Tim Pawlenty was on Meet the Press this morning and I think that he has already failed to get the GOP nomination. The problem with Pawlenty is not that he hasn't necessarily distinguished himself from the other potential candidates. The problem is that he has. Pawlenty, to his detriment I predict, bragged about shutting down the Minnesota government when he was governor. I believe he was trying to portray himself as a hard-line, non-compromising, tough candidate. That may have been politically satisfying at another time, but right now America is facing, because of its polarized political leaders, defaulting on its debt, which would be unprecedented if it were to default.
The American people, generally, just want their representatives to reach some sort of deal that doesn't hinder economic growth in the short-term and sustain economic growth in the long-term. As a result, bragging about shutting down the government, or even bringing it up for that matter, is politically damaging for any candidate at this time. The advantage of a nationally little known candidate is that he or she can refrain from mentioning politically unpopular things that they may have done in the past. Tim Pawlenty, for whatever reason, felt that this was the opportune time to boaster about shutting down the government to a national audience.
The problem with Tim Pawlenty, and for most of the Republican candidates, is that they are not representative of an ideal president. An ideal American president is one that can mitigate the polarization of political parties, and, as a result, devise the best solutions on whatever issues. Conversely, the Republican party has projected a catch-22 scenerio on their presidential hopefuls. In other words, if any Republican candidate deviates from the party's positions, like Paul Ryan's budget plan, they will be lambasted and deemed irrelevant, like Newt Gingrich quickly found out.
Newt Gingrich rationally said on Meet the Press that any kind of radical social engineering is not good for the country. After he got verbally abused by every Republican in the country, he began to clarify his statement by saying what he said was a falsehood. When that did not work, he clarified his statement again by saying that any kind of social reform that was not supported by a majority of the American people may not be a good thing to do. He said that if you cannot convince the American public then the government has no right to force an unaccepted government act onto the American people. Even as logical as that sounds, it was too late. Newt had bet neutralized.
To reiterate, an ideal, modern American president is one that can transcend the political polarization of domestic parties, understand what the right solutions are, and figure out ways to persuade each party to come to the best possible compromise. When a political party becomes a party that does not compromise with the other party under any circumstances, even if the other party puts forth that party's ideas, that party will become politically unsuccessful.
I think Obama is vulnerable. And not just against a Republican candidate since all are trying to portray themselves as so extreme that they feel all they have to do is say that they don't support cap-and-trade, which affects all Americans adversely and only benefits corporations, which makes as much sense as something that makes absolutely no sense. Obama is vulnerable to a Democrat. All of Obama's shortcomings have to do with Democratic ideals. Obama has done little to improve the housing market and keep relatively poorer family's inside a house. He merely instituted a housing plan that substantially benefited lenders, which negligibly benefitted the lent. You see, Republicans do not have the leeway to criticize Obama's tantamount vulnerabilities. They can't say that Obama's not a sincere president for continuing the Bush tax cuts, or being too lenient on Financial Reform because that is what Republicans wanted. They can't say that Obama's a hypocrite for maintaining a significant amount of the Bush-administration staff because that is what they wanted. Obama is not only beatable by a Republican in this upcoming general election, but he is also beatable for the 2012 Democratic presidential nomination.
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