The Pawlenty Surge and Other Notes from GOP WH 2012

Nomination season must be in full swing, because Nate Silver is starting to crank out a lot of posts on what's going on. Regular readers know that I'm a fan of Silver, but often critical of some of his analysis. Anyway, he's put out two interesting blog posts and a tweet of note over the last day, and I have several comments...

1. On Pawlenty: Silver knocks down the idea that if only Tim Pawlenty had stayed in, he would have obviously had a surge at some point, because that's how things are working this cycle. He's very good on it. Basically, my feeling is that these "surges" don't just randomly strike various candidates, and unless you have a theory for why Pawlenty -- who would have been in with very little money and no particular revealed ability to say crazy things that would appeal to the crazies in the GOP electorate -- would have a surge, then odds are he wouldn't. The more reasonable theory on Pawlenty is that had he stuck around, he would have been in good shape to inherit the nomination if Romney and Perry collapsed. Perhaps. To clarify my own position: there's a strong pattern of candidates who originally seemed to have a chance for the GOP nomination dropping out instead of hanging around in case lightning strikes. It's not clear why that's the case, but I suspect there's a systematic reason, and suggests to me that Pawlenty's decision to drop out was strongly driven by party processes.

At any rate, I agree with Silver about what he calls "surge theory."

2. Silver makes much of an establishment/anti-establishment split in the GOP. I remain pretty skeptical of the utility of that construct. I mean, practically no one will admit to being of this dread establishment, and practically no one will confess to supporting it -- and yet it supposedly has quite a bit of influence within the party. Moreover, the establishment seems to be made up of some, but not all, long-time conservative leaders. Are Tea Party leaders part of the "establishment"? What if, like Dick Armey, they've been GOP leaders in Washington for years? I understand the distinction between party elites and rank-and-file voters, and between conservatives and moderates (or perhaps between extreme conservatives and mainstream conservatives, or however you want to draw ideological lines within the GOP), but I really don't understand establishment/anti-establishment.

3. Similarly, I very much doubt that "establishment" support is "a bug rather than a feature." Well, check that: it's certainly possible that there are rank-and-file voters who will say that they want an outsider or anti-establishment candidate. But when it comes down to it, the odds are that voters will tend to wind up supporting the candidates that Fox News and conservative talk show hosts talk up -- and will also tend to wind up supporting the candidates who are able to buy fully stocked campaigns with the money that comes from high-profile endorsements.

4. I also recommend Silver's article on the dangers for Herman Cain from the harassment story. Silver has been ahead of the curve on Cain's popularity all year. I still disagree with him about how important that is for Cain's actual chances of winning the nomination, but I probably should defer to him about Cain's appeal to conservatives.

5. Last bit...I'm not completely sure it's fair to criticize something that he put in a tweet instead of a post, but Silver said this yesterday: "My real guesstimates: Romney 67%, Perry 20%, Gingrich 4%, Cain 2%, Paul 1%, Huntsman 1%, Bachmann 0.5%, Santorum 0.5%, other 4%." I think he's setting the chances of Romney and Perry combined far, far too low. I'm not sure what the correct chances of one of those two winning it should be, but I'm confident that it's at least 95%, and perhaps quite a bit higher. Which is (more or less) what I've been saying since March -- that no matter what the current hype might be, there's a very high chance, which I estimated then as at least 90% and probably around 98%, that the nominee will be someone with conventional credentials who is within the party mainstream on policy. Of course, my numbers are guesstimates too...

Pawlenty Endorses Romney

The big political news of the morning, going into the Tea Party debate tonight, is that the Minnesota Meh, Tim Pawlenty, has endorsed Mitt Romney.

Endorsements are tricky things to understand in presidential nomination politics, because they can mean different things. Let's see...

Collectively, high-profile endorsements are a way for party actors to signal to each other their preferences, which helps them to coordinate their collective choice -- or, in the case of factional battles over the nomination, to coordinate a faction. In that sense, endorsements are quite important.

