To run a competitive campaign, T-Paw will be forced to spend long hours each week ingratiating himself with wealthy donors in places like Houston and Atlanta. But in this cycle’s foreshortened campaign season, Pawlenty cannot afford to shirk even a minute of the face-to-face politics that have proven essential to winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. In other words, in a race where time will likely be of the essence, Pawlenty has dangerously little of it to go around…
The only way that candidates like Pawlenty and Huntsman can reliably raise big bucks is through the most labor-intense form of old-fashioned fund-raising—putting high-roller donors in the same room with the candidate and cocktails and a catered dinner. With Pawlenty running neck-and-neck with the margin of error in most national polls, would-be T-Paw donors will be making a leap of faith rather than betting on a sure thing. That is why they need the handshake, the hand-on-the-shoulder conversation, and the autographed picture with Pawlenty to prove they were there (far) right from the start. Phone calls by Pawlenty from a van in Iowa are not enough—the candidate has to care enough to come to them…
That is Pawlenty’s real time bind–the voters who matter and the donors who can write $2,500 checks are hundreds of air miles apart. Every day, Pawlenty’s schedulers will have to wrestle with brutal choices: the Rotary Club lunch in Davenport, Iowa, or a noon fund-raiser in a Houston law firm? A prayer breakfast in Spartanburg, South Carolina, or making a pitch to a group of uncommitted Republican bundlers in Atlanta? A day of debate prep or three Wall Street fund-raisers?
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