Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty visited Iowa again over the weekend. He worked the room at a Christian bookstore in Ankeny before addressing a crowd of 200 at the Waukee Area Chamber of Commerce annual dinner in West Des Moines. Pawlenty claims he will decide whether to run for president in March or April, but it seems obvious that he’s running. Not only has he visited Iowa seven times in 15 months, his Iowa political action committee gave nearly $110,000 to Iowa GOP candidates and organizations supporting Republican causes in 2010.
After the jump I catch up on recent news about Pawlenty and other Republicans who may compete in the Iowa caucuses.
Fiscal responsibility was a central theme in Pawlenty’s remarks to the Waukee chamber and his comments to reporters after his book-signing in Ankeny. Asked about President Barack Obama’s partial federal spending freeze, Pawlenty dismissed the policy as as a “spit in the ocean. It’s a joke.” He didn’t say how he would balance the federal budget, endorsing some big changes to Social Security instead. Those would affect the Social Security trust fund, but not the federal budget. In the past, Pawlenty has advocated amending the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced federal budget, but he also said he would make exceptions to the balanced budget rule for “war, natural disasters and other emergencies.”
Pawlenty’s not getting much scrutiny now because he’s only a blip in surveys of Iowa Republicans. He can make fiscal responsibility a central theme in his speeches. He can brag about his executive order to save Minnesota from “Obamacare,” which he has likened to “drug dealing.” He can propose to solve spiraling medical costs by making the health care sector more like a cash bar (where people know they’re spending their own money) as opposed to an open bar.
However, if and when Pawlenty starts gaining in Iowa polls, his rivals will have some big, fat targets to aim at. Take one of Pawlenty’s applause lines yesterday:
Pawlenty says the next thing is real complicated so he’ll say it slowly: We. Can’t. Spend. More. Than. We. Take. In.
That screams out to be featured in a television commercial like Pat Buchanan’s devastating use of “Read my lips: no new taxes” against then President George H. W. Bush during the 1992 Republican primaries. Pawlenty’s fiscal record includes plenty not to be proud of:
*quickly depleting Minnesota’s cash reserves
*underfunding local governments in order to force them to draw down their own reserves
*proposing long-term borrowing (against tobacco settlement money) to pay the state’s bills in 2009
*signing off on far more state borrowing for infrastructure projects than former Iowa Governor Chet Culver ever did.
The Des Moines Register’s Thomas Beaumont had a long piece in Sunday’s paper comparing Pawlenty on style and substance to Representative Michele Bachmann, the other Minnesotan considering a presidential bid. Bachmann headlined an Iowans for Tax Relief fundraiser earlier this month, and her PAC donated to various Iowa candidates and causes in 2010.
Pawlenty said yesterday that he and Bachmann have a “cordial and positive relationship,” adding that “she’ll be a strong candidate” if she runs for president. That was kinder than his previous reaction to the Bachmann speculation: “Well, it’s a free country. Anyone can run that’s over the age of 35.”
Beaumont quoted GOP activists saying both Pawlenty and Bachmann have potential to do well in the Iowa caucuses. From my perspective, his article ignored the elephant in the room, namely that some Republicans are pushing Bachmann to occupy Sarah Palin’s potential niche. Bachmann and Palin talk about similar issues and both appeal to the “tea party” faction within the GOP. They’re favorite targets for the so-called “liberal media” for appearing confused or ignorant about historical facts. Bachmann even surpasses Palin when it comes to pushing falsehoods:
But independent fact checkers find that the information she relies on is often exaggerated, misleading or wrong. PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning feature of the St. Petersburg Times that checks whether statements made by politicians are true, has repeatedly determined that Bachmann’s claim don’t ring true.
“We have checked her 13 times, and seven of her claims to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false,” PolitiFact editor Bill Adair said.
Adair said no politician has been checked as often as Bachmann without saying at least something that’s true.
“I don’t know anyone else that we have checked, more than a couple times, that has never earned anything above a false,” he said. “She is unusual in that regard that she has never gotten a rating higher than false.”
Last week many liberal blogs mocked Bachmann for claiming in her Iowa speech that some of America’s founding fathers “worked tirelessly” until slavery was eradicated. That kind of firestorm will only endear her to conservatives.
