Last week, Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) told National Review Online he was still considering a presidential run. “It is a gut-level decision,” he said. “We are getting closer to making it.”
This morning, Thune’s gut spoke: He won’t run -- in 2012 at least.
#ad#In an e-mail to supporters, the senator explained his reasoning. “There is a battle to be waged over what kind of country we are going to leave our children and grandchildren and that battle is happening now in Washington, not two years from now,” he wrote. “So at this time, I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America’s future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.”
Many politicos weren’t surprised. Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams, who managed the senator’s 2004 campaign, says Thune seemed unenthused about running. “I saw John Thune when he had an absolute burning fire in his gut, and that was in 2004 when he ran for Senate,” says Wadhams. “From afar -- because I haven’t been involved in his decision -- it didn’t strike me that that was the John Thune I saw [contemplating a presidential campaign].”
No, Thune was content in the Senate. “He is a wonderful person and a real leader in the Senate,” says former Republican congressman Vin Weber, an adviser to former Minnesota governor -- and probable 2012 presidential candidate -- Tim Pawlenty. “I expect that what he said in his statement is really the case -- particularly now with Jon Kyl deciding not to seek reelection. Being the youngest member of the Senate leadership, he’s got quite the future ahead of him. He can at the moment do a lot more in the Senate, where he is very well liked and very well respected.”
Indeed, one senior leadership aide says Thune has “plenty of opportunities here in the Senate.” “There’s been all sorts of talk of what’s going to happen in the leadership slots [once Kyl retires],” the aide hints.
But what can Thune do in a majority-Democrat Senate with a Democratic president? “What he can do in the next two years is vote,” says a source close to Thune. With a Democratic president, “not getting some stuff done is a victory in and of itself, and to be able to block that is going to be crucial.”
Nonetheless, practical concerns affected Thune’s decision. For one thing, his two daughters are still in school. “I think it was a combination of his family and concerns about fundraising,” says another source close to Thune. “Here’s a guy starting with $7 million in the bank with an ability to raise another $30 to 40 million. There’s a question of, ‘Would that even be enough?’”
The senior leadership aide isn’t so sure about fundraising: “Remember, he didn’t have an opponent in 2010, so he’s been able to spend the last few years helping others. He’s done a lot for other members in our conference. He’s done a lot of traveling. But it’s tough to say how he would have done.”
Still, Thune may not be out of the 2012 cycle permanently. “I do think that John Thune would be an excellent vice-presidential candidate,” says Gregory Slayton, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and Thune’s former finance director. “He also knows intimately how the Senate and Congress work. As both the Bush and Obama administrations have shown, it’s extremely important to have someone like that in the vice-presidential role.”
And Thune, at 50 years old, is a spring chicken among presidential contenders. “All bets are off in 2016 or 2020,” says Wadhams. Thune’s statement itself left the door ajar, deploying the cautious politician’s favorite words: “at this time.”
In a way, how could Thune not contemplate a future run? “I think that he had so many people talking to him about running,” Weber says, “that once that idea is planted in your head, it’s very hard to get it out.”
--- Brian Bolduc is a William F. Buckley fellow at the National Review Institute.
Read More... [Source: No Title]
No comments:
Post a Comment