Originally Posted by
PanzerJaeger
Yikes, that seems more like damnation with faint praise to me.
Another faint damnation from another conservative blog (or, "We have seen the future and it is meh"):
Pawlenty’s candidacy doesn’t have any obvious rationale. In fact, the former Minnesota governor has trouble coming up with a reason why he is running at all. He doesn’t unnerve any major constituency in the party in the way that Huntsman does and Daniels did, but he isn’t that closely identified with any of them. He inspires neither intense loyalty nor especially strong dislike. Pawlenty is a compromise candidate in a party that is largely tired of having to settle for what they can get. The few things that distinguish him and make him somewhat interesting to some conservatives, such as his working-class background and conversion to evangelical Protestanism, are things that make him seem to be just enough of a working-class Huckabee-like populist to give some Republicans pause. This means that people with money are probably going to be disinclined to give some of that money to him just as they were unwilling to support Huckabee financially.
Meanwhile, Pawlenty’s actual record is so reliably and generically mainstream Republican that he appears merely adequate rather than exciting.
Unlike Huckabee, Pawlenty projects neither the charisma to sustain a campaign through free media appearances, nor does he have the natural opening to build networks of evangelical volunteers that the former pastor had. Imagine a campaign almost as cash-strapped as Huckabee’s, but with an unremarkable, plodding figure at the center of it instead of the bass guitar-playing evangelical comedian that Huckabee played throughout the 2007-08 contest. That will give you a good idea of the obstacles that await Pawlenty.
Every 2012 candidate needs more Borat, in my opinion.
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