Tim Pawlenty: The No-Decline President

Pawlenty set to take on all comers regarding foreign policy

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Republican Party Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty auditioned a new mode for the primary election: the combative Tim Pawlenty.

In a speech on his foreign policy vision, Pawlenty took no prisoners. He relentlessly pursued the foreign policy missteps of President Barack Obama, and fellow Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and John Huntsman.

“America already has one political party devoted to decline, retrenchment and withdrawal,” he declared. “It does not need a second one.”

Pawlenty excoriated Obama for not being prepared to support the famed "Arab spring" uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya. (Only in the case of Libya did the US offer any significant amount of support.) He scathed Obama for failing to support an Iranian protest against a rigged Presidential election that could have brought a pro-democracy revolution (if that is, indeed, what the Arab Spring is) to the Middle East and Africa.

He teed off on fellow Republicans Paul, Huntsman, and Romney -- especially Romney. For a lack of commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Romney recently declared that the US has no business fighting another country's war of independence, seemingly forgetting that the United States and NATO invaded Afghanistan in a bid to dislodge a government that tolerated the operation of terrorist groups within its borders and eventually replace it with a stable, international-law-abiding, government.

That may not fit in with Ron Paul's "fiscally conservative at any cost" agenda, or Mitt Romney's "say anything to become President" agenda. It's what Pawlenty promised when he launched his bid to be President: the truth.

Pawlenty spoke strongly about the need for a US foreign policy that focuses on bringing democracy, and refuses to spare un-democratic US allies like Saudi Arabis is or Egypt was.

Ron Paul will inevitably confront Pawlenty with questions about how the costs of a strong interventionist will be controlled. He will be absolutely right to do so, and Pawlenty will need good answers.

But there is one thing the GOP can depend on: the Democrats are not having these kinds of debates as they roll toward the 2012 election. If the Republicans choose the right candidate, they can turn these debates into occupancy in the White House, and Tim Pawelenty -- whether he's President or not -- will have been key to it.

Simple Messages Require Little Flash

While a few "teaser" internet videos have been circulating around -- one emulated by the Harper Conservative Party -- Tim Pawlenty has finally released his first official campaign ad.

Pawlenty's previous releases have been marked by dramatic tones befitting a nation in turmoil. To describe them as "flashy" would likely be considered an understatement.

Entitled "results, not rehtoric", Pawlenty points to what he considers a successful run as Governor of Minnesota, cutting spending, standing up to unions, appointing conservative judges, and passing "proper" health care reform.

Pawlenty is clearly seeking to brand himself as the candidate who will pass the conservative agenda and do it responsibly.

The left's response is actually rather laughable. They seek to counter-brand him as fiscally irresponsible, questioning his deficit-fighting prowess by alluding to a projected deficit after Pawlenty left office. (Someone should get these people a calendar.)

As opposed to his previous outings, which were dramatic and nearly frenetic in their tone, this ad is calm, and exudes the confidence Pawlenty seems to feel as a candidate.

The ad is the tip of the spear on Pawlenty's Iowa campaign, where he'll compete hard with Michele Bachmann for votes. With it's clear, concise and simple messaging, it just may appeal to the sensibilities of Iowa voters.

Bachmann-Pawlenty Showdown Could Define Economic Policy

Michelle Bachmann declares candidacy for President

As the GOP Presidential field met in New Hampshire to compete for the hearts and minds of conservative Americans, Michelle Bachmann had a blockbuster announcement:

She's widening the field. The previously-six man field -- Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty -- now has a seventh member.

“This is the first day of taking our country back,” Bachmann announced. “I’ve worked very hard to bring your voice to the halls of Congress. Now, I want to take your voice into the White House, where it hasn’t been heard for a very long time.”

As it pertains to economic policy -- which will be the defining issue of the Republican primary -- Bachmann is every bit as qualified to carry the standard for the Austrian school of economics as any other candidate. This would only serve to facilitate the speculation-promised showdown with Tim Pawlenty, who favours the similar-yet-genuinely-distinct Chicago school of economics.

Austrian school economics focuses on the price mechanism. The Chicago school directs its attention toward the principles of monetarism.

The traditional battle of economists has, of course been between the adherents of Friedrich Hayek and those of John Maynard Keynes. Now, the GOP may be set to settle in for a year-long debate on who correctly interprets the theories of Hayek; a year-long debate pitting Ludwig von Mises against Milton Friedman.

Some will criticize this as distracting from what they regard as the more important Keynes-Hayek debate. But this should be considered an extremely welcome debate.

