Pawlenty at RightOnline conference (video)

Posted on June 20th, 2011 by Sean Curnyn

I am not endorsing Tim Pawlenty (honest!); I continue to want to see a good competition for the Republican nomination where the best candidate wins, and at this point we don’t even know what the full range of candidates will ultimately be. However, after what happened last time, I’m concerned lest the process short-circuit itself and we end up with the wrong nominee. Conservatives ought to be smarter than to go with someone who merely seems to be the smoothest, or someone who just looks the part, or someone who has been trying so long that it just seems to be his turn.

I’m concerned therefore that someone like Pawlenty get the kind of consideration that he ought to, based on his quite substantial record of accomplishment as a two-term conservative governor in a basically liberal state. Anyone can look it up. He’s seems to be solid across-the-board on conservative issues, other than cap and trade, where he now flatly admits that he erred when he at one time gave that policy his support. Although I thought he did very well at the last debate, I seem to have been in a minority of one; the exchange where he failed to go after Mitt Romney’s health care plan became the defining clip from that event, and it didn’t portray him favorably.

Over the weekend I was tuning in to various Tweetering from the RightOnline conference, sponsored by “Americans for Prosperity.” A number of candidates gave speeches. Michele Bachmann was very well received, by a large crowd, which then thinned out. Pawlenty came on after her, having arrived just ten minutes before his start-time due to a plane delay. The tweets I saw about his speech conveyed surprise and overwhelming positivity about his performance; he gave his speech without notes, away from the podium, casually dressed, connecting well with the crowd and getting a standing ovation.

Video of that appearance is online today, and embedded below. If you watch—and especially when he gets going on specific issues a few minutes into it—consider how he would look as compared to Barack Obama in debates next year. He can speak cogently and at length without notes (let alone a teleprompter); he has command of the facts and the issues and he seems to know exactly what he believes. He has a real record of positive achievement to which he can point as the chief executive of a large state. Put this beside the airy-fairy-hopey-changey-vague-platitudinous stuff of Barack Obama and there will be no contest, especially at a time when Americans are looking for someone who can do, rather than someone who who just likes the sound of his own voice.

And this in particular strikes me about Pawlenty: he seems to be able to communicate the conservative line on issues without it coming off as an “us and them” proposition. That’s very important in getting to those pesky but crucial “independents” who are repelled by anything very ideological. Barack Obama’s only hope next year is to demonize the Republican nominee, whoever it is. However, I see that task as being particularly difficult with Tim Pawlenty. No one will accuse him of being electrifying—which is his disadvantage at the moment—but it will be pretty hard to paint him as being deranged and dangerous.

So, as this process moves forward, I think Pawlenty deserves not just a first look, but a second and third. But one thing is sure: he won’t get the nomination as any kind of gift. If he is to win, he will have to earn it.