In my opinion, Bachmann is not a serious contender for the presidential nomination, but whatever support she gains in Iowa and other early states might dissuade Palin from taking the plunge. Republican strategists must be terrified about the prospect of nominating Palin against Obama.
Speaking of which, now’s a good time to put Bleeding Heartland users on notice: my previous request relating to comments about Palin applies equally to Steve King’s kindred spirit. That is, feel free to ridicule Bachmann’s absurd views and statements, but don’t use sexist insults at this blog.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the front-runner in Iowa for most of 2007, hasn’t been seen here lately. He and his campaign strategists are weighing whether to skip the Iowa caucuses. Who can blame them? Romney placed second to Mike Huckabee in three recent polls of Iowa Republicans, and even if Huckabee doesn’t run, Romney has no prayer of winning over the evangelical conservatives who dominate the caucus-goer universe. The FAMiLY LEADER organization did not invite Romney to participate in its speaker series this spring and summer. Former Iowa House Republican leader Chris Rants, a major Romney supporter during the last cycle, isn’t sold on the candidate anymore:
“I want to know how he is planning on answering his critics in a couple of key areas, and I want an upfront understanding of the game plan and who is calling the shots. If they want me, they’ll talk to me about those things.”
Doug Gross is also non-committal:
Gross, Romney’s Iowa campaign chair last time and a close ally of Gov. Terry Branstad, was blunt in assessing the situation.
“I haven’t talked to him in a long time,” said Gross, one of the most powerful GOP players in the Hawkeye State, of Romney.
The Iowan said Romney needed to make clear what he intended to do in the state.
“Every day that goes by, you’re losing out because folks are going to start choosing sides,” Gross said. “You’ve got to decide if you’re playing or not.”
Even as he joked that he was “still staring at his phone” waiting for Romney to call, Gross suggested he wouldn’t keep waiting.
“I’m having lunch with Newt [Gingrich] tomorrow,” he said earlier this week.
I disagree with John Deeth in that I view skipping Iowa as a credible strategy for a Republican presidential candidate. Romney’s bigger problems are 1) Republican primary voters are going to learn how much “Obamacare” resembles “Romneycare” in Massachusetts, 2) Romney is Mormon, which a large chunk of the party base will never tolerate, especially since 3) Romney used to hold more socially moderate positions when he was running for office in Massachusetts alone.
Share any thoughts about the Republican presidential campaign in this thread.
UPDATE: Yet another former governor may seek the Republican nomination for president. U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman is resigning his post, effective April 30. The former governor of Utah’s allies “have been steadily building a campaign operation,” including operatives in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Anne Kornblut and Rachel Weiner reported for the Washington Post.
Long-shot prospect Mike Pence confirmed last week that he will not run for president this cycle. Pence served as the U.S. House GOP conference Chairman from 2008 to November 2010 and is widely expected to run for governor of Indiana in 2012.
SECOND UPDATE: I forgot to mention that former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum hired some high-power Iowa advisers last week:
The former senator from Pennsylvania announced Friday that two experienced Republican strategists in Iowa, a state that plays a crucial role in the race for the White House, will serve as advisers to his political action committee, America’s Foundation.
The two people are Nick Ryan and Jill Latham of the Des Moines based Concordia Group, L.L.C. […]
Ryan served from 1999 to 2006 as a top political advisor for Rep. Jim Nussle and ran three successful congressional campaigns in Eastern Iowa. He is also the founder of the American Future Fund, an advocacy group formed to advance conservative and free market ideals.
Latham served as Iowa Political Director for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Among other things, she also worked on President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and served as the Political Director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin from 2005 to 2006.
Santorum’s PAC gave about $30,000 to various Iowa Republican candidates in 2010. I don’t know why anyone would think a senator who lost re-election by double-digits should run for president, but Santorum has been making the rounds with nine Iowa visits in the past 15 months. Ryan appeared on the Des Moines Register’s list of 50 Iowa Republicans “who can make or break a GOP presidential candidate.” I’m curious to see whether the American Future Fund will weigh in for Santorum or (more likely) run commercials attacking rival Republican presidential candidates before the Iowa caucuses.
Tim Alberta noted at the Hotline On Call blog that Latham is “the second high-profile Romney supporter in recent weeks to join Santorum’s team.” (The other is a GOP activist in New Hampshire.) In case you were wondering, Representative Tom Latham of Iowa’s fourth district is Jill Latham’s father.