Pawlenty took a bold stroke towards this goal by breaking with a RINO (Republican In Name Only) Republican for congress in New York’s 23rd congressional district, Scozzafava, and endorsed the Conservative Party candidate, Hoffman, instead.
Hoffman lost, but it really doesn’t matter in the bigger picture for Pawlenty. This was a bold stroke aimed at brandishing his conservative beliefs – which in today’s environment is really saying we need to have a reboot of the Republican Party to make up for the borrow and spend Bush years – years in which too many Republicans tore up their registration cards to re-registers as independent voters.
Polling, as discussed in this blog before, has shown that almost three-fourths of Republican primary voters believe Republicans in congress have lost touch with Republican voters.
It looks like Pawlenty is keen on this unease within the Party and is serious about running. With this recent move, it shows us that he knows what he is doing from a campaign point of view, and you have to know how to campaign to get elected.
While Huckabee and Romney get all the attention so far, neither of them were able to sell themselves as the Complete Conservative Candidate (our moniker) in 2008, otherwise one of them would have beaten McCain for the nomination.
Where were Huckabee and Romney on New York 23? Huckabee described Scozzafava as “more liberal than 85 percent of the most liberal members of the Democrats in Congress…” That is a strong statement, that she was more liberal than 85 percent of the most liberal members of Congress. Yet he abstained from supporting Hoffman.
Romney stated “I can’t endorse our candidate (Scozzafava) in that race.” Yet he also abstained from supporting Hoffman.
It looks like on this particular issue, both Huckabee and Romney were thinking more about the establishment, insider Republican types than the Republican base of voters.
The Party continues to search for a leader.
Right now the bigger picture is what the Republican Party stands for in the long run, not merely individual numbers here and there. The Bush Whitehouse counted numbers for years, only to lose Congress, badly, we might ad.
It is worth noting that Sarah Palin endorsed Hoffman as well (Rick Santorum, a potential 2012 candidate also endorsed Hoffman). For Sarah Palin followers, this should be received as a good sign not only because it speaks to the kind of Republican she is, but also because it’s a good move politically, which hopefully for her is the start of a positive trend.
But the bigger news is for Pawlenty since he is less known and needs to make up some distance with the other Republicans who are jockeying for 2012. Republicans lose a seat in New York 23, but Governor Pawlenty wins at the end of the day.
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