But individual endorsements may or may not play into that, because endorsers may be acting as part of the party or on behalf of individual, perhaps idiosyncratic reasons. Now, some self-interest may line up with party coordination. For example, if Pawlenty's goal is to get a cabinet post or the VP nod, then he has a strong incentive to figure out who is likely to win the nomination -- and he thus sends an informed signal to others about how the contest is going. On the other hand, it's not unusual for presidential candidates to wind up holding grudges against each other and acting on that after they leave the race.

Note that in all of this endorsements can be both a cause of future consolidation behind a candidate and an effect of previous candidate success.

I should mention too that endorsements can bring resources (money, volunteer time) with them, although it's best to be careful about assuming that a failed presidential candidate controls, or even has a strong influence on, his former supporters. Might be true, might not. Press reports sometimes are a bit too quick to make those connections; indeed, exaggerated reports of resources that supposedly came with endorsements may account for the idea that endorsements don't matter, which I also hear frequently. So I'd be cautious about that sort of effect -- although surely it can exist, to some extent.

So all in all endorsements are certainly worth paying a lot of attention to, but they tell us a lot in the aggregate that isn't necessarily true of individual cases.

Ames and Pawlenty

What should we think of the Ames Straw Poll as part of the nomination process? Polls and Votes and the Monkey Cage's Joshua Tucker argue it's not predictive of nomination success; Nate Silver says that it is, a little. The Nation's Ben Adler has quite a bit of contempt for it.

I sort of think they're all thinking about it the wrong way. I had a TNR column last week that I don't think I've mentioned yet over here in which I made the case for Ames (although not quite as enthusiastically as the headline they gave me might have made it seem). Basically, I think the best way to think about Ames is as an unusually visible event within the invisible primary. And as with all events within the invisible primary, what's important is the signals that various party actors are sending to each other as they try to compete and coordinate on their way to choosing a nominee, and the way that the candidates attempt to appeal to those actors.

From that perspective, it's not that Ames knocked Pawlenty out, and it's certainly not that (as Adler has it) the media arbitrarily decided to call Ames a big deal and drove Pawlenty out by arbitrarily setting high expectations for him. No, what I'd say happened is that Pawlenty had failed for several months to impress various party actors, and that Ames signaled that he wasn't interesting activists, either. Since Pawlenty was (apparently) actually running for president and not using the nomination process to win a spot on Fox News or sell books, he had no point in continuing once that was decided. But the point is that the decision-makers here weren't primarily the folks at Ames -- they were the various active participants in the Republican Party. That is, and regular readers will recognize this list, campaign and governing professionals, formal party staff and officials, activists, politicians, and members of party-aligned interest groups and media. The story certainly appears to be that collectively, those folks had come to the conclusion that while Pawlenty was acceptable to them on public policy and was probably as likely to be an adequate president as any of the other contenders, he was simply an electoral dud. They may have been wrong about that! It's not a science. On the other hand, they need to make choices, and it's basically a good, healthy sign that they care about electoral viability. Meanwhile, since no constituency within the party was willing to push hard for him, well, you know what happened.

Pawlenty Out

And so it's the end of the line for the man they called the Minnesota Meh. No great surprise, right?

A couple of quick points:

It's wrong to say that he dropped out because of Ames. Instead, it's more the case that Ames went badly for him because everything else was going badly -- he reportedly sunk most of his available resources into the Straw Poll, but the truth is he didn't have very many resources remaining. If nevertheless it turned out that his diminished resources could buy Straw Poll success, he'd have something to sell to Republican party actors, but that didn't turn out to be the case.

This also puts Pawlenty's debate strategy the other night in a new context. It made sense as a last-ditch nomination strategy anyway, but it really made sense for someone who wanted to show that he had the fire necessary for a Vice-Presidential debate without wanting to alienate the guy who might be selecting a running mate. Was that part of a deliberate strategy? Obviously I have no idea, and it's not as if no one has ever been picked for the ticket after vicious attacks against the nominee, but I suspect that it was at least a possible factor. Not that I think he'll get that particular nod.

I was trying last night to figure out a way of talking about Pawlenty within the framework of plausible nominees that I have been using. I think what I should have said is that he was a plausible nominee who wasn't  visibly doing anything to get him closer to winning. At any rate, that's a moot point now. My old list of plausible nominees was Pawlenty, Romney, Perry, Jeb Bush, and Palin...I suppose I'd say that I wouldn't exactly change that, but I see absolutely no sign that Bush is going to get into the race, any just about no sign that Palin is doing anything that she would need to do to become the nominee. I've said from the start that my "plausible" group had well over a 90% chance of winning the nomination, and realistically we're now talking about two people. Winnowing!

