Should Pawlenty have stayed in the race?

Like Warhol said, in the future everyone will lead the GOP field for 15 minutes. Why not T-Paw?

It seems possible, however, that Pawlenty badly miscalculated. If we have learned one thing from this election, it is that every candidate will get his or her time in the sun. Bachmann did. Cain did. Even Gingrich is likely to, as Ed Kilgore explains here. Surely this would have been true of Pawlenty, who is a much more credible alternative to Romney. What’s more, when Pawlenty quit it was not even clear that Perry would be a strong candidate (he has not been). Paul Ryan and Chris Christie were always longshots to enter the race. The scenario we are seeing now was very plausible.

The best objection to this argument has to do with money. Pawlenty could not raise much, and thus would have had trouble competing with Romney and Perry. But he still would have had a shot in Iowa, and a win there would have boosted his fundraising numbers. It’s true that Mike Huckabee always had trouble raising cash, even after his Iowa win, but this is a much different election than the last one. In that race, McCain, Romney, and Giuliani all looked like potential nominees. Here, only Romney does. Were he still running, Tim Pawlenty would have a better chance than everyone else (minus Romney and perhaps Perry) of winning. That should have at least been enough to merit staying in.

Jonah Goldberg’s thinking the same thing, saying of Pawlenty, “His problem stemmed from the fact that he’s a vanilla guy who thought he needed to convince conservatives he was a more exciting flavor. He should have waited, because vanilla may not be anyone’s first choice, but it’s almost everyone’s second choice.” Okay, but for T-Paw to have had a chance at the nomination, vanilla would have had to have been Iowans’ first choice, no? Finishing second there to a less credible, less organized candidate like Cain or Bachmann would have tarred him with the “underperformer” label right before New Hampshire, where Romney’s very solid at 40 percent. If Pawlenty lost there too — and remember, he would have been competing at a heavy financial disadvantage — he’d be all done.

So it was Iowa or bust for him, yet thus far this year there’s no evidence of any serious constituency in Iowa for non-firebrand conservatives apart from the 25 percent or so who support Romney. Even Gingrich, for all the Newtmentum hype recently, is still crawling along at nine or 10 percent. The story of Iowa so far is base voters constantly shuffling their votes among red-meat “true conservatives” — first Bachmann, then Perry when he jumped in and she started to flame out, and now Cain as Perry has faded. My sense of them is that they want to vote for a candidate whom they can get excited about, and Pawlenty was never, ever going to be that guy. Maybe, purely through process of elimination, they would have lurched towards him once each and every one of Romney’s competitors had imploded, but in that case, I think it’s as likely as not that many of them would have caved and backed Romney as the inevitable nominee instead of T-Paw. Even now, Mitt’s neck and neck with the new grassroots darling Cain and might very well win the state thanks to his under-the-radar organizing. All of which is to say, I’m not so sure Iowans are pure “Not Romney” voters. I think they’re more “true conservative” voters who can and will reconcile themselves to Romney if their favorites all implode. As will pretty much every other “true conservative” in America, however grudgingly.

Here’s Ed Rollins on Fox yesterday writing the epitaph for Bachmann’s campaign. One thing I do wonder about T-Paw staying in the race: That would have forced Romney to compete in Iowa in earnest, no? Once Bachmann and Perry cratered, it would have been way too dangerous to leave Pawlenty alone there with only Cain as his chief competition. Cain might very well crater too, whether from gaffes or the sexual harassment dirt dug up on him, and Pawlenty had enough organization there to take advantage if Iowa voters were willing to give him a look. Romney would have had to pour money into the state to make sure that didn’t happen, which would have meant less money for Nevada and Florida (and New Hampshire and South Carolina), which in turn would have meant new opportunities for Perry in those states. Different race. Not sure if the outcome would have changed, but the odds at least would have improved.