During the 2008 campaign, Mike Huckabee used to describe himself this way: "I'm a conservative, but I'm not angry about it." That wouldn't be an inaccurate description of Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor now ramping up his presidential campaign. The problem is that the conservative base is angry, and winning the Republican nomination may require channeling and playing to that anger. The potential candidates who are angrier -- Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich -- have enormous liabilities that almost certainly prevent them from winning the general election, while the less angry candidates, like Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, are going to have a harder time tuning in to the the Republican Party zeitgeist.
Last night, Pawlenty was interviewed by Jon Stewart, and the interview shows his problem. Stewart spent almost the entire interview pressing Pawlenty on the idea, so common among Republicans these days, that pretty much everything Barack Obama does constitutes "tyranny" (or at least a significant step on the road thereto). Pawlenty tried to move the conversation to the things he wanted to talk about -- his objections to this or that administration policy, his record in Minnesota -- while Stewart kept coming back to the tyranny question. I suspect that Pawlenty, who is firmly conservative, but not a nut, would have liked to say, "Of course it isn't tyranny, but we have some important differences." But in 2011, if you're running for president, saying that would probably get you branded a squish. Here's the extended interview (the first 10 minutes or so actually aired):
Near the end, Stewart asserts that there isn't some arbitrary size of government we need, but instead we should do more of the things that are working and less of the things that aren't. To which Pawlenty replies, "Your brain is too complex. You need to simplify." That is, no doubt, what he himself has been told as he prepares his presidential run.
-- Paul Waldman