Ames Straw Poll

I have a post up over at Plum Line on the results out of Ames (Bachmann edges Paul, Pawlenty a solid but distant third). It's a state-of-the-race overview, basically. No surprises for regular readers here; I think it's probably down to Perry and Romney, now. If GOP elites who were inclined to support the Minnesota Meh really want to stick with him, he could survive and perhaps turn it around, but I don't see much reason to expect that to happen.

Kevin Drum asks:

Wait a second. Everyone expected Bachmann to win, and likewise, everyone knows that Ron Paul has a demonstrated (and meaningless) ability to round up his tiny band of fanatical troops for events like this. So third place isn't too bad for Pawlenty, is it? Or was the "Pawlenty in trouble" media narrative already so set in stone that it didn't matter how well he did?

I don't think that's it. What I think is that we've already seen that Pawlenty isn't raking in money, and we've already seen that he's not showing up in the polls, and we've already seen that he's certainly not a dynamo in debates...but up to this point he's had one strong argument to make to GOP party actors who might have been inclined to support him, but didn't see signs of his viability: he had the best organization in Iowa. And that's not a crazy argument to make! After all, if Pawlenty makes it to the caucuses and then his organization allows him to finish top three...well, that's a viable candidate. What Ames does is to deflate that expectation. And unfortunately for Pawlenty, it could be that he has little left to sell to party actors.

The Ames Debate

Look, as far as effects, debates mostly don't matter. On top of that, it doubly doesn't matter (at least with respect to the nomination contest) what Gingrich, Cain, Santorum, and Huntsman do...they aren't going anywhere, and everyone knows it or should know it. Same, basically, with Ron Paul. Bachmann? Really, I basically think the same is true with her, although she's certainly going to get plenty of votes Saturday and may well get plenty when the voting begins...but how she does in debates at this point isn't going to change that much. And there's really nothing much going on for Romney in these, either. He has to avoid self-immolation, but that's a low bar. He gets to look far more presidential than the others. He did both of those things.

Tim Pawlenty had something on the line tonight, though; he's desperately trying to convince party actors that he's really viable after all. As I said over at Greg's place today, he probably is to the point of needing to manufacture some good news about his candidacy. I don't think he did that, although if he does somehow manage to do it on Saturday at the Straw Poll then his debate will look great in retrospect, so that's something I suppose. However, the real test of whether Pawlenty manufactured good news for himself will come in the postmortems in the GOP-aligned press, and I'm not energetic enough tonight to follow any of it.

Also, I thought the questioning was mostly overrated, judging from the early positive reviews I saw. But that's okay; we'll have plenty more debates before this is all over.

Catch of the Day

Goes to Jonathan Chait, for reading Tim Pawlenty's floundering around on climate -- what Chait calls his
"Galileo Moment." Featuring this priceless quote from the Minnesota Mediocrity (you like it? I don't, but I'm still looking for something):

There’s lots of layers to it. But at least as to any potential man-made contribution to it, it’s fair to say the science is in dispute. There’s a lot of people who say the majority of the scientists think this way. And there’s a minority that way. And you count the number of scientists versus the quality of scientists and the like. But I think it’s fair to say that, as to whether and how much – if any – is attributable to human behavior, there’s dispute and controversy over it.

That's just wonderful.

Anyway, Chait's kicker is terrific:

He is such a soulless hack. But this is the state of the Republican Party now. No doubt Pawlenty tells himself he must pretend not to believe in climate science or else the nomination may go to somebody who genuinely disbelieves climate science.

And you know what -- that's probably exactly what Pawlenty thinks. And what's more, he's right! I'd much rather have someone in the White House who has fairly sensible basic beliefs but is willing to pretend she doesn't than to have someone who honestly and sincerely believes all sorts of nonsense. Much less someone who believes all sorts of nonsense and also honestly and sincerely believes that he is on a mission from God to enact all of it.

