Republican Candidates as the Anti-Obama

Seventy percent of Americans feel that their country is headed in the wrong direction. The Republican opposition, without a strong leader or plan, wants to seize upon this discontent to win the presidential race. Among the candidates hoping to face Obama is Tim Pawlenty, the son of German and Polish immigrants.

Unlike another candidate, Mitt Romney, the heir to a wealthy political dynasty, Tim Pawlenty has a blue collar background. His father was a truck driver and Tim was the first person from his family to finish college. While in college, influenced by his current wife, Mary, he converted from Catholicism to Evangelicalism. This gives him an advantage with the religious right and with the Tea Party as well, because of their populism and their distrust of elites. His supporters want him to be an alternative to Romney, who they see as the spokesperson for big business and Wall Street. Pawlenty has the support of fiscal conservatives; the libertarian Cato Institute gave him their highest rating. He is talked about enthusiastically by influential Americans, such as the publicist George Will or the former head of General Electric, Jack Welch. In the month of May, the media outlets devoted the most time out of all the Republican candidates to Pawlenty, and the coverage was almost all positive.

Pawlenty has achieved quite a feat, serving two terms as governor in a strongly left leaning state, which hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate in a general election since 1972. As governor he faithfully followed conservative orthodoxy, lowering taxes and cutting spending, while simultaneously balancing the budget. He limited abortion and allowed the questioning of the theory of evolution in public schools. However, he also raised the cigarette tax and supported subsidies to develop green energy and taxes on emissions. He angered the right with these measures, who see global warming as a theory concocted by Al Gore. Pawlenty has recently declared that his green initiatives were wrong. Unlike Romney, he did not try to explain himself and he even apologized.

Pawlenty recently introduced an ambitious plan known as the Better Deal, in which he proposed radical tax cuts, lowering the top tax rates from 35 to 25 percent, eliminating capital gains taxes, and cutting other unspecified expenses. According to Pawlenty, this plan would grow the economy by five percent annually, which would bring in the revenue necessary to eliminate the deficit. “If China can have five percent growth and Brazil can have five percent growth, then the United States of America can have five percent growth,” Pawlenty was quoted as saying. His critics have subsequently accused him of empty promises.

Even worse, when the governor wants to speak about the issues, he does it in a way that puts his listeners to sleep. To say that he lacks charisma is an understatement. He is like wet wood that does not want to spark. He performs poorly in large gatherings. His performance in the first presidential debate in New Hampshire was mediocre at best and a failure at worst. Nothing he does seems to raise his poll numbers, which hover between five and seven percent.

Nevertheless, wet wood can eventually spark. For now, Pawlenty is one of the official candidates for president. Even though he does not win in the polls, there is no clear leader among the pack, and Republican voters have shown a clear dissatisfaction with the current field. The enthusiastic support for bombastic Donald Trump’s brief run for president can be seen as an indicator of their frustration. Every candidate has a major flaw, and they really don’t have anything new to say. Pawlenty is currently the only candidate who has proposed a concrete plan, and he does not have any major baggage.

The number of serious contenders for the white House can be counted on one hand. The favorite is the 64 year old Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who ran in 2008 only to lose out to John McCain. He leads in the polls and has the biggest war chest. His biggest strength is his extensive business experience. As the head of Bain Capital, he greatly increased their revenue. In 2002, he was the head of the organizing committee for the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, which turned a profit, something that cannot be said of every Olympiad. This experience can gain him support, especially in an election focusing on the economy. Besides, the governor is very handsome, looks friendly, and is known as a good family man (he has a wife and five children).

Towards the end of May, when unemployment numbers jumped up again, a Washington Post poll showed Romney edging out Obama for the first time. The big problem with Romney is that his views can sometimes be a mystery. Massachusetts is one of the most liberal states, and during his time as governor Romney couldn’t move to the right as much as he wanted.

