BOONE, Iowa –
When Tim Pawlenty stands in front of a crowd at the Boone Public Library in this bucolic town of 12,479, he says there are some very important lessons to learn from the election and presidency of Barack Obama.
“Before we next put someone in the Oval Office and make him or her president of the United States and commander-in-chief and leader of the free world, they better be ready for the job,” Pawlenty says. “Barack Obama came to Iowa and convinced the Democrats here that it would be a good idea to catapult him to the presidency of the United States. What we now know, a few years removed from that, is that he wasn’t ready.”
Pawlenty tells the group that Iowa Republicans are now facing an even more important choice. Obama is vulnerable, and “the main way we’re gonna goof this up is to not have the best Republican candidate.” The lesson GOP voters need to take away from the Obama experience is “don’t get duped by rhetoric,” because “rhetoric not backed up by results doesn’t mean much.”
The bottom line: Republicans shouldn’t get carried away by a candidate who comes to Iowa and sounds good but doesn’t have a substantial record of real achievement in government. While that obviously applies to Obama, when Pawlenty says it — and he’s saying it all the time in the days leading up to the Ames Republican straw poll — he’s not really talking about the current president. What he’s really saying is: Republicans, don’t be fooled by Michele Bachmann.
Pawlenty never mentions Bachmann’s name, never refers to her in any direct way. But the message is unmistakable — and sharp. “Any bobblehead can stand up here and spout off the Republican talking points — that’s not hard,” Pawlenty tells the crowd. “The additional question I hope you ask is this: Did you actually do all that stuff?”
It’s no secret Pawlenty has struggled to slow Bachmann’s rapid rise in Iowa. He’s called her record “nonexistent.” He’s suggested, indirectly, that her migraine headaches could impair her performance in the Oval Office. He’s hinted to reporters, again indirectly, that she might be in the race “to get a cable TV show or some sort of gig down the road.” And now he’s suggesting that she would be an appealing but risky unknown quantity like Obama in 2008.
The results of Saturday’s Republican straw poll in Ames, Iowa will show whether Pawlenty’s strategy is working, at least in this still-early stage of the race. But now, just as Pawlenty is finding his voice against Bachmann, he’s facing another heavy-hitting rival with the expected entry into the race of Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Pawlenty hasn’t yet found an effective way to push back against the growing Perry phenomenon. That was clear enough on Tuesday morning, when Pawlenty spoke briefly to a group of social conservatives on the lawn of the Iowa state capitol in Des Moines. A small group of representatives of Americans for Rick Perry, an independent group raising money for the Texas governor, crashed the event at about the same time news broke that Perry intended to “make clear” that he is running for president during a speech in South Carolina on Saturday. After his standard speech on abortion and marriage, Pawlenty began to walk in direction of the big RV he’s using to travel around Iowa. It appeared that he would stop a moment to talk to reporters, but then he heard the first question: “What do you think of Governor Perry entering the race?” Pawlenty glanced over at a couple of aides. “Let’s go,” one of them said. “Sorry, we’re not doing a scrum,” Pawlenty told the press, and climbed into the RV.
Perry is just the latest obstacle Pawlenty has faced since the beginning of his campaign; no matter what happens, people always seem to be talking about somebody other than Tim Pawlenty. At the very beginning, it was Donald Trump, whose flirtation with running stole some of the oxygen from Pawlenty’s entry into the race. Then it was Bachmann. Now, it’s Perry and Bachmann.
There’s no doubt Pawlenty is troubled by it. But he might also want to think back a few years. Back in 2003, when Democrats were campaigning across Iowa, searching for a candidate to challenge George W. Bush in ’04, Howard Dean was a sensation. The former Vermont governor was ahead in the polls and the subject of all the buzz — so much so that whenever a Democratic candidate faced the press, the questions were inevitably about Howard Dean. Has Dean wrapped up the race? Do you have a chance? Hasn’t Dean raised far more money than you?
Everyone knows what happened; the Dean phenomenon did not survive contact with actual voters. After Dean imploded, all those reporters’ questions were completely irrelevant. Pawlenty’s hope today is that both Perry and Bachmann begin to wear thin as Iowans get to know them. Of course, even if that happens, Pawlenty has to stay in the race, to keep doing what he’s doing, long enough to emerge as the sensible, responsible alternative to the more exciting candidates. It’s been a tough road for the Minnesota governor in Iowa, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any easier anytime soon.