One thing that Bachmann cannot afford to do is take the Sarah Palin route. She can't fall back on intellectually-lazy "common sense" pronouncements. She needs to keep the ideas flowing. While her critics desperately try to turn the conversation toward whether or not she's stupid, Bachmann should continue to focus on something her critics don't have: ideas.

Naturally, they won't like it. People who have no ideas generally avoid -- to the point of outright refusal -- to talk about ideas.

If she takes full advantage of the advantages a Presidential run will present her with, Bachmann has the opportunity to mold the economic debate in ways that will confound these same critics. They'll rely almost exclusively on lazy ad hominem attacks. If Bachmann can stay above them, she could be the definitive candidate in the 2012 Republican primary.

But that's only if Pawlenty opts to engage on behalf of his Chicago school contemporaries. Bachmann only has the opportunity to mold the debate if Pawlenty takes her on.

This will force the other Republican candidates to sharpen their policies. Which makes the Tim Pawlenty-Michelle Bachmann showdown so pivotally important for the Republican Party.

Class Warfare: It's Not Just Obama

American left pushing class war buttons hard

To announce an economic program at the University of Chicago is nothing if not making a statement.

In an era in which the failures of Keynesian economics are being paraded for the world to see, announcing an economic program on the historic turf of Hayek is bound to turn some heads.

That alone would have been enough to send Pawlenty's message. But Pawlenty had a serious bone to pick with President Barack Obama, one that is proving to be a defining issue between conservatives and progressives in American politics: simply that Obama seems more interested in playing ideological politics than in solving serious problems.

"President Obama is a champion practitioner of class warfare," Pawlenty declared. "He's spent three years dividing our nation, and fanning the flames of class envy and resentment all across the country to deflect attention from his own failures and the economic hardship they have visited on America."

It's not just Obama who's playing at class warfare in place of actually addressing America's real problems.

Consider Rachel Maddow. Now, it's hard to imagine she could possibly confused about how horrible her show's ratings are when her big "scoop" on Newt Gingrich is that he's on vacation in Grrece.

That, and a credit account at Tiffany's.

Maddow attempts to needle Gingrich over his fiscal conservative positions, essentially questioning why someone fiscally conservative would use credit. She (unshockingly) misses the detail that being fiscally conservative doesn't revolve around whether or not one uses credit, but what one does with that credit.

For example, making purchases on credit and then quickly paying them off is entirely permissable for a fiscal conservative. Continually driving up the credit account, and then conveniently increasing one's own credit limit, is not permissable to anyone with a lick of sense.

No one should be surprised to hear this kind of mendacious tripe from Rachel Maddow. This is, after all, someone who thinks that even the most vacuous drivel is made more compelling as long as it's delivered through a smug grin.

Maddow attempts to justify all of this by appealing to Americans' sense of outrage at hypocrisy. That no actual hypocrisy is actually present doesn't seem to be what Maddow considers a salient detail.

It isn't about "hypocrisy" at all. It's about Maddow pandering to her audience, and stoking the fires of a segment of the American population eager to engage in socially-destructive class warfare.

Barack Obama shouldn't have to carry the "class warrior" distinction all on his own. He's getting plenty of help.

People, Not Bumps

Speaking to a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney sounded an awful lot like former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and like former Godfathers Pizza CEO Herman Cain.

With Pawlenty's message resonating so well with participants at the FFC conference, it's only natural that Pawlenty's competitors would like to emulate it. With Cain's message resonating so well with conservative voters, it's only natural his competitors would like to emulate it, too.

Like Pawlenty, Romney does a fantastic job of connecting the economic crises being faced by the United States with what fellow competitor Herman Cain would deem to be emerging moral crises.

President Barack Obama may be content to dismiss the millions of Americans who are out of work as "bumps in the road". As Romney points out, those aren't bumps. They're people. People feeling increasingly desperate, and being driven to increasingly-desperaate actions.

Economic hardship brings great personal hardship. Families break down. Communities corrode. To a child who sees their family break apart under economic duress, it's more than a mere bump in the road. It's a life-altering event. To a child who sees families in their neighbourhood break apart, it leads to great uncertainty and fear.

It leads to a breakdown of confidence.

Mitt Romney declares that he's confident in the spirit of the United States. That's a massive improvement over Obama, who seems to hold confidence in his own ideological agenda.

There's a reason why Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain are carrying a message that is so similiar: it's because the challenge America is facing is so clear, and the failure of Barak Obama to meet them equally so.

