The tragedy of Tim Pawlenty

And yet something intangible still seems to be missing: Pawlenty comes across as lacking a sharply defined personality. People who know him bristle at the notion of a charisma deficit, although they are maddeningly short on specifics. “I think that he has sometimes been misrepresented as less than scintillatingly interesting,” says Anderson, his pastor. “He is actually a very interesting person.” Sviggum makes a similar point: “He’s been branded by the national press as bland. If you know Tim Pawlenty, that’s just wrong. He’s a jokester, a prankster.” When I asked Sviggum for an example or an anecdote, he replied with frustration audible in his voice, “I’m not coming up with anything right now.”

Part of Pawlenty’s dilemma may be that his type-A tendencies make him appear contrived as a campaigner. There is something overly cautious, overly thought-out about the way he presents himself. Every time Pawlenty delivers an attack line, you can picture the staff meetings that led up to it. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday” in mid-June, Pawlenty, responding to a question planted by his own campaign, attacked Romney for providing the template for “Obamneycare.” But then Pawlenty somehow balked at repeating this line of attack in the New Hampshire debate—exasperating his staff and yielding the spotlight to Bachmann. Finally, after two days of public silence, a back-on-message Pawlenty went on Sean Hannity’s TV show to ruefully admit, “I should have been much more clear during the debate.” A month later, on “Meet the Press,” Pawlenty offered an obviously planned critique of Bachmann, calling her record in Congress “non-existent.” This time around, Pawlenty had the gumption to follow up, repeating the charge almost word-for-word on “Fox and Friends” the next morning.

As Pawlenty is fast discovering, methodical step-by-step planning and his tendency to overanalyze every move can carry you only so far in presidential politics. Spontaneity matters, especially this year on the Republican side. In fact, this may be the worst possible year for Tim Pawlenty to plot out a Tim Pawlenty-style campaign. Amid the rancor of the conservative base, especially in Iowa, it might not be enough for Pawlenty merely to be a budget-slashing, anti-tax, anti-abortion Republican insider. At the moment, GOP voters appear to crave passion, anger, and even a dollop of caution-to-the-wind irresponsibility. No wonder Bachmann, who never cast a large enough shadow in Minnesota to be a rival, is outperforming him.