I don't know a lot about Pawlenty, but Romney seems to be someone that the country as a whole would find appealing.
The White House certainly believes he's their biggest threat. Hell he's been featured rather prominently in the last few DNC ads. There was that one where they used Fox News clips bludgeoning Mittens' stance on Health Care reform. And now this one on his '09 stance against saving the Automobile Industry.
Now that's good propaganda, using the guy's own definitive opinions and words against him. Can't exactly argue that he was misinterpreted. (Of course the "Detroit Saved" narrative the WH is planning to use as a key plank for re-election is full of holes, but that's neither here or there.)
Just imagine a similar ad ("Let Detroit Go Bankrupt!") being played ad nauseum in Michigan next fall, a state he supposedly had some advantage with because his dad was Governor there.
Thus the pratfalls of kissing too much primary ass.
Originally Posted By: Don Marco
Too often the primaries become a series of crowning a candidate that perfectly matches the ideology of the party, bypassing the question of whether or not the person is electable in the general election.
To be fair, I think both parties have cycles where they're so ideological entrenched (i.e. the past) with certain planks that to outsiders it come as fucking insanity while partisans consider it "purity" and have a real identity crisis when their defense of the Past fail in the mainstream present.
Let me give you a perfect contemporary example: Gay Rights. A new Gallup poll just reported that 58% of Americans have no morality "qualm" with homosexual relationships. An earlier poll reported the first national plurality support for Gay Marriage (not merely civil unions, marriage.) DADT got repealed by Congress with 75% plus national polled support. NBA just fined Kobe Bryant and Noah 5-6 figures for yelling a "F" word that aint Fuck, same word that was used freely without hesitation in old 1980s movies. (remember BREAKFAST CLUB?)
Point is, it isn't like the old days so much anymore (i.e. just 5-10 years ago) when the queer boogeyman was a popular and effective scare issue for the GOP in elections. Yet the Evangelical, social conservative political base of the GOP will refuse at all costs to let the party modernize or ease off on the homophobic issues that matter greatly for the base. To them, GLEE and Ellen DeGeneres are still evil this side of Pol Pot.
That is why Pawlenty came out in support of re-instating DADT, which may win him a few primary votes but it won't help him any in the general election.
Democrats were still running against Herbert Hoover into the 1980s and Mondale/Dukakis got demolished. Now the GOP are still running against the 1960s, now held hostage by the ghost of Reagan like the Dems were by FDR.
Personally for the sake of the party (and America), I suggest they give the '12 nomination to Bachmann or Palin. Let the wingnuts have their scorched earth campaign they've always wanted and get them fucking demolished in the fall. Then win back the White House in '16. Don't let them have the bitch clutch (no matter how illogically) that if only a "real" conservative had gotten the gig they would have won, which they used on McCain and surely for God they will too on Romney.
