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.
These things happen sometimes, but it’s still funny to point out. If you’re going to post a press release about education on the White House website at least proofread it first. I imagine this will be fixed soon.
The View from 5A posted this picture of Senator Harkin and President Obama. The author of the blog comes up with some interesting theories about what is actually happening…
It’s unclear exactly what is going on here. One of three possible scenarios seem plausible:
1) Sen. Harkin is getting ready to smack the President.
2) Sen. Harkin is preventing the President from attaining the object by playing keep-away.
3) President Obama just handed off a large white baton to the Senator during the annual White House to Capitol Hill relay.
This is a worthy effort; however, there are only a few true Harkin aficionados on the planet, and of course The Daily Plunge is the Tom Harkin source. It seems very clear to me what is really going on in this photograph…
It’s obvious that Harkin is holding Howard Dean’s map to the White House. You know, the one which details how Dean was not only going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, but then to South Carolina, and Oklahoma, etc., etc… Yeahahghaahgaah. Frankly I’m surprised the president has waited so long to secure this vital map. I’m sure Senator Harkin drove a hard bargain; there’s no telling how much more pork the state of Iowa will receive. The larger question is this: Did Howard Dean make a copy of the map?
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