{"id":9819,"date":"2011-05-24T15:55:30","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T19:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=9819"},"modified":"2011-05-25T09:47:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T13:47:24","slug":"dont-sell-pawlenty-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/9819\/dont-sell-pawlenty-short\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Sell Pawlenty Short"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is well known throughout the halls of CFIF that one challenges our own Troy Senik at one’s own risk.\u00a0 That principle carries additional weight on a week in which George Will, the dean of conservative commentators, cited Troy<\/a> by name in his column.<\/p>\n

In a fit of feistiness, I’ll nevertheless do the unthinkable and metaphorically run down those same halls with exposed scissors by responding to Troy’s thoughtful ricochet.com piece “Presidential Race Freefall.”<\/a> In his column, Troy laments Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’s decision not to run for president in 2012, saying, “we’re essentially left with Huntsman, Pawlenty, or Romney.\u00a0 Out of that group, Huntsman is too moderate, Romney is too elastic, and Pawlenty is more acquittable than embraceable.”\u00a0 He concludes with a fear that, “it’s time to start proceeding to the exits in orderly fashion.”<\/p>\n

Those are certainly understandable and justifiable sentiments.\u00a0 But I have a hunch that a lot of people may be selling Pawlenty short.\u00a0 Consider that he won the relatively liberal state of Minnesota’s highest office not once, but twice<\/a>.\u00a0 That accomplishment included a reelection victory in 2006, a devastating year for anyone running with an “R” next to his or her name, particularly in a state like Minnesota.\u00a0 In fact, the Democrats recaptured both state legislative houses that November.\u00a0 So we’re not talking about a candidate whose campaign for national office rests on a flimsy resume constructed in the fair weather of some deeply red state .\u00a0 Pawlenty’s feat becomes even more impressive when one considers that despite governing a state so blue that it was the only one to support Walter Mondale<\/a> over Ronald Reagan, he was one of only four governors to earn an “A” grade for fiscal management in 2010<\/a> from the Cato Institute.\u00a0 Notably, Governor Daniels earned a “B” that year.\u00a0 Then, in announcing his candidacy in Iowa yesterday and appearing afterward on Rush Limbaugh’s show, Pawlenty boldly called for an end to ethanol subsidies<\/a> from which many in Iowa benefit.<\/p>\n

In other words, Pawlenty is a man who has managed to win in difficult electoral environments while maintaining a remarkably strong conservative record.\u00a0 There may be some steel beneath that mild Clark Kent exterior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is well known throughout the halls of CFIF that one challenges our own Troy Senik at one’s own risk.\u00a0 That principle carries additional weight on a week in which George Will, the dean of conservative commentators, cited Troy by name in his column. In a fit of feistiness, I’ll nevertheless do the unthinkable and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2034,2248,2725,1096],"class_list":["post-9819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-election","tag-ethanol","tag-iowa","tag-tim-pawlenty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9819"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9827,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9819\/revisions\/9827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}