Vanilla Ain't So Bad

I like Pawlenty. That being said, that is probably an indication that the GOP will not nominate him.


The GOP's Vanilla Option - The Plank

From the article

The full text of his speech isn't readily available yet. But from
descriptions, it sounds like he performed the same dance that has been perfected
by other Republican leaders such as party chairman Michael Steele:
Republicans need to stand up to Obama, get back to their conservative
principles, stop apologizing for their past, and oh, by the way, attract whole
new categories of voters. It doesn't say a lot for GOP outreach efforts
that they think just throwing open the door and not being aggressively hostile
to converts will do the trick, absent some change in message or policy. But the
"not conservative enough" diagnosis of George W. Bush continues to exert an iron
grip on GOP options for the future.
It does appear that Pawlenty talked a lot
about "market-based health reform," but it's not clear yet whether he meant the
kind of relentless return to the pre-insurance
1950s that John McCain's 2008 campaign plan implicitly called for, in which
Americans will be "empowered" to buy individual health care policies, or
something a bit less antediluvian. But if Pawlenty came up with anything new, it
clearly escaped his listeners.
One account
of his speech said he received "mild applause" and a "polite standing ovation."
So it doesn't appear he's become Demosthenes overnight. This is a consistent
problem for the Minnesotan. An upcoming
book on the 2008 campaign (I've gotten a sneak peek) by Dan Balz and Haynes
Johnson confirms that Pawlenty, not Romney or Lieberman or Ridge, was actually
the co-finalist for the 2008 Veep nomination alongside Sarah Palin. McCain's
wizards settled on Palin after concluding that Pawlenty, while "safe," didn't
add much to the ticket's electoral appeal.
And that's Pawlenty's
problem today. If it turns out that 2012 is one of those years when any credible
Republican who is acceptable to the party's dominant conservative wing can win,
then someone who's a right-to-life evangelical with an attractively middle-class
background who has non-disastrously governed a Blue State might make a lot of
sense