Dear Tim Pawlentey,
You will never be President. I know this may be difficult news, but I thought it could save you a lot of wasting effort. I know you think you fit the profile. You’re a Republican governor. You’re smart enough. You’re from a swing state. You’re not totally insane. But you’ve got one critical short coming. You’re a poser.
John Kerry got hammered for being a “flip-flopper.” This wasn’t becaues he’d changed his mind a time or two. It was because people felt he didn’t stand for anything and would compromise any principles he had to get elected. Voters tend to pick up on that sort of thing—and that’s what will kill your candidacy.
Take, for example, your reaction to the uproar about Obama’s upcoming address to students. Since you’re not absolutely insane, you know that a President inspiring students to stay in school is an eminently reasonable thing to do. And you know that there are a lot of students who will benefit from this. But you still wanted to pander to the nutters who are afraid that listening to Obama for a few minutes will make their children communists, Nazis, or possibly Canadian. You couldn’t just say the uproar is stupid or that the address is a distraction. You had to find something to criticize to try to grab that “I’m against Obama headline.” Here’s something you said today regarding the suggestion that children could write letters to the President:
There are going to be questions about — well, what are they are going to do with those names and is that for the purpose of a mailing list?
Really? That’s what it’s about? This whole thing is the most sinister data-mining operation since Santa Clause?
Your Presidential ambitions are doomed. The wingnuts won’t back you. They know you’re not one of them. They can smell sanity a mile away. And the rest of the country thinks poorly of trying (and failing) to pander to the fringe.