America Should Turn to Values

Over the next seventeen months, various left-wing gladflies will tut relentlessly every time a Republican declares that the United States should turn toward God, as former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty recently did at a Faith and Freedom Coalition convention.

It will be heard, time and time again. Whether or not the United States should "turn back to God" is extremely debatable. Some will confuse it -- some even deliberately -- for a voiced preference for theocracy, declaring it to a violation of constituionally-mandated church and state.

(They're mistaken. It's the shariah-promoting radical Islamist groups they so often champion that are the threat to separation of church and state.)

Lingering just under the surface of that message is an idea that is not as debatable: America needs to turn to its values.

Naturally, what those values are is a matter of intense debate. It should be. The more smug anyone, conservative, liberal, progressive, or otherwise, is in declaring what America's values are, the more they should be questioned.

Pawlenty's ideas on abortion and same-sex marriage should be the subject of every bit as much debate. Pawlenty should better define his vision for proper abortion legislation. Moreover, it could be said that he lacks the imagination necessary to realize that adopted children could be raised just as well within a household based on same-sex marriage as within a traditional marriage.

But the wonderful thing about an election -- even something a little murkier as a primary election -- is that people have the opportunity to listen to political candidates explaio their views, and then vote according to what they deem their values to be.

America should turn to its values. Whether that means America turns to God, or even turns to Tim Pawlenty, will be up to American citizens to decide.

T-Paw Running For President

Tim Pawlenty announces candidacy for President

With Herman Cain joining the ranks of official Republican Presidential candidates yesterday, it should be considered unsurprising former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty followed suit today.

Pawlenty has adopted for himself the role of the "truth" candidate; the kind of straight-talking candidate previously seen in John McCain.

To date, howwever, Pawlenty has offered the same platitudes voters around the world have already gotten used to.

"In my campaign, I'm going to take a different approach. I am going to tell you the truth. The truth is Washington DC's broken," Pawlenty said. "It's time for new leadership. It's time for a new approach. And, it's time for America's president - and anyone who wants to be president - to look you in the eye and tell you the truth."

Americans have heard this before.

"No president deserves to win an election by dividing the American people - picking winners and losers, protecting his own party's spending and cutting only the other guys'; pitting classes, and ethnicities, and generations against each other," Pawlenty continued. "The truth is, we're all in this together. So we need to work to get out of this mess together."

Americans have heard this, too.

But if Pawlenty can deliver the kind of campaign he's promising, he will benefit from it, for an important reason: everyone knows these things are true.

Pawlenty has promised a campaign that will leave no sacred cow unassailed.

"The truth about federal energy subsidies, including federal subsidies for ethanol, is that they have to be phased out. We need to do it gradually. We need to do it fairly. But we need to do it," Pawlenty explained. "Conventional wisdom says you can't talk about ethanol in Iowa or Social Security in Florida or financial reform on Wall Street. But someone has to say it."

Pawlenty has made himself out to be that someone. If he delivers in the midst of a primary election, with all the pressures to please the electorate and not offend any of America's various constituencies will need to be seen.

But one thing is fairly certain: Tim Pawlenty's flair for dramatic and inspiring campaign ads already has the Democrats terrified of him.

That alone is good reason for him to be running for President.

The Internet Says: Newt vs Cain

Although social media has become more prominent than ever before in politics -- in the United States as well as in Canada (where we just had our first "social networking election").

Even so, reliable information about what these trends may mean for politics has been difficult to comeby -- at least until now.

Experian Hitwise has begun to track and analyze website hits in the Republican primary election, and has already uncovered some truly astonishing trends.

For example, Hitwise was able to determine that Donald Trump's announcement that he was dropping out of the race for the GOP nomination closely followed a 49% drop in internet traffic to his Facebook page.

Hitwise Media Director Matt Tatham has implicitly speculated that the public release of President Barack Obama's birth certificate -- the inconceivable preoccupation of Trump's Presidential aspirations -- may have helped mercifully put the final nails in his political coffin.

Other data offered by Hitwise is equally intriguing.

For example, Hitwise data currently suggests that the "Evangelical bump" former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty could have expected has yet to materialize.

If one were to measure according to website hints, it seems that former Speaker of the House and Contract With America innovator Newt Gingrich is getting the most attention. He leads the race for website hits with more than a 65% share. His closest competitor was former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who held just over 22%.

But it would be a mistake to count Cain out just yet. Hits on Cain's website grew fastest, by an astonishing 35%.

Pawlenty, meanwhile, is holding at a paltry 3%.

Then again, it's still fairly early in the Republican primary, with still more than a year to go.

