The Dark Horse?
Q: Please rank the top five candidates, 1 through 5, in terms of who you think is most likely to capture the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Republicans (109 votes)
Rank/Candidate/Insiders Index*
1. Mitt Romney 81
2. Tim Pawlenty 46
3. John Thune 38
4. Haley Barbour 28
5. Mitch Daniels 25
5. Sarah Palin 25
7. Newt Gingrich 14
7. Mike Huckabee 14
9. Jeb Bush 6
10. Bobby Jindal 5*METHODOLOGY: All 127 Republicans among National Journal's Political Insiders were asked to name and rank the top five contenders for their party's 2012 presidential nomination; 109 participated. In tallying the rankings, a first-place vote was worth 5 points, a second-place vote 4 points, and so on. The Insiders Index reflects the percentage of points that each contender received out of the maximum possible. For example, Mitt Romney scored an Index rating of 81, meaning he received 81 percent of the possible 545 points, the number he would have had if all 109 participants had ranked him first.
Pawlenty made a modest second place showing behind the decided favorite Romney in the first National Journal Republican insider poll of the new presidential election cycle. Interestingly the first poll of a new cycle has only predicted one thing: in the past two cycles the winner of the first poll was not the winner of the party nomination for Republicans or Democrats. In the 2004 cycle the winner of the first poll was VT Gov. Howard Dean, and in the 2008 cycle NY Sen. Clinton and VA Gov. George Allen were the early favorites. If anything this shows that Pawlenty and other lesser known national candidates like SD Sen. John Thune (third place) are currently in the right spot in this early stage.
Perhaps even more telling for Pawlenty were some of the quotes extracted from the poll by National Journal, which ranged from "A fresh face and a solid conservative record. Best of a weak field. Fewest negatives" and "Solid and will be a lot of folks' No. 2, but the excitement meter really doesn't tick too much" to "Plausible but ultimately doesn't cut it. Is moving right so fast it's making Romney's head spin."
These quotes are a fair quick assessment of the situation Pawlenty is currently in. He has a great record as governor. He has virtually no negatives in his past. He is not very charismatic compared with the rest of the field. And he is, bafflingly, making huge moves to the right, recently revising past positions on social issues, and proposing somewhat radical new fiscal measures to be applied to the constitution. Ultimately things still look promising for Pawlenty: insiders take him seriously, he is still enough of an unknown with the general electorate to avoid being beaten up in the press for the next two and a half years, and he has an impressive track record as governor of a moderate state. His biggest threats are probably those he poses to himself, should he choose to continue to maneuver drastically to the right of who he has been for most of his public career.