On Saturday Texas Gov. Rick Perry got into the race for the GOP presidential nomination and within 24 hours former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty got out.
Perry didnt exactly chase Pawlenty out of the race; the Iowa straw poll (in which T-Paw finished a distant third) did that. But the two developments are closely related. Theyre linked by the fact that Barack Obama is very beatable.
A lot of the preliminary autopsies of the Pawlenty campaign focus on two lines of argument. An explanation particularly popular among liberal pundits is that he was too ideologically moderate for the extreme GOP. The second line of thought is that he was too personally moderate by which people mean hes so dull he could bore a cat out of a tree.
Neither theory is baseless but theyre both pretty weak. Mitt Romney is arguably even more boring than Pawlenty and hes leading the polls. Moreover Pawlenty ran well to Romneys right on health care and even foreign policy.
The whole rationale for Pawlentys candidacy was that he could defeat Obama.
T-Paw often told audiences that on ideology there was little difference between him and the other candidates. What made him different he explained was electability. Thats a bad message for inspiring primary voters. And its a catastrophic message if youre a bad candidate. When you run on electability you better act like a really electable candidate. Instead with his half-hearted jabs at Romney (Its Obamneycare! No its not! Yes it is!) his graceless shots at Michele Bachmann and his seemingly manufactured passion Pawlenty hardly looked like a general election juggernaut. Take electability away and you dont even have a generic Republican.
And thats important because over the last few months President Obama has been losing to the generic Republican in the polls. In May after the killing of Osama bin Laden he had an 11-point lead against the generic Republican. By the end of July it vanished as independents defected in response to a lousy economy and Obamas feckless leadership during the debt debate. That Obama dropped below 40 percent approval in the Gallup tracking poll for the first time the same weekend Perry got into the race is telling symbolically.
The tea parties breathed new life and new controversy into the so-called Buckley rule named after the late William F. Buckley. Bill used to say he wasnt for the most conservative candidate but the most conservative candidate electable. This practical principle was thrown out in several Senate races including the disastrous nomination of Christine ODonnell in the Delaware Senate race last year.
Whats both remarkable and dangerous about this fluid moment in presidential politics is that one can still remain loyal to the Buckley rule and support a very conservative candidate -- at least for now. The weaker Obama gets the more comfortable the conservative rank and file feel moving as rightward as possible. When the incumbent looks like a loser no matter what electability loses its premium. That the GOP just swapped Pawlenty for Perry is testament to that fact and far more significant than Bachmanns straw poll victory.
(For the record the straw poll is a really stupid fundraising stunt for the Iowa GOP. Its primarily geared to candidates with support from one of two constituencies: the passionate and the easily bribed. Ron Pauls second-place finish proves that its in no meaningful way a real poll as his supporters are akin to Battlestar Galactica loyalists at a Star Trek convention incapable of winning many converts and themselves unwilling to switch teams. Still the straw poll is a fixture of the landscape and candidates must deal with it.)
The danger isnt so much that GOP voters will reject the Buckley rule but that they will think that almost any conservative will be electable given how weak Obama seems. After all independents dont subscribe to the Buckley rule -- because theyre independents. If the economy improves or Obama gains traction a Bachmann candidacy could resemble Goldwater 64 more than Reagan 80.
Yes people feel it now the fire Bachmann proclaimed in a dramatic stage whisper Sunday night in Waterloo Iowa. They recognize that Obama can be beat.
True enough but fire is opportunistic. It doesnt discriminate in whom it burns.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
On Saturday Texas Gov. Rick Perry got into the race for the GOP presidential nomination and within 24 hours former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty got out.
Perry didnt exactly chase Pawlenty out of the race; the Iowa straw poll (in which T-Paw finished a distant third) did that. But the two developments are closely related. Theyre linked by the fact that Barack Obama is very beatable.
A lot of the preliminary autopsies of the Pawlenty campaign focus on two lines of argument. An explanation particularly popular among liberal pundits is that he was too ideologically moderate for the extreme GOP. The second line of thought is that he was too personally moderate by which people mean hes so dull he could bore a cat out of a tree.
Neither theory is baseless but theyre both pretty weak. Mitt Romney is arguably even more boring than Pawlenty and hes leading the polls. Moreover Pawlenty ran well to Romneys right on health care and even foreign policy.
The whole rationale for Pawlentys candidacy was that he could defeat Obama.
T-Paw often told audiences that on ideology there was little difference between him and the other candidates. What made him different he explained was electability. Thats a bad message for inspiring primary voters. And its a catastrophic message if youre a bad candidate. When you run on electability you better act like a really electable candidate. Instead with his half-hearted jabs at Romney (Its Obamneycare! No its not! Yes it is!) his graceless shots at Michele Bachmann and his seemingly manufactured passion Pawlenty hardly looked like a general election juggernaut. Take electability away and you dont even have a generic Republican.
And thats important because over the last few months President Obama has been losing to the generic Republican in the polls. In May after the killing of Osama bin Laden he had an 11-point lead against the generic Republican. By the end of July it vanished as independents defected in response to a lousy economy and Obamas feckless leadership during the debt debate. That Obama dropped below 40 percent approval in the Gallup tracking poll for the first time the same weekend Perry got into the race is telling symbolically.
The tea parties breathed new life and new controversy into the so-called Buckley rule named after the late William F. Buckley. Bill used to say he wasnt for the most conservative candidate but the most conservative candidate electable. This practical principle was thrown out in several Senate races including the disastrous nomination of Christine ODonnell in the Delaware Senate race last year.
Whats both remarkable and dangerous about this fluid moment in presidential politics is that one can still remain loyal to the Buckley rule and support a very conservative candidate -- at least for now. The weaker Obama gets the more comfortable the conservative rank and file feel moving as rightward as possible. When the incumbent looks like a loser no matter what electability loses its premium. That the GOP just swapped Pawlenty for Perry is testament to that fact and far more significant than Bachmanns straw poll victory.
(For the record the straw poll is a really stupid fundraising stunt for the Iowa GOP. Its primarily geared to candidates with support from one of two constituencies: the passionate and the easily bribed. Ron Pauls second-place finish proves that its in no meaningful way a real poll as his supporters are akin to Battlestar Galactica loyalists at a Star Trek convention incapable of winning many converts and themselves unwilling to switch teams. Still the straw poll is a fixture of the landscape and candidates must deal with it.)
The danger isnt so much that GOP voters will reject the Buckley rule but that they will think that almost any conservative will be electable given how weak Obama seems. After all independents dont subscribe to the Buckley rule -- because theyre independents. If the economy improves or Obama gains traction a Bachmann candidacy could resemble Goldwater 64 more than Reagan 80.
Yes people feel it now the fire Bachmann proclaimed in a dramatic stage whisper Sunday night in Waterloo Iowa. They recognize that Obama can be beat.
True enough but fire is opportunistic. It doesnt discriminate in whom it burns.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
