Another take on Peter Hutchinson
Lori Sturdevant has an article on Peter Hutchinson's entry into the governor's race as the Independence Party candidate. Like most people, she sees this as a big win for Pawlenty. I think she correctly deduces that Hutchinson's presence in the race will allow Pawlenty to focus more on pandering to his base than reaching out to moderates. Look for Pawlenty to make very public pushes for big conservative issues like gay marriage this year.
posted by MN Politics Guru @ 14:07
4 Comments:
If Pawlenty does end up pandering to his base he is making a big mistake. First off by doing so that suggest Hutchinson is going to be earning the votes of moderate Republicans, while I believe this to be true it suggest everything we are hearing from the Republicans is BS, and while we expect to here BS from Party chairs and spokespeople they would have nothing to gain with that kind of a misrepresentation of there true belief.
If Pawlenty does pander to his base it will lead his vote total cap to lower opening up the middle for Peter, if that happens the polls will start to show it and the left leaners who fear Hutchinson is hurting them will start to believe that the best way to defeat Pawlenty will be to get 100% behind Peter. If that happens the #'s will break down somewhat like 1998, but the incumbents sudden turn to the hard right will be seen through by those who waited around for Pawlenty to act like a conservitive and a decent chunk of those votes will go to the Lung Cancer is great Party candiate.
Pawlenty is really in a tough situation unless Hutchinson somehow fizzles out to the tune of 2 or 3%, and the likelyhood of that is next to none, he's really left hoping the Democrats play this wrong and he can edge off the second place finisher while getting around 40% of the vote.
I'd say the chances of Hutchinson fizzling are pretty good. He has name ID in the single digits, and no natural voting base. Jesse Ventura and Tim Penny both started out with considerable name ID and buzz. This guy is a Dean Barkley, (5-7%) at best.
I'm not sure why "left leaners" would get behind a guy who's constantly equating liberals with conservatives as being equally extremist, nasty and pernicious to democracy, but hey, that's just how this left leaner feels.
I would be very careful about underestimating Hutchinson. The DFL needs to take his candidacy seriously or they might regret it.
There is a huge difference between Hutchinson and Barkley, and thats the ability to raise money. While Hutchinson raised well under Hatch and Pawlenty as todays #'s come in he has already raised enough to be competitive as an unknown who was not officially in the race.
First off you have to ask yourself how the heck an unannounced unknown candidate raised 35% as much money as Hatch or 20% as much money as Pawlenty and come to the relization it's because there is something behind Peter Hutchinson.
Dean Barkley was a protest vote who had a few issues behind him running in a national race. Because of Ventura and Penny's success Hutchinson supporters are looking forward to victory. It may be a tough battle, but it's a battle worth waging as the result will be victory in November with no regrets.
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