Though the hour hasn't necessarily grown late, there are clear advantages that come with this early traffic, considering that website traffic helped Ron Paul raise $1 million through his political action committee in just 24 hours, it would be tough to underestimate the importance of this traffic.

If Hitwise's figures are an accurate portrayal of how internet traffic is flowing, the race right now is between Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Although Gingrich has a comfortable lead in this regard, Cain could close the gap quickly.

Republicans are From Mars, Democrats are From... Somewhere

In a bold address to CPAC, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty drives home a simple idea about President Barack Obama: he's kind of like the Bizarro President.

He tries to create jobs by taxing job creators. He tries to reduce the deficit by spending billions on his personal pet projects. The media compares him to Ronald Reagan when, in reality, he's been anything but.



Pawlenty expresses his deep concern that the United States is losing its edge. He notes that Americans believe that China will soon become the dominant country in the world. This is something Pawlenty says he is not willing to accept. His view of America is that of a coutnry that leads the world.

Pawlenty traces the flagging of American confidence to his experience growing up in Minnesota during the 1960s, when he watched his hometown shut down around him as stockyards and meat packing plants were closed. As jobs fled south St Paul, Pawlenty watched the struggles of his neighbours in the face of an uncertain future.

Pawlenty reminds us that the struggles of Canada's southern neighbour aren't really anything new. The early signs of it emerged in the 1960s, and continued to grow for the next 50 years, while Democrats and Republicans alike failed -- sometimes out of impotence, at others out of negligence -- to turn the tide against the decline.



Pawlenty holds Minnesota up as an example for the rest of the US to follow. If Minnesota, who has produced such political "luminaries" as Al Franken, can reduce the size of its government, it can be done anywhere.

It wasn't easy. Pawlenty had to face down a government shutdown and a long public transit strike and turnback a perpetually-growing government budget.

Minnesota Democrats had no sense of the need to shrink the size of the Minnesota state government. Likewise, federal Democrats seem to have no sense of the need to do the same with the federal government. Instead, they're growing the size of government. As so often, they have it precisely backward.



Last, but not least, Tim Pawlenty knows the way for the United States to dig its way out of its troubles: hard work. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's an awful lot more intuitive than what the Democrats are offering. They aren't even on the same planet as the solution to America's problems.

"No, Not the Supreme Court!"

Al Franken asks governor to preempt litigation and name him Senator

In the latest twist in the Franken/Coleman debacle continually unfolding in Minnesota, it seems that Al Franken really doesn't want to have to go to court in order to become the Junior Senator from Minnesota.

According to a brief filed in a Minnesota district court today, Al Franken wants Republican Norm Coleman's challenge of the results of the Minnesota recount to be referred not to the Minnesota Supreme Court, but rather by the US Senate.

In other words, Franken would (unsurprisingly) rather see all the errors and irregularities in the recount examined by the Democrat-controlled Senate rather than a court of law.

Franken's even go so far as to sent a letter to Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty asking him to sign Franken's certificate of election -- something that is actually unlawful, as Minnesota's election law requires all court challenges of an election result to be complete before a winner can be officially certified.

Tim Pawlenty is a Republican. Accordingly, one can certainly expect that Democrat partisans will accuse him of partisan wrangling in this affair. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, however is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party. He's also refused to sign an election certificate at this time.

Yet with partisan Democrats going out of their way to try and marginalize any criticism of the way the Minnesota recount has proceeded, anyone paying close attention to the overall situation cannot ignore one overarching question:

Why is it that Al Franken wants errors and irregularities in the recount result examined not by a (presumably) impartial Supreme Court, but by the Democrat-controlled US Senate?

One could not help but imagine the absurdity of the scene: Joe Biden presiding over a Senate hearing in which his party has both deep partisan interests and control over the proceedings.

There's probably a reason why Franken doesn't want these errors and irregularities to be tried before a court: likely because, despite what various Democrat partisans would have people believe, there may well be more to these allegations than they would like to admit.

Ultimately, it's the same reason why Norm Coleman didn't want this recount in the first place: because he might lose.

It's hard to fault Franken for his own self-interest, even if the means by which he's pursuing those interests risks giving American democracy another black eye. If anything, it's merely confirmation that Franken's transformation from an extradorinary entertainer to a run-of-the-mill politician.

Once Franken announced he was running for Senator, no one should have been shocked about that.

Sadly, in the wake of this new pinnacle in his own partisan excess, it may prove to be hard for Franken to take it to right-wing ideologues like Ann Counter the way he used to.

Al Franken, once a masterful critic of Republican sophists has become little more than a sophist himself.