SALON

Monday, Sep 12, 2011 5:20 PM UTC

GOP elites think Perry’s unelectable, but GOP voters disagree

What Tim Pawlenty's endorsement of Mitt Romney means, and why he might be misguided

By

Topics: 2012 Elections, War Room, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republican Party, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty,

GOP elites think Perry's unelectable, but GOP voters disagreeRick Perry, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney

Thrilling campaign update: Loser Tim Pawlenty, a former candidate who never actually had very much support from anyone, has made his endorsement! He is going for Mitt Romney. And I’m sure the voters who supported Pawlenty will fall in line, besides the ones who only supported Pawlenty because he was supposed to be the non-Romney candidate with the best shot at winning. Pawlenty says he is supporting Romney because of Romney’s record and his positions, but in his Fox and Friends appearance this morning, Pawlenty gave away the real reason:

“Gov. Romney wants to fix Social Security. He doesn’t want to abolish it or end it,” Pawlenty said. “Gov. Perry has said in the past that he thought it was ‘failed.’”

In other words, Pawlenty thinks Romney is more electable and Rick Perry has too many positions and quotes that could be used against him in the general election.

Maggie Haberman notes that that Mike Huckabee, a guy who would’ve had a very good shot at the nomination had he decided to run, made that same point today, explicitly:

“What Tim [Pawlenty] is looking at is the fact that Mitt may be the most electable Republican,” said Huckabee….
[...]
Also, he said bluntly: “Perry hurt himself a lot with his Social Security talk and what he said may be technically true, but you go to South Florida or even any part of Florida or even the part where I live in the panhandle where you have a lot of retired people and essentially say that Social Security is a criminal enterprise, that’s problematic.”

So this segment of Republican elites does not think Perry is the best candidate to take on Barack Obama. You know who disagrees with them? Republican voters.

A new CNN poll shows that Republicans think Perry is the most electable candidate, “with 42 percent saying he has the best chance of beating Obama next year.” Romney’s at 26%. The story isn’t that Perry is the most electable — I think Huckabee is basically accurate — it’s that Republican voters have convinced themselves that Perry can win, because they like him the most.

A party is probably better off going with someone who excites people — like Barack Obama! — than someone who won the nomination because everyone convinced themselves that he was the most “electable” according to certain totally unscientific parameters — like John Kerry! — and the GOP always does well for itself by reaching just a bit further rightward than is currently politically acceptable. So Perry’s Social Security talk might hurt him in Florida. But Mitt Romney might strike everyone in America as an effete phony with no principles. Either one could win if the economic situation continues to suck. Perry’s only slightly higher risk, with potentially much greater reward.

Continue Reading Close
Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 31 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations