Mitch Daniels decision not to run for president is a blow to Republicans who thought the fiscally conservative Indiana governor was the man who could lead them back to the White House. But this latest dropout from the GOP presidential race gives a tremendous boost to former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who is scheduled to formally declare his candidacy tomorrow.
In the past few weeks, Daniels had flirted with running but couldn’t pull the trigger. His reason, he said, in an e-mail sent out to supporters late Saturday night that was obtained by several news organizations, was family considerations. Which means that we won’t spend the next year and a half listening to endless accounts and speculation about the breakup of his marriage and how he and his wife eventually got back together again. That’s a blessing for them and the country.
Daniels’s exit will rekindle speculation about a number of potential candidates who have ruled themselves out of the race: Chris Christie, Paul Ryan and even Jeb Bush. But while you never should say never in politics, the odds that any one of them will change his mind are slim.
Daniels’s departure will deflate Republicans who have been looking for a solid alternative to Mitt Romney, whose well-financed campaign is still severely handicapped by his record on health care. If you assume, as I think you must, that the people who say that they won’t run stay out, that leaves the GOP left with more or less three candidates who can claim mainstream status: Romney, Pawlenty and former Utah governor John Huntsman.
Some observers may claim that the absence of Daniels will cause some Republicans to think again about Romney. He has a winning style and a massive campaign war chest but his doubling down on his Massachusetts health care record more or less eliminates Romney even though he behaving as if he doesn’t know it. As for Huntsman, he’s not conservative enough to excite the grass roots or the Tea Party activists who engineered the GOP’s 2010 midterm triumph.
That leaves Pawlenty, who combines fiscal conservatism along with a strong appeal to evangelicals and other social conservatives. He also knows what he’s talking about when it comes to a president’s main responsibility: foreign policy which is more than you can say about most of the Republicans who are running.
This latest twist will also encourage the second-tier candidates as well as an outlier like Sarah Palin. If Palin stays out, Michelle Bachmann may be the one in the best position to break out from the pack and challenge the bigger names. Bachmann is a real problem for Pawlenty in Iowa. But he needs to be thinking about a long-term strategy that takes him beyond the first few states where Bachmann, like Mike Huckabee in 2008, may have success. The Daniels pullout is Pawlenty’s golden opportunity and he must make the most of it. If he can spend the rest of the spring and summer raising sufficient funds to run and creating credible organizations in key states, then he will be in a very strong position by the time the campaigning gets serious later this year.
