Impresiones sobre Pawlenty

Larry Jacobs, de la Universidad de Minnesota, y Allan Lichtman, de la American University, analizan para el Des Moines Register las posibilidades de Tim Pawlenty.

(...) So far, his star seems as dim as it was when he announced that he would not seek re-election as governor, igniting speculation that he would seek the GOP presidential nomination.

Still, some political experts say Pawlenty is making all the right moves, regardless of whether they are paying off immediately, and that could brighten his chances of breaking into the top tier of potential candidates.

“He’s taking the right steps he needs to take to run a campaign,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “But when the question is, ‘Why Pawlenty? What’s the base of support that he has that no one else has?’ It’s hard to answer that right now.”

Despite all that he’s done, Pawlenty has a lot more work to do to become competitive, said Allan Lichtman, a presidential scholar at American University in Washington.

“He’s got a lot of candidates to leapfrog over,” Lichtman said, naming 2012 potentials Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

(...) “Democrats have had unknowns come out from nowhere … but Republicans have no history of it,” Lichtman said. “The best model is George McGovern. He did it with both a major issue, the (Vietnam) war, and with grassroots organizing.”

In 1972, McGovern of South Dakota won the Democratic Party nomination on an anti-war platform over establishment favorite Ed Muskie of Maine.

The likelihood of Pawlenty being able to pull off a similar coup is virtually nil, Lichtman said.

“Something strange would have to happen for him to get the nomination,” he said.

(...) More pointedly, Politico observed last summer that Pawlenty suffers from “a charisma deficit and (lacks) a clear rationale for why he should be president.”

Jacobs at the University of Minnesota agrees with that assessment. He said about the only way Pawlenty could gain the nomination would be through attrition.

“He’s the candidate who has least offended people, but he can’t generate any interest,” Jacobs said. Pawlenty still could win the nomination, Jacobs added, “if the other candidates continue to self-destruct and he’s the one who’s left standing.” (...)