Can Tim Pawlenty win?
Mr. Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has become the first of the big-time Republican contenders to officially jump into the 2012 presidential campaign with an announcement on Facebook on Monday. The move to form an exploratory committee is almost a technicality for Mr. Pawlenty, who has been a candidate in almost every way for months.
But now that the Federal Election Commission considers him one, it will force a new discipline on his Minnesota-based campaign staff members, who have been steadily building a campaign since he left the governor’s mansion in January.
And the media will treat him differently, too. The profiles will be tougher. The questions will be more pointed. And the expectations among activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, the sites of the earliest presidential contests next year, will grow as they put Mr. Pawlenty through the political gantlet.
So what are the five biggest challenges for Mr. Pawlenty as he pursues the right to run against President Obama in 2012? The following is the consensus that emerged from discussions with Republican political consultants, many of whom declined to speak on the record because they advise — or hope to advise — one of Mr. Pawlenty’s rivals.
1. Money. The biggest challenge for Mr. Pawlenty will be raising the millions of dollars needed to demonstrate that he belongs in the top tier of candidates competing for the presidency. A man of modest means, Mr. Pawlenty comes from a state of modest means, without a financial center like New York, Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles.
By announcing early, Mr. Pawlenty is betting that he can raise the millions it could take to sustain a campaign past the summer, into the fall and through the contests next winter. But he’s not rich, like Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. He’s not a former lobbyist with a potentially lucrative Rolodex, like Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi. And he’s not preparing for a shoestring campaign like the one run in 2008 by Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas.
Starting Monday, he has about three months to make a big money push. On July 1, he will have to file a fund-raising report that will demonstrate whether he has succeeded.
2. Visibility. A new Washington Post poll suggests that few people know who Tim Pawlenty is. Nearly 60 percent said they had no opinion of the former governor, suggesting that the money he raises will need to be spent increasing his visibility. The name recognition challenge is not unlike the one faced by Mr. Romney, who spent months polling in the single digits during most of 2007.
3. Message. In the weeks since he left the governorship, Mr. Pawlenty has been road-testing a more conservative message that he hopes will appeal to Tea Party conservatives and establishment party officials alike. But as my colleague Jeff Zeleny pointed out earlier this month, Mr. Pawlenty runs the risk of trying to be all things to all people — and failing on all scores.
More than most of his potential rivals, Mr. Pawlenty has been aggressive in seizing on the issues of the day, whether that’s the union battles in Wisconsin or the budget fight in Washington. The sharp edge to his commentary has helped to swing attention his way but makes shaping a consistent message for the long term a bit more difficult.
4. Fiscal Discipline. Like Senator John McCain of Arizona in 2007, Mr. Pawlenty appears to be building an expensive campaign operation that will burn money at a steady clip now that he’s a candidate. It will take discipline to make sure that he’s not spending money he doesn’t have, on things that aren’t necessary. (Mr. McCain found out the hard way what happens when that discipline is lacking.)
5. Tactics. Of the three states that kick off the presidential nominating season, Iowa is likely to be the most friendly to Mr. Pawlenty, who is from a neighboring state. But his courtship of the state’s heavily evangelical primary voters could be complicated by Representative Michele Bachmann, also of Minnesota, and Mr. Huckabee, who will be aiming for the same audience.
And two other early states — New Hampshire and South Carolina — present challenges of their own for Mr. Pawlenty. In New Hampshire, he’s likely to face stiff opposition from Mr. Romney, who established a home base there in 2009. And South Carolina could be difficult for a Northerner like Mr. Pawlenty, especially if he has to face Mr. Barbour, a Southern governor, or Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker from neighboring Georgia.
The political map of the 2012 Republican primary campaign could be a difficult one for Mr. Pawlenty to navigate. Does he go all out in Iowa the way Mr. Romney did four years ago? And what happens if, as happened to Mr. Romney, someone else wins there instead? Those are all tactical questions that his campaign staff will have to confront now that he is running for president.