The Daily Plunge

Maybe someday I’ll look back at what I’m about to write and say, “Wow! I was completely wrong about that one!” Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will never be elected President of the United States. The Governor is currently and foolishly putting a team together to run in 2012, but he shouldn’t bother. Whoever put the story together over at POLITICO couldn’t even bother to find a decent picture of the Governor.

There’s a very superficial angle to presidential politics. Pawlenty looks like a Republican John Kerry to me. He’s the type of guy you nominate when you know there’s not an Atlanta Braves making the playoffs chance of winning. Pawlenty’s problems aren’t his politics. He just lacks charisma. He’s not the type of candidate you get excited about when he speaks, or writes, or generally shows up for anything. His speech at the RNC, for instance, was the miracle cure for insomnia modern medicine has been looking for all these years.

Is this a fair way of determining who should be President? No, but I’m not going to ignore reality. Abraham Lincoln may have been a dull person, but we’ll never really know since there’s no film from those days. The content of his rhetoric, however, was amazing. In those days that was enough. With the advent TV and the 24/7 news cycle charisma counts. President Obama was elected primarily based on his charisma and his race; Pawlenty has neither of these traits going for him.

The 2012 election is still a long way off, but the jockeying is already starting. Republicans do not have a lot of talent on the bench so it’s going to be difficult for a newcomer to come out of nowhere like Obama. Obama benefited from press adoration years before making a run. Abraham Lincoln could be resurrected from the dead and run for President again, and still the press would label him a racist member of the extreme right. It’s not going to be easy road running against Obama, especially if you’re Tim Pawlenty.