Pawlenty delivers on substance at first “Presidential Lecture Series” event

• Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 2:10
• News Center, Presidential, Top Story
• 970 views
• 11 comments

By Kevin Hall

Tim Pawlenty said all the right things during the inaugural “Presidential Lecture Series” event sponsored by The FAMiLY Leader.   A crowd of 150 attendees, plus a dozen media members, gathered at Pella Christian High School early Monday afternoon to listen to the former Minnesota governor.  The crowd liked what they heard, but was not blown away by Pawlenty’s delivery.

If elections were won only on substance, Pawlenty would stand a strong chance in the 2012 Iowa Caucus.  However, style matters too.  Oratorical skills propelled Barack Obama to the White House in 2008. Pawlenty will need to become a more passionate speaker as the campaign moves forward.  He possesses an everyman quality that could endear him to caucus goers, but lacks the soaring rhetoric of Obama, folksy humor of Mike Huckabee, and fiery charisma of Chris Christie.

However, when it comes to the issues, Pawlenty’s record and stances stack up very well against the other potential 2012 candidates.  It is that record that Pawlenty must use to set himself apart from the field.  The purpose of the “Presidential Lecture Series” is to find out where the candidates stand on pro-family issues.  Pawlenty’s 20 minute speech to the Pella crowd drew little response.  However, he scored points during the question and qnswer session, conducted by The FAMiLY Leader’s CEO Bob Vander Plaats.

via theiowarepublican.com