Friday, September 11, 2009

Tim Pawlenty goes the full Palin

Meh. He's not going to win. Pawlenty has the sort of profile that Republicans need in a candidate, but the coin of the GOP realm these days is identity and, frankly, he doesn't pass the "one of us" (i.e. Republicans) test.

I really wonder whether this is good strategy to begin with. It would make much more sense for Pawlenty to run as a solid conservative, but with an institutional/rhetorical reform strategy that seeks to elevate the discourse, provide real conservative solutions, etc., while denouncing the crazies. He's got the sort of resume to pull off that kind of attack. He won't win in 2012, but in 2016? He'll have staked out the sort of territory that might sound appealing after two terms of Obama*. I just wonder whether this is a good idea--the media already bends over backwards to try to make insane Republican complaints sound reasonable. Can you imagine the sort of coverage a powerful Republican would get if he (or she) stood up and said true, sensible things? Huckabee got great coverage before he decided that the independent/integrity route wasn't going to work. Hell, Bush actually got pretty good coverage in 2000, despite the intermittent fixation on his verbal incoherence off the cuff. This shit can work. Ah, well.

(*And yes, I am assuming two terms for Obama, and better than even money that he'll be succeeded by a Democrat. Not much better than even money, though.)

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.