Romney supported a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, gay marriage and environmental restrictions on businesses. Most noteworthy is his health care overhaul, almost identical to that of Obama’s plan, complete with a public option. Obamacare has become the main point of attack for Republicans, who have labeled it a socialist takeover of the health care industry. Currently, Romney has been distancing himself from everything he signed while governor, in order to appeal to the Republican right, who usually decides who gets the nomination. The Tea Party, influential within the GOP, does not trust Romney. Tea Party activists require ideological purity and feel that Romney, the establishment candidate, is only a fiscal conservative. Another big block of conservative voters, Protestant Evangelicals, cannot reconcile Romney’s Mormon beliefs.

Romney’s poll numbers have gone up in recent weeks, thanks to his good performance in the June 13 debate in New Hampshire. Romney found a handy way to defend his health care plan; that it was appropriate in Massachusetts, but not acceptable for the United States as a whole. He even promised to repeal Obamacare, winning applause from the crowd. His rivals made his job easier, as they did not want to start their campaigns by attacking their colleagues. However, this did not totally dispel the doubts about him.

Not only does Romney not look like a leader, but he often acts uncomfortable among people; he’s stiff, and he avoids the media. The White House will have no problem painting him as an out of touch product of, and an advocate for, Big Business. As the head of Bain Capital, he was known for routinely firing workers, and his biggest donors are Wall Street bankers.

Observers of the New Hampshire debate were most impressed by Michelle Bachmann, leader of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress. The Congresswoman from Minnesota is the only female candidate, but she was the only one showed herself as a real, charismatic leader. She spoke clearly, with authority, expertly intertwining policy with personal stories. She is widely seen as a rising star in the GOP. It is becoming clear that there is no room for Sarah Palin in the race for the nomination; Bachmann is stealing her Tea Party electorate, as she espouses the same viewpoints, but is much more knowledgeable and professional.

Does she have a shot at the nomination? Probably not, as she represents the Republican base and scares off independents. She voted against the bank and auto bailouts in a time of crisis, advocates the dissolution of several Federal departments, and supports an outright ban on abortion. She might, however, be nominated for vice president, in order to ensure the votes of Republican die-hards.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, seen as the ideological professor of the party, seems to have all but dropped out of the race. Despite his reputation as a moral hypocrite and a corrupt career politician, he had substantial support within the Tea Party. However, he raised eyebrows by attacking the Republican Medicare plan, and his campaign’s fate was sealed by the mass exodus of his entire staff. Gingrich adds variety to the field with his threats of Islamo- fascism, but he is regarded as a dead man walking.

There is still a lot of time until the beginning of primary season, and the field might change. Two possible candidates are former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and governor of Texas Rick Perry. The former has name recognition and a devoted following, but is unacceptable for social conservatives. Perry has been hinting at a run, and if he decided to run, his strong point would be the excellent state of Texas’ economy, an oasis of growth in the desert of recession. He is a libertarian, however, which means that he would have to look to the Tea Party for votes, forcing him to compete with Bachmann. Besides, do Americans want another Texan in the White House?

Another candidate, Jon Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah and ambassador to China, is seen as the race’s dark horse. He is a fiscal conservative, a social liberal, and a proponent of limited military involvement (he has spoken out against the Libya operation). Many Republican strategists dream of his winning the nomination, as they feel that Huntsman could appeal to independents as well as many Democrats. However, it’s hard to see him as the GOP choice, not only because he served as Obama’s ambassador. He is simply too much to the left of the Republican Party.

The GOP primaries have become about candidates declaring loyalty to the ideology of small government, lower taxes and a free market economy. In the last 20 to 30 years, the party went so far to the right, eliminating fiscal moderates from their ranks, that they have been unable to come up with solutions to new challenges, such as the financial crisis, itself a result of deregulation, and the massive debt. They have prescribed medicines that will only cause further pain, such as lowering taxes and further deregulation.

The Republicans have nothing new to offer and it is no surprise that there is a lack of leadership. However, if the economy keeps heading in the direction it is now, their candidate could win in 2012 by portraying himself as the anti-Obama, elected in protest of the incumbent president.