Tim Pawlenty, lilly-white-panty-buncher-nonentity from Minnesota, is in New Hampshire, announcing his intention to garner the republican nomination for President in 2012. The announcement is greeted here in Lunaticland with a great, big yawn.
Just when the republican party needs a figure capable of formulating a sane response to the Hopenchange message of it's political rivals, just when it requires someone capable of exciting The Base while still appealing to the great mass of 'independents' (i.e. those too stupid to choose a side, or simply waiting for a bribe in return for their votes) the republican establishment throws up this dude.
And 'throws up' is the proper term.
At a time when the great mass of the public is concerned with a political class that 'just doesn't get it', the political class goes out and proves it in spades.
Now, I'm not telling you I'm an expert on Tim Pawlenty, but if you asked me to give you an opinion on who I believe to be the top five republican prospects, Pawlenty rates somewhere near the 160th on the list. Right after Cholera, and just before Bubonic Plague. Someone must be pissing in this guy's ear with the usual claptrap about how he 'represents a sizable segment of public opinion', or how he speaks to 'conservative values' (having once been a Conservative before that actually lost any meaning whatsoever, I can tell you that it's my considered opinion that 'Conservative' now simply means 'Bible-thumping-gay-hating-redneck-with-a-fifth-grade-education-and-a-Norman-Rockwell-delusional-view-of-America'). Conservative no longer means a believer in the sovereign right of the people and advocacy of individual liberties; it's a tribal affiliation. Sorta like gang colors.
Tim Pawlenty couldn't be elected dog catcher outside of Minnesota, but that doesn't matter; he's ideologically pure.
It's time to get some real conservatives into the fight, and I don't mean the God-fearin' sort that would make the pilgrimage to Bob Jones University; I mean the ones who actually espouse conservative positions that don't find their genesis in Scripture (pardon the pun).
Start with Sarah Palin (who is at least wildly popular, if relatively unprepared), and then include Rudy Guiliani, Condoleeza Rice, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
The last four, despite their obvious talents and proven records, will never get a chance because that Calvinist wing of the republican party will do their level-best to chase them off the stage -- because their social views don't pass Godbot muster, their position on abortion is unknown, one's a Mormon (next to devil worship!), and the other cheated on his wife, despite the fact that he engineered a republican takeover of the Congress and advanced a plethora of true conservative issues. True to form, the republican party seems determined to go down in flames with the likes of a Pawlenty than to do the right thing and establish conservatism before Calvinism, and so they will never get a fair hearing.
The RNC continues to listen to the wrong people who put their religion and their hang-ups before their reason. At this point in history, social issues need to take a back seat to the more crucial requirements of rebuilding the political system and structure, reestablishing the rights of the governed, and fixing the economy.
Discuss.
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