Your essential (and hopefully humourous) guide to the American presidential election all in one place. Beginning in the invisible primary, throughout the GOP primary season and into the general election proper
With Tim Pawlenty now withdrawn from the race and endorsing Romeny the former Minnesota Governor wrote a column for Politico.com explaining why we should vote for Mitt. Through gritted teeth perhaps…
T-Paw now roaring for Romney. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr under a CC license.
The first big-name casualty of the Republican process endorsed one-time rival and once object of personal derision, Mitt Romney, as the man to lead the GOP in the general election against incumbent President Barack Obama. First he was taking swings at you, now he’s giving you a hug… That’s true friendship right there.
Support for T-Paw at the Ames Iowa Straw Poll. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Former Gov. of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty has withdrawn from the presidential race after not receiving the kick he needed from the Ames Iowa Straw Poll. He finished in third place with 13.6% of the vote behind Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul who earned 28.6% and 27.7% of the vote respectively. Ouch...
Multi-million dollar businessman and star of The Apprentice, Donald Trump, has derided GOP candidate Tim Pawlenty as a wannabe strong man who failed to nail Romney over his association with the polemic Obama healthcare legislation. The Donald is back!
Republican presidential nominee hopefuls Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich have released new ads in the last couple of days with the former being the first to release one in Iowa. The state plays such an important role in primary politics because their caucuses are the first in the Nation and the first credible indicator of how the field is taking shape.
The coverage of the second GOP debate in full. The 7 candidates were Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain. Somewhat surprisingly former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was left off the list whilst others like Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry and Sarah Palin are yet to declare and thus not invited. Although Bachmann formally declared her candidacy at the beginning of the show but CNN probably knew that would be the case.
Bit odd to invite the likes of Bachmann and particularly Cain and not Gary Johnson. Guy arguably speaks more sense than both but has fringe Republican values in comparison. He doesn't possess the high profile of fellow Libertarian Ron Paul he definitely deserves to be there particularly when the invited Cain opens his speech with, "I am not a politician." (Then what are you doing here...?)
P.S. - The YouTube embed tool is being a bit problematic so you can find parts 3-9 inclusive above but all parts 1-10 here.
The former Governor of Minnesota, 50, declared via YouTube that he has decided to seek the Republican nomination for President. Echoing the style of a previous video, in which he announced that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee, he said: "I believe with all my heart that the challenges we face can be overcome."
Making direct attacks at the Obama administration he said: "The truth is; our country is in big trouble. We have far too much debt, too much government spending and too few jobs." He then moved to personally criticise the sitting President saying: "We need a President who understands that our problems our deep and who has the courage to face them. President Obama doesn't. I do."
He continued his speech by attempting to identify himself with the average working American (a proud label) saying: "I grew up in a blue collar town. My Dad worked as a truck driver, my Mom died when I was a teenager and I was the first in our family to graduate from college." He then pronounced his continued belief in the American dream adding: "I know the American dream because I lived it and I know for it to be there for the next generation."
After which he took another shot at Obama's style of politics: "We're going to have to do more than give fancy speeches. We've had 3 years of that and it's not working."
Pawlenty's video announcements are remarkably different in style to the ones we have seen so far from Newt Gingrich et al as they don't take the approach of looking at the camera and speaking for 2 minutes. (You can find these in the video tab at the top.) Instead the Pawlenty campaign - and their PR guys - are adopting the approach of mixing stills, videos of a skyline, home videos and other types to create a montage which, for some, puts them head and shoulders above anything we have seen so far. In terms of the backing music, over which the candidate speak, Pawlenty's music was more sober and moving rather than Gingrich's more sombre and placid piano backing.
Whilst Gary Johnson and Fred Karger remain the only 2 legitimate politicians to declare their candidacy for the Republican nomination the following are prospective nominees that we can expect decisions from in the coming weeks:
Michele Bachmann - Minnesota Representative, prominent Tea Party member
John Bolton - former UN aambassador, considered a neo-conservative
Mitch Daniels - Governor of Indiana, more of a fiscal conservative
Newt Gingrich - former Speaker, orchestrated 1994 Contract with America
Rudy Giuliani - Mayor of New York during 9/11, failed 2008 candidate
Mike Huckabee - former Governor of Arkansas, social conservative
Jon Huntsman, Jr. - former Governor of Utah. former ambassador to China
Sarah Palin - running mate in 2008, social conservative, grassroots darling
Ron Paul - iconic libertarian Republican, fiscal conservative, evergreen
Tim Pawlenty - former 1-term Governor of Minnesota, social conservative
Buddy Roemer - former Governor of Louisiana, was a Democrat
Mitt Romney - former Governor of Massachusetts, health-care reformer
Rick Santorum - former Pennsylvania Senator, social conservative
Donald Trump, Sr. - multi-millionaire businessman, quasi-celebrity, PR stunt?
This is not a comprehensive list of all the possible nominees but it is a list of all those who have any kind of legitimate shot at the nomination that have either expressed intention to run or are widely speculated to do so. (Bold type constitutes the widely regarded heavyweights within the party.) Santorum could be added to this list because much of his career has been prolific except for the fact that he suffered a humiliating and colossal defeat in his 2006 Senate campaign. Since then his career has somewhat stalled whilst Gingrich was one of the most high profile Speakers in American history because of his famous bust-ups with Bill Clinton but since his resignation in 1999 he has yet to recapture those previous heights.
Gingrich is expected to announce as early as the start of next week whilst Bachmann and Trump have said they will make their minds up by June. However, it is Mike Huckabee whose nomination will be followed most closely as he is no doubt a heavy-weight contender that has done everything expected of a nominee except promptly declare. Pawlenty and Romney are heavyweights that are certain to run whilst the smart money would be on Palin not to and wait 4 years.
The Republican field is slowly taking shape but at the moment what we are seeing is a really big game of chicken. Once a heavyweight candidate declares the rest will promptly follow suit but until then the prospective candidates jostle for pole position. Think of it in terms of the start of the Grand National at Aintree, although only the first 30 seconds of the video are relevant, it was a good race anyway.
