GOVERNOR PAWLENTY MOTIVATES A CROWD TO DAYDREAM IN TRADEMARKED MANNERS
I caught about twenty minutes of a speech, dealing with both his support for Senator McCain's candidacy and the present and future states of the G.O.P., delivered recently by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to a gathering of Republicans in Connecticut. (Governor Pawlenty is often considered a possible running mate for Senator McCain.) As a resident of Minnesota, I viewed the speech (which was broadcast on C-Span) with interest, and I was surprised at how consistent that speech was when set alongside the speeches he gives in Minnesota. This is not to suggest that I was wholly satisfied with it, however.
The speech was wide-ranging but maddenly vague, like a commencement speech in which the person delivering it provides all the right gestures at generally appropriate moments, but ran out of time in the preparation process when it came to fleshing-out his chosen broad themes with necessary particulars. This, to a great extent, is the common complaint lodged against a lot of politicians (many of whom have had quite successful careers), but with Governor Pawlenty the "homespun" vibe seems to be an end in and of itself, to the point where he hedges nearly everything--in the speech, he spoke about the need for his party to stay true to its traditional principles, but also to be inclusive in a modern, big-tent sort of way; how exactly his party should do both was left out of the speech entirely. He urged his party to take a page out of Ronald Reagan's playbook but, other than President Reagan's era-specific brand of optimism (which President Kennedy also possessed, if in a manner more specific to his particular era, as, for that matter, does Senator Obama), he did not point to what pages (or even chapters) exactly should be most focused on.
There was a bizarre, almost Mayberry-esque section of the speech in which he correctly stated that Minnesota, though called "The Land of 10,000 Lakes," actually has something closer to 15,000 lakes; he moved into the notion of Midwestern modesty after stating this, which could have gone somewhere, but seemed instead to dissipate into something too general to sink one's teeth into. (I can't even remember what it was.) He also told a few short stories of growing up in Minnesota--his "Minnesota" seems to be set squarely in the middle of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon (though Mr. Keillor himself is unlikely to vote for someone like Mr. Pawlenty). This he then transitioned in an oddly-effective manner towards a discussion of rather traditional conservative values, but he lost the map after that--he can't (or won't) link these values up with anything but the fuzziest, most general future policies.
There were moments when I was genuinely interested in his East Coast crowd's reactions: they seemed to love the Midwestern-themed "homespun" stuff, perhaps because it's far enough removed from their own experiences for them to embrace in an ethereal, dainty sort of way; most Upper-Midwesterners would wonder, as Gertrude Stein would have put it, why there was "no there there," why everything seemed to be just a bit too inauthentic to believe. Like, say, Tony Blair for Britons, Tim Pawlenty strikes a lot of Upper Midwesterners as being from nowhere in particular, and at the same time he seems to be from just about everywhere. This can be effective, and--who knows?--it might be quietly, unenthusiastically, unenergetically effective on a national stage, where grand gestures are the first and last ports of call in national addresses (and a lot of ports in between).
Yet American voters are souring to the Rembrant-glow overkill of late, and, surly as it may be to say it, I applaud the apparent furthering of that souring process. That's probably because the United States of America is indeed an idea (and a very important one), which by definition often lacks a tangible component, but it is also a very real place--it is both a state of mind and a state of actual being, and until relatively recently we've been caught in a decade-long, extended, fuzzy, society-wide daydream. Personal and social dreams are important--my goodness, are they ever--but they need to be made of more than what is often little more than an invitation to feel-good absorption into inactivity. They need substance, which means, among other things, that they need authenticity. I applaud our recent demands for authenticity, and I demand more of it from all of us, which means that we will demand it--really demand it--in increasing levels of intensity from our leaders.
Governor Pawlenty looks as though he could step directly onto the pages of a Hardy Boy's book as is (he could play the role of Mr. Hardy, at least for the cover art). His political speeches often convey this put-together quality. He's so outwardly, generically ingenuous that you can't hate the guy--personally, I find it impossible to hate him, and I can't bring myself to dislike him, either. I am, however, often annoyed by his lack of any sort of edge whatsoever, because it seems to indicate that he is a product of pure social- and commerical-construction, with little or no individual awareness. I think that's the ultimate American paradox at present, at least politically-speaking: the party that says it nearly always errs on the side of the "individual" over, well, anything and everything except oil companies, is suddenly churning out colorless, pre-packaged automatons--the generically-ingratiating Tim Pawlentys; the disingenuous, "American Dad" Mitt Romneys--that seem to have "Five-year-plan: keep people lulled into general conversations at home" stamped onto their foreheads in invisible ink. It's almost an organized strategy to lull voters into apathy...if an organic, not-necessarily-planned one.
