get himself elected and re-elected in Minnesota, a state which is normally Democrat. He will be able to win over the independents to his cause and give the Republican party a chance to be in with a running in states like his own and Wisconsin,”* said Kirkpatrick, the first Republican leader of an Iowa county to back Tim Pawlenty. Iowa will hold the first electoral test of the presidential campaign of 2012 in little less than a year.

And what does James Kirkpatrick think of his handicap in the form of Tim Pawlenty’s relative anonymity?

“With time, people are going to end up knowing his name,” he responds during a telephone conversation. “Four years ago, several people didn’t know who Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee were.”*

James Kirkpatrick’s memory seems to be a little bit muddy. In March 2007, 75 percent of voters knew Barack Obama’s name, according to Gallup. The future president was already considered to be a political rock star; his books dominated best seller lists and his charisma was recognized by everyone who watched him speak.

Indeed, Tim Pawlenty published his own autobiography in January, “Courage to Stand: An American Story,” but the title has not appeared on any best seller lists. As regards his personality, he is certainly not electrifying, even if his publicity video presents him as a Hollywood hero in the cast of Bruce Willis. His supporters often describe him as a “good guy” with whom the voters will be able to identify.

Modest Origins

In fact, Tim Pawlenty’s story is that of a politician who has succeeded despite familial ordeals and modest origins. His father lost his job as a trucking contractor for a while. His mother died of cancer when he was 16. He had to work in a grocery store when he was young. He was the first in his family to go to college (he studied law at the University of Minnesota, where he met his wife, with whom he has two daughters).

After having started his political career on the municipal level at the age of 28, Pawlenty was elected to the House of Representatives of Minnesota, where he became leader of the Republican majority in 1998. From his two mandates as governor, he takes away his confrontations with public sector workers and his vetoes against several Democrat bills.

“I set a record for the most vetoes in my state in a year,” he boasted last February in front of a meeting of militant conservatives in Washington. “I vetoed billions, billions of dollars in tax and spending increases.”

His critics never forget to mention that Tim Pawlenty has left his successor with a budgetary hole of $6 billion.

But criticism is preferable to anonymity for those who dream of the White House.

*Editor’s Note: These quotations, accurately translated, could not be verified.