Boston Globe Columnist on Romney v. Pawlenty.

An early subplot in the race for the Republican nomination for president is emerging in the New Hampshire competition between frontrunner Mitt Romney and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.  Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who has an 11.74 acre estate in tony Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, enjoys many important ties to the first primary state. Pawlenty is investing considerably time in cultivating alliances of his own, hoping to emerge as the chief rival to Romney in the early going.

Boston Globe columnist Scott Lehigh talked to Pawlenty during his recent swing through New Hampshire, promoting his book and his presidential campaign.  Even factoring in The Globe’s long hostility to anything Romney, the column fairly sets forth the obstacles and opportunities confronting Pawlenty, who must be very pleased a year before the primary to be seen as a serious Romney alternative.  A strong result in the Iowa caucuses, where Romney came to grief against Mike Huckabee in 2008, would send Pawlenty into New Hampshire with some formidable momentum, political catnip for late-deciding independent voters, who are eligible to vote in the Granite state primary.

Ambitious New Hampshire neighbors have a rich history of coming to grief in the state’s presidential primary.  Ed Muskie (1972), Howard Dean (2004), Ted Kennedy (1980), George H. W. Bush (when he was emphasizing his New England roots in 1980) and Romney (2008) were battered by disappointing results that followed high expectations. Voters were kinder to Henry Cabot Lodge (stunning 1964 write-in winner), Michael Dukakis (1988), Paul Tsongas (1992), and John Kerry (2004), all of Massachusetts.

Pawlenty won favorable notice for placing third in the ABC News/WMUR straw poll at Saturday’s New Hampshire state GOP committee straw poll. We’ll know rival campaigns are worried about a T-Paw breakthrough if murmurs of dissent about the polite Minnesotan’s stirring biography and two-term tenure begin to be heard from Nashua to Dixville Notch.