There was a point near the end of Governor Pawlenty's speech when he carried on a bit with his trademarked "homespun" quips (he even suddenly dropped the "-g" he generally uses at the end of certain words, which, for the purposes of making us all think we are modern-day pioneers, became "hopin'" and "tryin'" and the like), at which point his eyes seemed to unfocus a little. The governor seemed to be carried internally away by his own prepackaged, not-particularly-accurate harkening back to days of yore (as it were). I half expected him to lift off of the ground and levitate for an instant above the podium, before floating away toward a non-specific, mythical Midwestern ether.
The crowd cheered fairly heartily. Yet they didn't seem to be cheering the governor so much as cheering themselves for somehow managing to be carried away with him.
SENATOR McCAIN SHOULD SELECT GOVERNOR PALIN TO BE HIS VICE PRESIDENTIAL RUNNING MATE
I'm a Barack Obama supporter, but in the interests of equalizing my endorsements, and because I am intrigued by this potential pairing (though I would vote for Senator Obama in any case), I endorse Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be Senator McCain's running mate. He should add her to his presidential ticket at some point later in the summer.
With the national Republican Party radioactive at present, Senator McCain needs to add a "wow"-element to his campaign in order to stop the Democratic advance (that advance alone, more than its presidential candidate's qualities, might help Senator Obama to a November victory), and he is most likely not going to provide it himself, given the stolid, hand-slash-heavy speeches he seems resigned to give on the campaign trail. Governor Palin would provide that "wow"-element, and she would not be a fluffy, cosmetic addition, but rather a strategic, thoughtful one.
Why? Here are a few reasons:
* Let's get this one out of the way up front: she is young (she turned forty just a few years ago) and female (that would put a lot of pressure on Senator Obama and his running mate insofar as the votes of politically-independent women are concerned). The G.O.P. has been in desperate shortage of generally conservative, young national female leaders for quite some time now, and they generally (if not always) do less well than the Democrats with women voters in presidential races. Selecting Governor Palin could help rectify (at least to a certain extent) such problems. That she is physically attractive will also not hurt the ticket's chances with male voters.
* She's wildly popular in her home state of Alaska, with approval ratings remaining above 80% for well over a year now. Do not giggle at this fact, for polls suggest that traditionally-conservative Alaska is wavering right now between Senator McCain and Senator Obama (Senator McCain has a very slight edge at present). Though the state is likely to go to Senator McCain in November, he will not wish to fly all the way there late in the campaign process in order to secure it's potentially crucial 3 electoral votes. Governor Palin has earned her popularity, by the way, having dealt with a few tricky corruption issues left over by her predecessor with decisiveness and vigor, and she is rated highly by constituents insofar as other areas of running a state government are concerned.
* She is a wife and mother with a young family, as well as an avid sportswoman who is a strong supporter of gun rights, all of which will help with conservatives. She is also pro-life, another winner with conservatives. But she is also generally pro-gay rights (though she is against gay marriage, she has signed some expansions of benefits to gay partners into law, and she did it rather enthusiastically) and a big supporter of finding ways to cut down on greenhouse gasses (she has let it be known that the Alaskan legislature should help her take steps towards that end), which will appeal to independent voters and some rather moderate Democrats.
* She has cut funding for a lot of construction projects in Alaska that she suggests are an unnecessary use of taxpayer dollars; this viewpoint dovetails nicely with Senator McCain's "anti-pork" viewpoint.
* She's still relatively new on the scene and has little foreign policy experience, but Senator McCain has been around for a long time and can claim to "cover" those angles as she learns them on the job. She's an outsider (way outside, given the geography of her homestate) and a chief executive (Senator McCain has never been a chief executive) who has worked her way up the political ladder (she was a mayor, then a leader of mayors, and now a governor).
* As a Westerner, she could help defend some traditionally-conservative, now politically-wavering Western states.
* Adding a fairly young woman to a Republican presidential ticket could prove electrifying, in a positive sense, for the G.O.P., and not just at the presidential level, but perhaps the congressional one, as well.
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