Immediately after Pawlenty withdrew from the presidential race, his name was getting bandied about on the GOP side (and in some cases, bandied right back).
Eric Ostermeier notes that out of twelve former Minnesota governors who’ve tried to run for Senate, only one has won the race:
Even presuming, for the moment, that Pawlenty does not need a breather from political campaigning after 10 years in the Minnesota House, eight years in the governor’s mansion, and the remainder seeking the GOP presidential nod, Minnesota history suggests taking on Klobuchar (or even Al Franken in 2014) is risky business.
A Smart Politics review of Minnesota electoral history over the last century finds that sitting or ex-governors were elected to the U.S. Senate just one time in 12 attempts since popular vote contests were introduced in the state in 1912.
The only Minnesota governor to go on and win a Senate election during the past century was Republican Edward Thye, who defeated DFLer Theodore Jorgenson by 19.1 points while serving in his second term as governor in 1946.
All of which is true – and an interesting read, as far as it goes.
And so was “The Eighth District is solid Blue, and has been for three generations”, this time a year ago.
The point? Every election is unique. If things continue like they are, bikini car washes will have longer coat-tails than Barack Obama. A Senator who’s actually helped deliver a good economy might just gain a few points on a Senator that’s done…
…what?
Well, that may be A-Klo’s great advantage. She’s been thoroughly innocuous in her five years in office; there really is no there, there. She’s made no mistakes.
But in change elections, mistake-aversion and innocuity aren’t not always much insurance. Ask Gil Gutknecht, George H.W. Bush and Gary Laidig.
Just saying – all political records stand, ’til they stop standing. They we forget about them.
I was thinking that I’d rather have him run against Crazy Al as that would be a more likely win. But perhaps because A-Klo would be a tough candidate, Pawlenty would be the one to run against her as he would have a head start in the race due to his obvious name recognition. A little known Republican (to non-political junkies) would have a hard time.
Pawlenty told an AP reporter that he would not be running for Senate this year.
That’s good. The Senate race for Minnesota is next year.
Yeah, that too. Should have just cut and pasted:
“Tim Pawlenty says he’s staying out of the 2012 campaign — all of the campaigns, actually. After dropping out of the presidential race this week, the former Minnesota governor said he won’t be challenging freshman Sen. Amy Klobuchar for her seat, either. ‘I don’t know what I will be doing next,’ Pawlenty told the Associated Press’s Brian Baskt. ‘However, I will not be running against Amy in 2012.'”
I don’t think that he has a chance against Amy. She’s still got too many voters that will vote for her because of her dad’s columns in the Red Star.