As far as the Minnesota Meh is concerned (like that better? I'm still not there), I've continued to be optimistic about his prospects, and I suppose I still am, but it would be nice to get at least a little evidence confirming that he's still a contender. Intrade has him at 2.1% right now, so I'm still a buy -- c'mon, he's below Ron Paul and basically tied with Rudy Giuliani. After all, the logic of it is still the same: someone has to win, and there are really only two plausible candidates ahead of him, and it's not difficult to picture scenarios in which both Romney and Perry wind up losing.

(I want to balance it with a word for being acceptable to all but the choice of none that has positive connotations, but I can't think of a good one).

Pawlenty Nixes Marriage Vow

(Updated)

I've continued to argue that Tim Pawlenty's candidacy is viable, and that he remains reasonably well-positioned within the nomination field as someone who can appeal to every group within the party. I've said that he has plenty of time; he doesn't need to break out of the pack yet.

And yet...well, he's picking up some useful-sounding endorsements, but obviously he's had a lousy last few weeks.

In that context, it sure seems like a blunder to me that Pawlenty chose to pass on the "Marriage" pledge promoted by Iowa social conservatives. So far, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum signed on; Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Pawlenty all passed. Romney's choice makes sense, in the context of a campaign that isn't going to appeal to intense social conservatives anyway. It doesn't matter much what Newt and Cain do, of course.

But Pawlenty? I don't get it. I don't see the downside of signing on. Are there quite a few nutty and, potentially, highly unpopular provisions in the "Vow"? Yup. Why isn't that a feature for him, not a bug? After all, it's not conservatives, even moderate conservatives, who would likely attack him for signing on (they might not be thrilled with it, but they're not looking for a GOP civil war if they can avoid it). No -- the only people who might well attack Pawlenty for the Marriage Vow are liberals. And Tim Pawlenty's campaign shouldn't just welcome attacks from liberals right now; he should be wearing a big target and jumping up and down waving his arms with big cartoon arrows pointing at him, begging liberals to attack him. And on marriage? Couldn't pick a better issue.

I don't want to make too much of this, but the way he's dealing with this is pretty troubling for those of us who  have thought Pawlenty was a top-tier candidate, even while his polling and fundraising numbers lagged. It suggests that either he's going to make a principled choice to avoid anything that smacks of gay-baiting, race, and other such things, or that his campaign doesn't understand the basic dynamics brought on by movement conservatives and GOP-oriented media. Neither of those is good news for someone seeking the Republican presidential nomination in this cycle.


Update: Some good reporting from Sarah Posner makes Pawlenty's decision potentially a lot more sensible. If in fact the Vow and its author are getting some pretty direct flack from other Christian conservatives, then perhaps what's really going on here is that Pawlenty (and the others who passed) are trying to steer a course through social conservative infighting, which in fact might be a very sensible reason for staying clear of it (while, as Pawlenty has done, pushing his credentials on the relevant issues). Posner doesn't have anything definitive...it's worth continuing to monitor the situation, but in light of it I'll withdraw some of my downgrading of Pawlenty's chances.

Hunstman, and Three Questions about the GOP Process

I've written the "Hunstman can't win" post so many times...I think on the day of his big announcement, I'll just quote a wonderful Alex Massie post. Will Republicans settle for Huntsman?

That's a tricky proposition given that Huntsman was happy to serve in the Obama administration. It's also a problem given his minimal name recognition, the fact he comes from a small state and that, yup, there's already a Mormon ex-governor in the race. Oh, and it's not obvious he believes the same things as the voters who will decide this race do. Apart from that, I like his chances fine.

Oh, and also:

At present it seems that Huntsman's support is largely confined to Wall Street and McLean, Virginia. These are important constituencies but making David Brooks swoon is an insufficient condition for winning the Republican nomination.

Wonderful.

Meanwhile, we're finally getting close to the end of the announcement season, right? And the field seems basically set now, with the two big question marks being Rick Perry (probably in, I'd guess) and Sarah Palin (I have no guess at all).

Three timing questions to ask; I don't have answers to any of them. These are about three of the five people I believe are plausible GOP nominees, along with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

1. How long could Jeb Bush wait and still get in and have a plausible chance of winning? My guess: not very much longer (note: I've never thought he would run. Just saying that if he did, he'd be a solid contender).

