Federal Judiciary

Pawlenty's Appeal -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

?Our values are under attack and under siege.? That was the feeling palpable at last week?s Susan B. Anthony List dinner, held just a block away from the White House and mere days after Barack Obama?s health-care legislation passed the House.

In many ways, this year?s annual dinner was an awkward gathering. SBA is the pro-life answer to Emily?s List: Emily raises money for candidates who back legal abortion; SBA aims to elect politicians who oppose it. But despite the recent defeat and the sense of siege, Minnesota?s Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, managed to uplift the room -- humbly, realistically, and generously. His speech sounded natural -- even, at times, off the cuff.

?The laws and the court decisions and the like will change when hearts are changed and minds are changed,? he declared. ?And when we have enough hearts and minds that share our views and values, that will translate into the changes in the laws and changes in the courts that we know are right.?

Tim Pawlenty is not flashy. When he tries to be -- as he did with a Tiger Woods joke during a recent speech -- it doesn?t quite work. If you compare him to other Minnesota politicians who have garnered national attention -- former governor Jesse Ventura and current senator Al Franken come to mind -- he?s positively Wonder Bread. And if you compare him to fellow Minnesotan Rep. Michele Bachmann, he might look politically moderate. But by declaring himself a ?constitutional conservative,? he?s positioning himself firmly as a man of the Founding documents. He?s not going to drive people wild, the way Sarah Palin does. But does a presidential candidate really need to?

Think of Pawlenty in the context of Barack Obama. After a president who promised everything and nothing in the form of a lot of exciting, historic, comprehensive, broad, and transformational -- yet fundamentally pedestrian -- campaign rhetoric, and still ran a perpetual campaign after the inaugural, people may be looking for someone a tad plainer with a record he can stand on. They may be looking for the Constitution instead of lawsuits from state attorneys general.

Obama?s a good comparison, too, when you consider Pawlenty?s remarks about Bachmann, who was in attendance at the dinner. He called her ?one of the finest leaders in our country,? but he didn?t leave it there. ?She has guts. She has brains. She has integrity. She has determination. She has persistence. She has the skills, ability, and passion to change this country.#...#My face just lights up when I see her.? This was politically smart, because Bachmann is popular among many conservatives. But such a full-throated endorsement was not exactly playing it safe. Bachmann has been known to open a can of worms or two -- an interview she did on Hardball nearly cost her her House seat. One gets the impression the term ?thrown under the bus? wouldn?t be used quite as often in a Pawlenty era.

Although he does have a series of pro-life initiatives under his belt, he didn?t offer a laundry list during his speech at the dinner so much as he outlined his vision and gave a sense of his grounding as a man who hopes to have a long relationship with this activist pro-life crowd. He warned of a ?damaging, corrosive, devaluing? path that America has been on since Roe v. Wade. ?We see it in the chatter. You see it in the debates. It includes things like, you know, saying that economic security is more important than human life, that in the balance between those two things, we will push the value of economic security.?

He didn?t make the connection explicit, but his comments came shortly after supposedly pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak jarringly reported that Democrats were arguing for the abortion-funding health-care legislation in part on economic grounds: If fewer babies were born, costs would be lower. Such talk, Pawlenty said, indicates the ?slippery slope? you?re on ?once you open the door to say that life can be devalued, life is negotiable, life can be bargained away.?

Pawlenty?s got a natural smile to go along with his optimism. His remarks were couched in terms of ?healing? and were laced with some inspiring biblical quotes drawn from both his morning Bible study and a Reagan inaugural. ?America is in trouble,? he says bluntly. ?We?ve got a financial crisis that seems out of control. We have great uncertainty in#...#our national-security posture.? Alarmingly, he says, ?all of these values that we share, that we hold dear, are one generation away from being extinct or forgotten or diluted.?

Which is why it?s important to stay involved, he said. ?In the end, ideas matter.? Twice in his speech, he stressed the need to move the ball forward on what your values and principles are once in office: ?We have to make sure that we do what we say we are going to do.? To this largely conservative audience, his pitch came across as a believable vision -- one that taps into Ronald Reagan?s devotion to the permanent things and his morning-in-America imagery. Pawlenty is offering a message similar to that of others on today?s right, but he is doing so in a way that is exceedingly plainspoken. Which may be exactly what his national audience will be craving when the 2012 election rolls around.

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. Copyright 2010, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on March 29, 2010 (boomark / email).