Welcome to your Thursday open thread. It’s Thursday, is anything special going on? It’s quiet here.
Josh Marshall has a good analysis of the trouble Tim Pawlenty finds himself in after the NH debate. Pawlenty responded to Obama’s Afghanistan speech by saying Obama needed to say America will win and other nonsense to prove his toughness. Marshall explains that Pawlenty’s NH debate performance underscored a narrative about him (he’s not tough) and now he’s in a feedback loop.
This is turning into a good illustration of a recurring pattern, especially in presidential politics. Pawlenty’s big whiff in the New Hampshire debate wasn’t so damaging because of the thing itself, though it was plenty bad. The real problem was the on-going damage he shot that night like an arrow into the future. Saddled with the image of a cowardly or cowering figure, he now feels compelled to react to most every new situation with the most he-manish, over-the-top or high-noon sort of answer. But rather than erase that impression, it embeds it because it all comes off forced if not farcical, focusing our attention on his shortcoming rather than convincing anyone it doesn’t exist.
Now he’s stuck in a feedback loop like the one Al Gore got into back in 1999/2000. Rightly or wrongly, once critics pegged Gore as the guy who was ‘stiff’ and unlikeable, he spent the next year oscillating between ‘Al Gore’s so stiff jokes’ and painful faux likability moments. And just like that Pawlenty is now off on a media tour channeling some weird composite of Winston Churchill and Tony Soprano. And coming from such a soft guy, it only makes him seem more preposterous.
If Pawlenty manage to win the nomination (which I think is unlikely) he will struggle with this. He will be going against the president that got bin Laden.
“We have our differences on some of the trade [issues], and why do our companies go to China? In some ways they embarrass us because they’re more capitalist than we are. It’s easier for our own businesses to go China than it is to stay here! That aggravates me, but I blame ourselves for that.”
Can I make a request? If we are going to worship “capitalism” and “free markets” can we at least get the definition right? I know that’s too much to ask – honesty from politicians but I can keep dreaming.