2. How long does Sarah Palin have to start turning her reputation around, which she would need to do to win the nomination? I think she still technically could do it. Of course, she probably won't; she seems determined not to. But my guess is that even as late as the fall, she could emerge as a pretty serious candidate for the nomination, if she was able to change the way she operates.

3. How long does Tim Pawlenty have to demonstrate a pulse with voters? My guess? November, December, something like that. Especially if Perry drops out, but even with Perry in the race I still think that if Pawlenty has a late rally to finish third in Iowa, he'd still have a chance. In the meantime, however, he has to grind out some gains in endorsements and fundraising, but if he does that I don't think he has to start moving in the polls until very late in the game.

Pawlenty's Plan

My post over at Greg's place today is pretty critical of Tim Pawlenty's new economic plan as a campaign ploy; basically, I say that it's mostly fantasy because that's required of Republican candidates, but Pawlenty falls short by inexplicably including details that can only hurt him with primary and general election constituencies. Click over for the particulars.

What I didn't include over there is the most promising piece of Pawlenty’s plan, the immediately-mocked “Google test” – Pawlenty suggests that if something can be purchased online, then the federal government shouldn’t be doing it. It's one of those things that sounds cute, and then after twenty seconds of reflection it's pretty easy to poke holes in.

What’s promising about that? Note that liberal pundits are having a field day with it: here, here, here, and more. That's what's promising! Provoking liberal ridicule is a very useful skill for Republican presidential candidates.

Still, it’s no Paul Revere’s ride, and I’m not confident that Pawlenty has what it takes to turn well-deserved derision into outrage and resentment. No doubt, that’s the next test for his campaign.

The GOP and New Candidates

Daniel Larison takes me to task for a comparison of Michael Dukakis 1987 and Tim Pawlenty 2011 I made last week (over at Greg's place). Larison looks at the data Nate Silver posted and concludes:

[N]o early polling on the Republican side has ever found an eventual nominee in the single digits at this point. Indeed, the only time in the last several open races that the eventual nominee wasn’t in first place in early polling was in 2007 when the absurd, media-driven candidacy of Rudi Giuliani was still taken seriously. Republicans have no habit of nominating candidates with poor name recognition on their first attempt in the modern primary process. Put another way, if someone polling as poorly as Dukakis in 1987 had been running on the Republican side at any time in the last forty years, he would never have won the nomination.

I'm very open to the idea that the parties differ either in process or, in some relevant way, make-up, but I'm going to continue strongly disagree with this one. The overwhelming fact of previous Republican nomination cycles has been that there was an obvious nominee; that is, there was a clear party leader. That was the case in 1972, 1976, 1984, 1992, and 2004, when they renominated a president; it was also the case in 1988, when they nominated a sitting vice-president. That leaves only 1980, 1996, 2000, and 2008. Four cases. In my view, at least, that's not enough to draw any conclusions.

On top of that, each of the other four cases had a stronger leading candidate at this point than the 2012 field has. In 1980 Ronald Reagan was clearly the leader of the party, having run twice before, almost unseating a sitting president for renomination, and generally having been the biggest name in the dominant wing of the party for over a decade. In 1996, Bob Dole wasn't quite of that magnitude, but he was also a three-time candidate as well as a former VP nominee. Weaker still were the president's son in 2000 and guy who lost to the president's son eight years later, but still both were more obvious choices than Mitt Romney is this time around. That's not to say Romney can't win, but only to say that it wouldn't be surprising if something different happened this time -- because the situation is different.

Note too that when Democrats were in those situations, they renominated their president, or in 2000 the sitting vice-president, every time. Indeed, they also nominated the recent VP in 1984 (although not in 1972, but almost, and there are complications involved).

I can add one other thing from Silver's data. No one with single-digit polling numbers has won a GOP nomination, but it's not the case that Republicans won't vote for someone they had never heard of the previous year. George H.W. Bush went from 1% in the polls in 1979 to the clear second choice in 1980; John McCain was at 5% in 1999 and finished a solid second in 2000; Romney (9%) and Huckabee (2%) were nowhere in 2007 but serious contenders the next year. Now, it's true that none of them won, but I would say that Romney and Huck came fairly close -- and it wouldn't be shocking if the 2012 version of Romney turns out to be weaker than the 2008 version of McCain.

