JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 10, 2011
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The reason Republicans tiptoe so carefully around the birther question is that birthers constitute a significant portion of the Republican base. Tim Pawlenty is meeting with a prominent one in New Hampshire:
Likely GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is set to have dinner in New Hampshire this week with the sponsor of what’s been dubbed the Granite State’s “birther” bill.
The former Minnesota governor, who has been aggressively courting the tea party vote to burnish conservative credentials in recent weeks, will visit New Hampshire again to help boost his standing among the first-in-the-nation primary voters. Pawlenty is scheduled to have dinner Thursday with Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC leader Jerry DeLemus and his wife, Susan DeLemus, a freshman New Hampshire state Representative.
Susan DeLemus is the lead sponsor of a House provision that would require presidential primary candidates to provide birth certificates, in addition to a sworn affidavit that they are at least 35 years old and have lived in the United States for 14 years, as called for in the Constitution to qualify for the presidency. ...
Asked Wednesday afternoon specifically about the meeting with DeLemus, Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant responded: “The governor is meeting with lots of people while he’s in New Hampshire, some public and some private. … As for the bill, the governor hasn’t seen the legislation.”
He's not for it, he's not against it. If pushed into a corner by a journalist, he'll probably say he personally believe Obama was born here and/or we should move on to others issues, and will resolutely refuse to condemn birthers.
The birther movement occupies a similar space in the GOP as does, say, handgun control in the Democratic Party today. It's an idea that a large portion of the base supports, but is unpopular with independents, so leaders with any national responsibility or ambitions have to distance themselves from it without alienating its passionate advocates. The difference, of course, is that advocacy of gun control is not a paranoid, factually wrong belief.
15 comments
Yes, that is the slight difference between the two, Jonathan.
- liberalref
March 10, 2011 at 2:47pm
Remember when Pawlenty was supposed to be the soft-spoken, reasonable alternative?
- miceelf
March 10, 2011 at 2:57pm
Just curious, for anyone who can answer... is there something resembling a traditional drop-dead date for candidacy announcement? Something along the lines of "no candidate announcing past x date has ever secured their party's nomination", or something to that effect?
- Tristan
March 10, 2011 at 2:59pm
Leaving aside that gun control is wildly popular among most voters (be they anything but the ultra right wing) in urban areas and wildly unpopular among most voters (be they anything but back to the lander vegan non-flushers) in rural areas. The notion that there is a unified block of independent voters on the gun control issue seems a really gross lumping together of disparate things. Also: gun control is a matter of opinion and perspective. Birtherism is a matter of facts.
- miceelf
March 10, 2011 at 2:59pm
I ran my "Eric Cantor and the Birthers" indie band spoof a few weeks ago. It got some positive responses here. I guess I shouldn't try it again with Tim Pawlenty. Nah.
- ironyroad
March 10, 2011 at 3:02pm
Well, Tristan, I don't have a specific answer to your question, but the lead time has lengthened greatly for starting up a presidential candidacy. Forty years ago, you could do it at the drop of a hat. Not any more, though. When JFK ran in 1960, there were only 12 primaries, I believe, and nomination processes were heavily influenced by party power brokers, you know the ones, those proverbial cigar-chomping, backroom pols.
- liberalref
March 10, 2011 at 3:07pm
I've become convinced that Tim Pawlenty has no ideas or convictions left at all other than, "I want to be president." The poor fellow now defines the word "opportunist". Perhaps he caught the ailment from Romney.
- K_Wilson
March 10, 2011 at 3:09pm
Libref - thanks, and I agree, which is why I'm surprised it's taking this long to see more candidates on the gop side declare definitively (and ramp up the ground game, etc), especially given the conventional wisdom that Obama will have a ridiculously strong fund raising and vote-getting apparatus moving as things get closer. Perhaps the thinking among most of the gop field is to wait until a few others declare, sit back while the pundits explain why they can't win, then enter as the long-awaited savior... but as I recall that strategy didn't work too well for Fred Thompson.
- Tristan
March 10, 2011 at 3:33pm
"Susan DeLemus is the lead sponsor of a House provision that would require presidential primary candidates to provide birth certificates, in addition to a sworn affidavit that they are at least 35 years old and have lived in the United States for 14 years, as called for in the Constitution to qualify for the presidency" I think we should add to this redundant provision a clause that presidential candidates must also not have "foreign" sounding names that are hard to pronounce. We don't want to confuse folks into thinking someone other than white protestant males can be president. Heck...maybe we bring back the Catholic test too. DeLemus sounds kind of continental to me and I don't me North America continental either.
- singlspeed
March 10, 2011 at 3:38pm
President Obama's mother was a US citizen whom had lived at least 5 years in the US - doesn't this alone qualify B.H. Obama a US citizen - let alone the fact he was born in Hawaii?
- Bukharin
March 10, 2011 at 3:58pm
Bukharin: You are deeply underestimating the crazed dedication of the Birther crowd, and the ingenuity they apply to finding ways in which Obama is not a natural-born citizen. A few things I've learned from Birthers (lazily copied from an earlier post): -To be considered "natural-born" citizens, children born here must be born to second-generation US citizens. Children born to first-generation US citizens are "naturalized at birth" citizens. -Children born out of wedlock cannot be citizens. -If natural-born citizens leave the country between the ages of 18 and 35, they lose their "natural-born" status, though they may still be considered citizens under certain circumstances.
- janus
March 10, 2011 at 4:32pm
Unless of course you are a white "war hero", in which case it does not matter where you are born or to whom.
- icarusr
March 10, 2011 at 6:03pm
According to the Birthers I am not a natural born citizen. Also I went to Mexico when I was 20. OMG. Maybe I should apply for asylum in Mother Russia.
- Sophia
March 10, 2011 at 6:10pm
Tristan, any number of candidates have to be waiting to see what Sarah Palin will do in 2012, but they can't wait forever. Also, a slew of potential Republican candidates are on the Fox "News" payroll and once they declare their candidacies, the paychecks will stop. It is a very strange situation on the Republican side. Usually there is an obvious front-runner; the R's have long been more hierarchical and disciplined than the Democrats. But it is a wide-open road to the starboard side this quadrennial go-round.
- liberalref
March 10, 2011 at 6:19pm
I've posted this a kajillion times, but the birthers don't (necessarily) believe that Obama isn't a citizen. You can be born outside the U.S. and still be a citizen. They believe that Obama was born outside the U.S. These are two different factual propositions. Because of this, you WILL see Pawlenty, Cantor and other Republicans concede that Obama is a citizen. What you WILL NOT see is any of these folks stating that they believe he was born in Hawaii.
- marcellusw101
March 11, 2011 at 3:11pm