Charlie Cook, National Journal
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tim Pawlenty’s announcement that he is setting up a 2012 presidential campaign exploratory committee makes the former Minnesota governor the first major GOP contender to take the big step, although others will undoubtedly follow over the next several months.
Haley Barbour, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich appear virtually certain to run and will signal as much before too long, although Romney is under the least pressure to move fast. Having run a Rolls Royce, free-spending campaign last time, he seems less enthused about investing as much personal money in the race and experiencing the kind of cash burn rate that he did four years ago.
Mitch Daniels seems less certain, but he is still apparently considering a bid. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee look a little less likely; Jon Huntsman, now in the process of resigning his post as U.S. ambassador to China, seems more and more likely to run, although the prospect of GOP primary voters seriously considering someone from the Obama administration strains credulity.
But for all the pondering and posturing, a couple of things seem very clear. First, the truism that the Republican Party is hierarchical, that Republicans inevitably nominate whomever’s turn it is, does not appear to be the case this time. The Gallup Organization’s Lydia Saad pointed out in a March 7 report that “since 1952, Republican nomination races have always featured a clear front-runner at this stage of the campaign, and, in almost all cases, that front-runner ultimately won the nomination.” On March 5, National Journal published a great graphic of the Gallup data, on p. 32, showing as much. For that matter, 2012 doesn’t even resemble the Democratic situation in 2008, when Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama formed a top tier and others were trying to break through. At this stage, we don’t even have that much clarity. This is a pretty wide-open race.
(More here.)
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