I'm not predicting a winner between Romney and Pawlenty, but I think that anyone who believes that the polling so far dooms Pawlenty is dead wrong. It's possible that the polling is telling us something, but that's about it. At any rate, it's certainly important to note that we're not extrapolating, as Larison would have it, from "the last forty years" -- we're extrapolating from exactly four cycles at best, and perhaps as few as one.

Catch of the Day

Paul Waldman has a lot of fun at the expense of Nick Ayers, Tim Pawlenty's new campaign manager.

In case you're wondering about all the hype surrounding the Ayers announcement yesterday (I'm not going to track down links, but it sure was all over twitter)...the short version is that it certainly is important for presidential candidates to be plugged into their party's network, but when you take a candidate such as Pawlenty who is clearly a serious candidate, the fact that he hired Ayers doesn't really add anything to what we know. As far as the importance of individual operatives, we really don't know much at all about how important they are in the nomination process (it's clear that they aren't very important in the general election campaign, because campaign effects are very limited to begin with, so the difference between operative A and operative B isn't likely to matter much at all).

What I can say is that during the invisible primary period (that is, in the three years leading up to the Iowa caucuses), outside observers are apt to overstate the importance of any particular tangible indicator because it's tangible, and because so much of the process during this phase isn't -- that's why it got the name "invisible"! But of course, just because something is overhyped doesn't mean that it's not important at all.

Catch of the Day (How Deep is the Red?)

The catch goes to Ezra Klein, for a close reading of Tim Pawlenty's book:

Evidence aside, this line of argument also presents a tension with the rest of Pawlenty’s book. It’s clear that he doesn’t really like liberals (“the current administration and Democrat-controlled Congress have led us further down the liberal, socialist road than at any time in the history of this country,” he laments). But it’s also clear that he really does like Minnesotans (“Let me tell you about Minnesota strength, and Minnesota people, and Minnesota resolve, and Minnesota commitment and service,” he says). Explaining how this great, wise, strong, service-oriented, deeply patriotic state could’ve become so committed to the liberal-socialist agenda is, however, left as an exercise for the reader.

I'll also, while I'm add it, direct everyone to a quite interesting analysis of recent newspaper and blogging coverage of the various 2012 candidates from Nate Silver. I'm not sure that calling the former "Beltway" really works, and I can think of a few other methodological questions, but it's better than no data at all, and interesting.

I agree with Klein (and, I think, Silver's data) that it's worth making an effort to spend more time on Pawlenty. I don't know that I agree with Jonathan Chait that Pawlenty is the clear frontrunner, but he's certainly a plausible winner in a field that I've said is down to about eight plausible winners, four or five of whom don't appear, at this point, all that likely to be candidates as of August this year. And whatever his other strengths and weaknesses, Tim Pawlenty definitely fulfills the Woody Allen requirement of showing up.

Pawlenty

It occurs to me that I've been doing posts on each presidential candidate as they jump into or exit out of the race, and I didn't do one on Tim Pawlenty this week.

Uh...he's a serious candidate with a solid chance to win.

I think that exhausts what I have to say about Pawlenty. David Frum nailed this a while back: he's running as the Generic Republican.

Counting the contenders, not establishing an order: Pawlenty (1) clearly could win, along with Romney (2), Barbour (3), and (if they're in) Daniels (4) and Huck (5). Rick Perry (6) could, in my view, still run and have a solid chance of winning, and I suppose that's true of Jeb Bush (7), and there's still Palin (8). But that's about it. National Journal has a new Top 15 candidate list out this week, and I don't seen anyone else from that list with a realistic chance (Perry is on their sub-list "on the bubble" category, and Jeb isn't even there). Longshot but plausible nominee Jim DeMint is now putting out word that he's definitely not running, and it's not clear that he (or Thune, or a few others) could enter or re-enter any later than now and still have a chance.

