Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty announced his candidacy for the presidency this week. It's a bland speech that generally follows the generic rules for a challenger: Announce your candidacy, indict the status quo, establish yourself as the fresh alternative, embody that alternative in your life's story, and close with a bad rendition of "I Have a Dream." But three choices are worthy of note.
First, Pawlenty defines himself as the truth-teller in this race--he'll tell the nation the hard truth about tough choices. To say the least, this is not a new persona in presidential campaigns. In the postwar period alone, Adlai Stevenson called on his party to "tell the truth to the American people" in his 1952 presidential nomination acceptance address and a long line of generally Democratic Party candidates has followed in this tradition. In recent years, they've included figures such as Jimmy Carter ("I will never tell a lie"), John Anderson, Bruce Babbit, Paul Tsongas, and others. Judging from the success enjoyed by these candidates, the American people don't much like the truth.
Equally important, perhaps, it's the common solution to a recurrent problem: Like all of the above candidates, Pawlenty worries about his reputation as a wimp. In a party that reveres hard, manly men chopping brush on ranches or blasting buckshot into their friends' faces, much less even tougher manly women shooting animals in Alaska, T-Paw, well, offers his paw. He has the same problem as the Cubs logo--a nice, friendly lil bear. Hi. I'm a bear. Hug me. So, like H. W. Bush, T-Paw wants to talk tough. I suspect he'll soon declare his love for pork rinds; he's already tried out a southern accent. The gender politics of the Republican Party do not work well for T-Paw.
Second, in a manner akin to Carter in 1976, Pawlenty opens himself to charges of hypocrisy. There's nothing the media likes better than such a challenge. So, when T-Paw declares that he will tell the truth, they immediately begin digging for the numerous "misstatements" he makes in the announcement in which he claims he will tell the truth. Oh my. It's a bit like the challenge offered by Gary Hart in 1988--I don't fool around on my wife, he said. Follow me, he said. That'll show you. It did.
Finally, I suspect Pawlenty has adopted the "truth" strategy for two reasons. Initially, he's probably already anticipating that he'll have to endorse some form of the deeply unpopular Ryan budget; it's become GOP orthodoxy. So, he's trying to frame that disaster as a test of character; real men, real politicians cut entitlement programs. It's not a question of policy, of prudence: does this budget work and, if so, how? Rather, it's a question of character, of credibility: are you willing to stand up and be counted? The chattering class in Washington thinks this way, so he's probably hoping to get away with a pretty disastrous policy choice and, by framing the issue as character, he again reaffirms his manliness.
In addition, he clearly believes that his only real opponent will be Mitt Romney. T-Paw has chosen a theme that appears positive ("I'll tell the truth") but is negative at its very core. It's designed to contrast to Romney, the liberal Massachusetts flip-flopper. Every time Pawlenty says he'll make the hard choices, he implies that Romney never will. The theme plugs into popular perceptions of Mitt and thus becomes a negative attack without ever saying much in the way of negative words. Of course, it doesn't work against anybody but Mitt--and that may be an issue if Sarah Palin decides to enter the race.
It's not a particularly impressive announcement but, in light of the current field, Pawlenty may well be right in his assessment of a two man race. If so, his attack on Romney's character could be just the political insurance T-Paw needs. A mandate, if you will.
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