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Subscribe to RSSEarlier this morning, we asked -- as others have -- if Tim Pawlenty made a mistake by getting out of the GOP race.
A Republican involved in the 2012 race emails Politico's Ben Smith arguing that Pawlenty would have never caught fire, even if he remained in the race.
I just can't take any more blog posts on this. He was 500K in debt. He would have had to fire 2/3 of his staff and deal with the exodus stories. And he likely would have had to deal with internal squabbling. (That one-off Daily Caller story would have been more than a one-off if Pawlenty was still around and people were jockeying on the sinking ship).
So we have a candidate who was polling about 4% in Iowa at the time, in debt, looking ahead at a month of terrible press, with no natural political skills to turn it around. He'd have spent the past 3 months banking just on debates, where he wasn't exactly knocking the cover off the ball when he was in the race.
The reality is he would have been the same place now he was then. Broke, 20 points behind Romney and top conservative alternative in Iowa, and in low single digits nationally.
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Confirmed by the lack of comments on this thread! lol
*yawn*
Well maybe if they doused him with an accelerant he would have.
Duh.
Boy, this Smith guy is brighter than the sun, isn't he?
Remind me not to bookmark his blog.
Who?
You know....that OTHER Nut from Minnesota
That would be a double who??
I think he set himself on fire at a campaign stop and still could not get noticed, thats when he decided to give it up.
Pawlenty had trouble playing the crazed fool. Even with Romney's money, sanity gets you only second place. (Of course, Romney's newest political personality is part crazy. He has that Sybil problem.) Pawlenty had no money and was stuck in no man's land in Republican tennis. He was in between sanity and slobbering loon.
And don't forget his economic plan was greeted with incredulous laughter by even GOP-leaning economists. That wouldn't have beared any more scrutiny (much like Perry's deficit increasing plan, or Cain's asinine 9-9-9 plan).
"TIMMY!" Is now back in South Park. He is singing for his band called. "TIMMY!" No "TIMMY!" Had no chance to ever become President.
I guess that I am the only one here who finds it a concern and a sadness that the article keeps returning to the notion that lack of money and debt didnt' even allow him entry into the very early primary process....which kind of says to me that government office is up to the highest bidder financially, and the higher the office, the higher the bids required. And if money is the primary mover and shaker, then that means that once in office, the highest bidder rule will continue to prevail in terms of their policy-not the highest good for America