A Call....Pawlenty Runs Out of Lipstick...

Today's edition of MinnPost carries a thoughtful article on former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty's current strategy in Iowa.  Mr. Pawlenty hasn't being doing well in the polls or in raising funds for his candidacy, which led his staff to adopt a strategy used by Mike Huckabee in 2007 - i.e. shake every hand of the people who are most likely to go to Ames and vote in the straw poll.

It seems to me that if Pawlenty's best chance to win is to pretend he is Mike Huckabee, then he is in big trouble.  Pawlenty has the warmth and charm of door, and not a door of which you are fond.  This strategy seems like a last ditch effort on the part of a desperate man.

I was much more scared of the Pawlenty who was traveling to Iowa and saying we don't need to pay farmers to produce ethanol.  That is the candidate who I thought had a real chance to make it over the long haul. 

Here is where my analysis fails....Pawlenty needs money to keep running, and he is not going to gain enough votes in Iowa telling farmers that he is turning off the tap for the ethanol party.  As a result, Pawlenty needs to adopt a "win-in-Iowa" strategy that will allow him to keep going in the hopes that he can get back to the Pawlenty version of the "Straight Talk Express".

If the Pawlenty people are relying on charm, I am not sure it is going to work.  My call is that Pawlenty is done after a disappointing performance in Iowa.  There is not enough lipstick for that pig...