Reihan Salam notes Tim Pawlenty’s miserable results in a recent national poll.  Pawlenty is losing to Gingrich, Cain, Santorum, and Ron Paul.  Salam finds it interesting that this collection of …idiosyncratic people are all beating the guy running as a conventional conservative (who I might add was arguably a very good governor of a Democratic-leaning state.)  I think it is a testament to just how disastrous Pawlenty’s high profile public appearances (CPAC and the two debates) have been so far.

On the other hand, Pawlenty is now in second place in a recent Iowa poll.  Romney seems to be slipping badly and Cain’s increasingly hard-to-respect campaign is falling off.  Pawlenty needs to consolidate the non-Bachmann vote in Iowa, destroy her there, and then hope to have emerged as the only viable non-Romney after the New Hampshire primary.  

Today, Pawlenty implied that Bachmann’s migraines might make her a problematic choice for President.  I saw Pawlenty make a comment to that effect on today’s 6:00 PM Fox News show.  He looked and sounded a little bit like Gil Gunderson from the Simpsons. Romney thinks the migraine issue should be dropped.  He sounded more like Eddie Haskell (You’re looking very healthy today Mrs. Bachmann.)  Romney and Bachmann are now best friends until at least the night of the New Hampshire primary.