Where Pawlenty went wrong

Some are questioning his decision to put so much into Iowa, but I thought his decision made sense at the time. It was clear Romney was the frontrunner in New Hampshire, so if Pawlenty was going to supplant him, he’d need the momentum coming out of Iowa. It’s hard to see how if he had lost Iowa and New Hampshire that he’d be able to win over South Carolina. At first, Iowa, a neighboring state, seemed the best fit for him among the early states, given his working class background, ties to the evangelical community and the lack of a strong competitor.  Once Bachmann entered the race – which wasn’t assumed at the time he was starting his campaign — this strategy became a lot tougher to execute. But by that point, it would have looked really weak had he backed down from the Bachmann challenge and started shifting resources into New Hampshire.

So I don’t think the decision about where to compete was ultimately at the root of his problems. The problem was that Pawlenty should have challenged Romney as a more authentic alternative, but challenged him as a more conservative alternative instead. And he didn’t even execute that strategy well.

Pawlenty’s attempts to challenge Romney as a conservative alternative ran into several problems. The first is that if you’re going to run as a conservative alternative, you had better have an impeccable conservative record. While Pawlenty had a center-right record for a liberal state, he also had many departures from conservatism during the period of his career when he was trying to craft a moderate image for himself. So his attempts to suddenly be a red meat conservative on the campaign trail caused authenticity problems for him (more on that below). Once Bachmann entered the race, this strategy became a lot harder.

With that said, if Pawlenty did want to be a conservative alternative to Romney, it was imperative for him to explain why Romney was insufficiently conservative. It’s not like this would have been hard to do, given that Romney was the architect of a health care plan that was the forerunner to Obamacare, for which Romney still won’t apologize. But for some reason, Pawlenty backed down when given the chance in their first debate. That was not only a missed opportunity to go after his chief opponent, but it made him look weak. As I wrote at the time, it was Pawlenty’s “I am paying for this microphone moment” in reverse. His campaign never recovered.

Pawlenty should have challenged Romney as a more authentic alternative. If you look back at 2008, Romney was beaten by Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Like them or hate them, Huckabee and McCain are two politicians that connect with people on a gut level. Pawlenty has a compelling personal life story and can be perfectly likable in person. Had he simply been himself, he would have had a better chance to bond with voters on a personal level. And if you do that, they’re more forgiving when you explain various “clunkers” in your record, as Pawlenty liked to put it. Unfortunately, Pawlenty’s need to make up for his various deviations from conservatism resulted in a consultant-driven, overly scripted campaign. That’s the exact opposite of what he needed to do if he was going to differentiate himself. Nobody is going to out-robot Mitt Romney.

Pawlenty’s decision to get out now rather than drag it out till the end was an honorable one, and likely preserves the possibility that he may reemerge a year from now as a vice presidential pick. Looking ahead, it seems that he’d be a potentially solid pick for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, should he win the nomination, given that Pawlenty would bring regional diversity to the ticket, as well as executive experience and a record that’s conservative enough without turning off a general electorate. And given Perry’s out-sized Texas persona, he could benefit from a “plain vanilla” pick in the number two spot.