The John Thune in 2012 thing is starting to pick up some buzz.
Earlier this week, Dana Bush asked him about Presidential aspirations, Chris Cillizza has long been calling Thune his darkhorse, and on July 17, GOP12 listed him as the Republican most likely to win the party's nomination.
Now David Brooks is devoting an entire column to the South Dakota Senator. And cutting away all the introductory stuff are these important paragraphs.
.... deep in the bowels of the G.O.P., there are serious people having quiet conversations. The people holding these conversations created and admired Bob McDonnell’s perfectly executed Virginia gubernatorial campaign. And now as they look to the future of their party, and who might lead it in 2012, the name John Thune keeps popping up.
.... Like McDonnell, nobody can question Thune’s conservative bona fides. As a result, he doesn’t have to talk about them.
Instead, he prefers to talk about what he calls the “economic cluster” of issues: job creation, balanced budgets and small-business-led growth.
Until now, the Left has largely been ignoring Thune, but on Wednesday, Air America's Dorsey Shaw took up the challenge.
It looks like freshman Senator John Thune of South Dakota is going to give Republican front-runners Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee some competition for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
.... Take a look at some of the "regular guy" political moves Thune's made since he's been an nationally elected official.
And then he takes a (critical) look.
The whole idea of a "critical look" is related to what might be Thune's greatest strength, but as I mentioned re: Rick Perry, over Thanksgiving week, we're saving up something that will get much more in-depth with all of this.
UPDATE: Here's some vid from Dana Bash's report.
