WELL, let's see, what happened during the two weeks I spent away from my desk, defending—successfully, as it turned out—my title as Worst Fisherman on the East Coast and Possibly Planet Earth. America raised the debt ceiling. America was downgraded. And America gained one presidential candidate and lost another. I'd like to discuss that final development, not least because in those long gone days of early summer, I said on the record that Tim Pawlenty would eventually win the Republican nomination (and if you think you're getting a hyperlink to that ignominious prediction, my friends, think again).

Mr Pawlenty announced his departure from the race on Sunday morning, following a dismal third-place finish in the Ames straw poll. As my colleague wrote, it wasn't that he finished third of ten; it was that he finished a distant third after campaigning furiously, and desperately needing a win. In retrospect, it is easy to see what Mr Pawlenty did wrong: he ran at Michele Bachmann and the social conservatives rather than going after Mitt Romney and the business types. Now, obviously whoever wins the nomination will have to appeal to both wings of voters. Mr Romney will have to kiss the rings of the James Dobson-types, while Ms Bachmann will have to convince Wall Street and Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans that she is more than just a charming, Bible-thumping ideologue. She has a harder row to hoe than he does. After all, Mr Romney at least has a record of achievement and pragmatism, even if he is running away from it.

Mrs Bachmann, by contrast, has little to show for all her bluster, as Mr Pawlenty pointed out during last week's debate. "Leading and failing is not the objective," he told Mrs Bachmann. I thought it was a hit, a very palpable hit, but what if he's wrong. Not wrong that Republicans want to fail; of course they do not. But wrong in the broader sense, that in this particular race, among these particular candidates, it is more important to say and believe the right things than it is to have governed well. That this Republican primary is shaping up to be not a test to see who would make the best overall president, but a test to see who would make the best executive while also hewing to Republican orthodoxy. In that sense, Mr Romney's record of expanding health care and upgrading his state's credit while governing Massachusetts is not something to be proud of, but something to downplay—after all, his health-care plan included an individual insurance mandate, and he raised taxes (or at least hiked some fees and closed some loopholes, leading to increased revenue). And Mr Pawlenty's record as governor? A 75-cent fee hike on cigarettes and the slippery imputation that he was an inadequately strong foe of abortion made it all moot.

Need one elaborate on what a shame that is? Politics is not religion, principle is not dogma and Moses did not descend from the mountaintop with "Thou shalt not raise taxes" carved onto a third tablet. As soon as Mr Pawlenty raised his hand along with the rest of the crowd when asked whether they would accept a budget deal with a dollar in revenue increases for every ten dollars in spending cuts, he was toast. No sane governing Republican would turn that deal down. Mr Romney, sitting in the catbird seat atop the polls and the money race, could afford to pander; Mr Pawlenty could not. He may not have won had he stood up for pragmatism, but he would have done the race—and the country—a lot of good. Mr Pawlenty had a successful record of good governance and social-conservative bonafides; he chose to run on the latter and away from the former. You can bet that Mr Perry, who also has both, will not make the same mistake.

(Photo credit: AFP)