President Pawlenty?
Tim Pawlenty, the GOP governor of Minnesota, announced at a press conference today that he will not seek a third term. Plenty of people (including myself) have been talking about Pawlenty as a GOP challenger to Obama in 2012. Finishing his job in 2010 would give him time enough to run ‘unencumbered’.
Instinctively, Pawlenty is not particularlly moderate; the unusual politics of Minnesota may have had a moderating effect on him. Fiscally conservative, I’d say, and while not unattractive to ‘values voters’, moral issues haven’t been that high on his agenda as Governor. Nevertheless, I don’t think that he would necessarily go down well with the current GOP – perhaps something he acknowledged in the conference, saying “I think we need new ideas and new faces in the [Republican] party”.
Somone worth keeping an eye on; talking of Minnesotans, oral pleadings in the never-ending Senate contest started before the state supreme court today.
xD.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Now that’s interesting. I’ll research this man.
jameshigham’s last blog post..[ladies and gays] your word is my command
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
You should. He’s an interesting fellow; I heard him speak in London a while ago and, while I didn’t agree with much of what he said, he put it across in the calm and rational manner of someone who has both thought about the issues and has experience of implementation.
Normally, he’d be a middle-of-the-road Republican, but the current Directory of the GOP would find him insufficiently sound.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
I have enough faith in the GOP’s Whigish witch-hunting to shake moderates like Pawlenty out.
Every centre-right Republican seems terrified of Limbaugh at the moment. Excellent – the guy’s a fruitbat.
Aaron Murin-Heath’s last blog post..I won’t be voting
June 4th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
While I agree with you about Limbaugh, I would add a couple of notes of caution. Firstly, although it is not as strong as it perhaps once was in the UK, tribal voting does exist in the US and sufficient people will always vote Republican to give them governors, representatives and senators. Secondly, it is not clear to me that a rabidly right wing GOP does anyone any favours; they have a platform (aside from Fox News) that allows them to evangelise their position (pun intended) that is not going to be removed. Better to have them on some sort of leash. Thirdly, the result of Democratic party hegemony would be corporatist and I don’t see a progressive alternative appearing any time soon.
xD.
June 5th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Post coming up tomorrow on him. Shall quote you.
jameshigham’s last blog post..[caroline flint] is it true?
June 5th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Thankyou, James! I’ll look out for it.