So if all that is correct, then that leaves only eight real plausible nominees at this point -- I'd probably say those eight have collectively far better than a 90% chance of winning the nomination, probably around 98%) and of those only three are clearly in and running at this point. For what it's worth, my eight only have about 72% of the combined odds on Intrade, so I suppose I think that these candidates are, collectively, pretty severely undervalued over there (see, by the way, here and here for some caution about interpreting prices at Intrade and other such markets).  And for what it's worth I'll add that Jeb Bush would really be starting from scratch; as far as I know, he hasn't been doing any sort of candidate-like things at all over the last couple years

I suppose the upshot of all of that is that I should really be paying more attention to Pawlenty.

Dogs, Not Barking

Haven't done one of these for a while...for new readers, these are items that have not been in the news, which is in itself newsworthy.

1. Tim Pawlenty.  Over the last month or two, the only real news he's generated that I recall noticing was his accusations about the MN Senate race.  The one that was settled a year ago.  Excellent way to get buzz if he's running against Al Franken; not so much if he's running against Romney, Palin, and others in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Presidential campaigns can certainly survive quiet spells (see: Obama, 2007), but it's worth noting that, at least in my view, Pawlenty is in the midst of one.

2. Scandal in the House.  After Charley Rangel, and the Massa fiasco...not much, is there?  Unless the investigations surrounding the banking bill go somewhere.  Didn't sound like much to me, so far.

3. Georgia/Russia.  Repeat item.  We're coming up on two years (next month) of "Today we are all Georgians."  Doesn't seem to have changed the balance of power in the world.  Perhaps not everything is Munich, after all.

4.  Fairness Doctrine, of course.  You might be wondering: are conservatives still vigilant against the immanent re-imposition of the Doctrine?  You'll be glad to know that Iowa Republicans are on the job.  Not just Fairness Doctrine, but "We oppose any regulation or law that would restrict the freedom of speech and the rights of citizens’ groups to communicate with the public about what members of Congress are doing on issues, including alerting citizens to upcoming votes in Congress."  Via Seyward Darby.  A great post, but there's just so much more...the Iowa platform is really worth reading.  My favorite?  "We believe that the judicial branch should not be allowed to interpret law to accommodate certain factions."   Ooohhh, "certain factions."  That'll show 'em.

Deficit Politics and the GOP

I don't know; I found Bruce Bartlett's takedown of Tim Pawlenty's Politico piece to be just about the saddest thing I've read in a while (I'm not going to bother linking to Pawlenty; it's not really worth bothering with).

Not because Bartlett is wrong about the deficit.  Not because he's wrong about Pawlenty's proposed Constitutional amendment to require balanced budgets; in fact, it's one of the best arguments against such a scheme I've seen (key rhetorical point: a Constitutionally mandated balanced budget means, if it means anything, a court-enforced balanced budget).

But because Bruce Bartlett just can't believe the party he doesn't want to leave behind would stand for such nonsense:

In conclusion, Tim Pawlenty is not ready for prime time. He may think he has found a clever way of appealing to the right wing tea party/Fox News crowd without having to propose any actual cuts in spending, but it isn’t going to work. It’s too transparently phony even for them.

I'm willing to offer a wager: not only is this not even close to too transparently phony, but it's not phony enough.  I have no idea how Pawlenty will fare in 2012, but I'm willing to bet that the Republican nominee and anyone who gets close to the nomination will have deficit reduction plans this or more phony.  Moreover, I'll add a bonus prediction: the Republican nominee and anyone who gets close to the nomination will have opposed any CBO-scored significant deficit reduction plan that gets to the House or Senate floor between now an 2012.  Pawlenty may not be ready to cut budget deficits, but I'm afraid he knows a lot more about what the tea party types want than Bruce Bartlett does.

UPDATE: Drum had pretty much the same reaction.

Yeah, That'll Work

Lemons, Lemonade, and all that -- experience was a natural argument for Republicans to use against Barack Obama in 2008, and it made some sense to deflect claims that VP candidate Sarah Palin was not qualified for the (vice) presidency by turning those accusations back at Obama. 

In 2008.

Here's Tim Pawlenty, now, on Palin (via Sullivan), responding to whether Palin "is qualified to be president?"

