The word is that former Governor Tim Pawlenty will officially announce tomorrow in a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa; judging from his campaign videos, this will be heralded by an overflight of a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagles, an announcement that Minnesota genetic researchers have recreated the passenger pigeon, and T-Paw personally leading a mission to disable the Yellowstone super-volcano caldera before it erupts and destroys the North American continent.
Also, there will be pie.
I kid, I kid: but Tim Pawlenty is certainly taking this campaign highly seriously, and I expect that he’ll be upping said campaigning a good deal in the next few months. With Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels out, it’s increasingly looking like Pawlenty is lining up to be the guy to go to if you don’t want to support Romney*. Despite the fact that (at the moment) I am tending towards formally personally endorsing Pawlenty for the nomination, I would actually prefer that the field remain crowded for a bit longer. If only because it frustrates the Democrats so not to have an obvious target for their upcoming smear campaign.
Last thought: you have to wonder whether Rick Perry of Texas is taking a second look. Right now Pawlenty’s in an excellent position to clean up in South Carolina, but Perry could win that state’s primary.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*I cannot really assess at this point the likelihood of a successful Herman Cain and/or Michele Bachmann campaign. The odds are long against outsider and/or House of Representative candidates: we tend to like governors and/or Senators for President. The last one we’ve had that hadn’t been either first was Eisenhower, and he had the advantage of having “Pounded the Nazis into the ground” on his resume.
Jon Huntsman? Not a chance. Like Erick Erickson, I’m not happy at Huntsman’s sense of timing.
Are you one more of those pretending former Senator Rick Santorum does not exist? He is an outstanding man, husband, father and candidate. He is pro-Life, pro-Marriage, pro-family, pro-freedom, pro-Israel….He is young, dynamic and courageous… Please do not join the apparent black out over mentioning him even if you prefer someone else.
Nixon was never a governor or senator, but he did have that VP-thing on his resume.
And yeah, crushing Nazi Germany is a pretty powerful selling point.
Uh…Nixon was elected senator from CA in 1950…
Well, I’ll be darned. I honestly never knew that. I thought he had gone straight from the House to VP.
Learn something new every day.
It was a blink-and-you’d-miss-it, Phineas.
“The last one we’ve had that hadn’t been either first was Eisenhower…” Actually, Gerald Ford managed to become president without being either a governor or a senator first. Of course, we didn’t elect him to that office, or to the vice-presidency either, which is what I suspect you mentioned. Still, just for accuracy’s sake…
Ford… I agree in the most narrow, technical sense – but there’s no way that you can score him as being anything except an imposed President.