Look, Mitch Daniels isn’t perfect. But he’s more than good
enough. He’s more socially conservative than I am (not necessarily
a bad thing when it comes to getting elected) and he’s not exactly
a bundle of charisma. But his accomplishments as Indiana’s governor
are solid and his stint as the head of the White House’s Office of
Management and Budget is a critical résumé booster during these
times of economic turmoil.
His opponents already smack of desperation, bringing up a
rather strange marital situation — his wife left him, he raised
their kids, then she returned and they remarried — which if
anything makes Daniels look like a great father rather than a bad
husband. They’re also trying to tar Daniels with the out-of-control
spending during the Bush years. However, Daniels was (1) not a
member of Congress, (2) only there for the first two years of
Bush’s presidency, not the time of the most out-of-control
spending, and (3) called “the Blade” by President Bush for his
consistent push to cut budgets.
Daniels has been willing to make unpopular decisions,
believing — and being proven correct more often than not — that
the people would eventually come around to appreciate his
government-shrinking efforts. One place where Daniels does have
some political risk was his remarkable underestimation of the cost
of the war in Iraq, though it’s hard to see that as a deal-breaker
in this year of various flawed candidates.
(UPDATE: The Press Secretary for
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels offers this in response to the issue
of the Iraq War cost estimate:
As OMB director, Mitch Daniels was ordered to prepare an
estimate for the defeat of the Iraqi army and a six-month aftermath
ending with the 2003 fiscal year on September 30. The estimate of
$50 billion to $60 billion was for that period. It was not an
estimate for anything beyond.
I’ll also include a link
to the March 2003 background briefing on the supplemental request
then OMB director Daniels provided. You only have to go to the
first question to see his description.
She added, “I’ll have to disagree with you about the
governor’s charisma description but that’s another
conversation.”)
For a little more info about Daniels, I recommend this
2008
article by RiShawn Biddle for The American
Spectator.
In short, I think Daniels fits perfectly into Charles
Krauthammer’s suggestion, made in February at the 2011 Leadership Program of the
Rockies Annual Retreat, that the Republican nominee should be
someone “dull and competent” so that the election will remain
focused on “Obama and Obama-ism.”
Meanwhile, the more I look at the betting-odds
front-runner to be the Republican nominee, former Massachusetts
Governor Mitt Romney, the more I see him at this election’s John
McCain, a man too unburdened by principle to inspire me or the more
conservative Republican base. Is he the conservative he ran as in
2008? Or is he now the establishment candidate? And if he tries for
the former, who will believe him?
It’s not that Romney is a bad guy or even that he’d be a
bad president. But how can a libertarian or conservative support a
man whose major “accomplishment” in government is the state-level
analogue to the major “accomplishment” of our socialist president.
Romneycare and Obamacare are, if not identical twins, at least
fraternal twins, and I can’t share the joy of the proud
parents.
If Newt Gingrich’s campaign can be torpedoed in a day by
his support of a “variation on” an individual mandate, why should
Mitt Romney be able to skate on by without even the courtesy of
offering a “variation” to the most liberty-crushing policy of the
Obama Administration? Romney’s argument that “it’s OK because my
method would screw just one state at a time rather than doing it in
one national fell swoop” would be laughable if it weren’t costing
both his state and the nation so much money, freedom, and quality
health care.
Sure, Mitt raised $10 million in a one-day phone-bank
fundraiser. That kind of access to money is a huge asset in
politics, and showing it early in the game is certainly calculated
to discourage other presidential aspirants from jumping into the
ring. But Mitch Daniels should not be dissuaded. If Daniels can
perform well in early debates and early primaries, the money will
flow to him. And his Midwestern roots should help him in the
critical state of Iowa (while Romney has the geographical advantage
in New Hampshire).
Furthermore, this election will not be determined only, or
even primarily, by money. A strong Republican candidate will beat
Obama while spending much less than our Campaigner-in-Chief does.
According to the
Washington Post, in the 2010 Congressional elections, in
the 63 seats that Democrats lost to Republicans, the Democrats
outspent the GOP by an aggregate $35 million, or about 20%. That
was also despite the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees’ (AFSCME) spending a reported $87.5 million in
the 2010 election cycle, fully 30% of pro-Democrat independent
expenditures
according to the Wall Street Journal.
Yes, unions, especially public sector unions, will have to
throw good money after bad in support of Barack Obama; after all,
other than the reprehensible assault on capitalism by the National
Labor Relations Board, this Administration has done little that the
far-left union base wanted. No card check, a semi-freeze of federal
employees’ salaries, at least mild support for free-trade
agreements. A Huffington Post
commenter perfectly framed the unions’ position: “Does the NEA
really have a choice? Obama disappoints. But unless there’s a
viable third party nobody can be worse than the GOP.”
But the fact that so much of Obama’s money will come from
unions makes those dollars worth a little less than they otherwise
would be: Americans are coming to realize that public sector unions
are, at least in a fiscal sense, the enemy. Every time an ad is
paid for directly or indirectly by a union, a Reaganesque response
of “There you go again” will dull the ad’s impact as people are
reminded that the primary goal of Democrats, and the only goal of
the unions supporting Democrats, is to separate citizens from their
money.
In other words, no viable Republican candidate should be
scared off by Romney’s one-day haul. It’s also true that Romney has
a nationwide organization that nobody other than perhaps Sarah
Palin could match on Day One. But Republicans learned a lot in
recent years; other serious candidates, if they can appeal to the
grassroots and to the many young pro-liberty organizations around
the nation, should be able to set up a competitive infrastructure.
Can you Hear Me Now, Mitch Daniels?
How could Governor Daniels, especially with an online
purchase of a few charisma pills (of course following a
consultation with a deeply concerned physician), not suddenly be
neck-and-neck with Romney for the nomination?
Daniels won re-election with about 58% of the vote in
Indiana in 2008, a year in which Barack Obama carried the
state.*
And although he has annoyed social issues conservatives,
particularly Tony Perkins, more than once, Mitch Daniels’ social
issues credentials are solid. In the meantime, his determination to
focus on economic issues while remaining unquestionably pro-life is
about as electable a position as a candidate could have in a
presidential election — as long as it doesn’t cause single-issue
primary voters to avoid him.
Those would-be single issue voters should be reminded of
what’s really at stake here. If you think Obama is using regulatory
agencies aggressively now, just wait until he won’t have to
consider re-election. And they should be reminded of Mitch Daniels’
other solid qualifications, including serving as the Executive
Director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for two
years during the Reagan Administration and then serving as Reagan’s
chief political advisor.
No candidate is perfect, but Mitch Daniels may be the
nation’s best hope as we search for a candidate who is principled,
competent, and electable.
*Correction: An earlier version of
this column incorrectly noted that in 2008 “Democrats took
control of both houses of the Hoosier State’s General Assembly.”
Not so. The state senate had been Republican all
along, and the state house of representatives was
already in Democratic hands.
