GOP Candidates Too Loud or Too Boring

Party needs someone who's both a fighter, fixer: Jonah Goldberg
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 1, 2011 11:57 AM CST
GOP Candidates Too Loud or Too Boring
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty holds up The Declaration of Independence as he addresses a crowd of 2500 people during the Tea Party Patriots American Policy Summit in Phoenix, Feb. 26, 2011.   (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)

Tim Pawlenty took a daring step towards explosive rhetoric recently: he declared the country’s mounting debt a “pile of poo.” Try not to look too offended. “Clearly, the guy running the bleep button for the GOP primary debates isn’t worried about Tim Pawlenty,” quips Jonah Goldberg of the LA Times. And that is Pawlenty’s problem: “He’s boring. He’s so boring, he could have replaced James Franco at the Oscars without making the awards any more interesting.”

The GOP has a clear divide this year, between dull-but-substantive fixers like Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, and, “depending on what persona he assumes this week,” Mitt Romney, and partisan warriors like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee, who are “expert bomb-throwers, not ham-fisted poo-flingers.” It’s a lot like the Democratic field of 2004. Democrats wound up picking dull John Kerry over fiery Howard Dean, and regretted it. To avoid their fate, Republicans will have to find a candidate “who is both fighter and fixer.” (More Tim Pawlenty stories.)

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