She is easily as qualified as Barack Obama. I would argue she's more qualified in terms of leadership, experience, management, and supervision—actually running something. She was a mayor, head of an energy commission, and governor.

Emphasis added.

Advice to GOP: it's perhaps not the very, very best plan to run against Obama in 2012 on the basis that Mayor of Wasilla (or even governor of Minnesota) is better experience for the White House than, say, President of the United States of America. 

(Maybe the idea is that Obama isn't "really" the president?  Maybe the idea is that Obama is lacking in that important resigning experience?  Maybe Pawlenty needs to update his talking points?  Hard call).

Join Us At the Picnic 2

Marc Ambinder elaborates on his suggestion that Pawlenty skip Iowa, and I still don't buy it.

Yes, caucuses favor extreme candidates, and that isn't likely to be Pawlenty's strength. But it's not as if Iowa is an outlier; the Republican electorate overall is likely to support candidates they perceive as very conservative in 2012. That's not great luck for Pawlenty.

But Pawlenty doesn't have to win in Iowa to be viable. He just has to get some traction there -- partially in order to keep other candidates from gaining traction. If Pawlenty passes and the field finishes, say, Palin/Romney/Huck in Iowa, then how is Pawlenty, who enters the 2012 cycle with very little national exposure at all, going to finish better than third in New Hampshire? And if Romney and Palin finish 1-2, in whichever order, in Iowa and New Hampshire, is there any reason to think that Pawlenty can suddenly leapfrog them to win in South Carolina? Meanwhile, if Romney and Pawlenty skip Iowa, which one is likely to get more national media attention leading up to New Hampshire -- the one who is already nationally known, or the one who is nationally still very obscure?

Yes, it's apt to be very difficult for someone who movement conservatives don't like to win in Iowa, but only because it's going to be difficult for someone who movement conservatives don't like to win the nomination. As so many candidates have learned, however, you get nominated by competing not by waiting for the perfect state to run in.

I just can't see any logic at all for skipping Iowa for anyone but the most well-known and most well-funded frontrunners -- and even then, I think it's very, very risky.

"Running" for President

Chris Good reports on Pawlenty:

First not running for reelection, then forming a PAC, and now a trip to Iowa.

But then he inexplicably concludes:

This, of course, doesn't mean he's running for president.

No, actually, it does mean he's running for president. It doesn't mean he'll still be running by the time we get to the Ames straw poll, and doesn't mean he'll formally announce a candidacy or wind up contesting primaries and caucuses. For now, though, Pawlenty is running for president, and there's no point in observers keeping to the fictions that candidates must observe (because of political convention, but also because of campaign finance rules).

Pawlenty is running. Romney is running. Any Republican Senator or Governor who shows up in Iowa or New Hampshire this year is running, for now. Reporters: please tell us what's happening, not fiction.

Pawlenty's Charge

Tim Pawlenty is kicking his presidential campaign into high gear today.

It's worth noting just how rare a Pawlenty nomination would be. Here are the results of open GOP nominations (leaving out, that is, nominations of sitting presidents):

1968 Nixon 2nd try (former nominee and VP)
1980 Reagan 3rd try
1988 Bush 2nd try (and VP)
1996 Dole 3rd try (and VP nominee)
2000 Bush 1st try
2008 McCain 2nd try

McCain, Dole, G. H.W. Bush, and Reagan had all been not only candidates, but runners-up, in the previous open nomination.

The big exception, of course, is George W. Bush, but just as obviously he was the son of a Republican president (and governor of a much bigger state). Bush defeated one previous VP (Quayle) and one previous candidate (Forbes) on his way to the nomination.

That's not to say that Pawlenty can't do it; it's a pattern, but there's been no study showing a causal connection between previous candidacy and nominations on the GOP side. That is, we don't know why it happens, including the possibility that it's a chance result, so I'd be very cautious about using the pattern to make predictions. And Democrats nominate first-time candidates frequently (Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Dukakis, Carter). It's tempting to think that there's something different about the two parties that allows Obama to defeat Clinton, Edwards, and Biden on the one hand, but that results in McCain prevailing over Huckabee and Romney on the other side -- but we don't actually know that.

Remember, it's only 27 months to the Iowa Caucuses. Ready yet?