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The Spectacle Blog
My cover story on Mitch Daniels should be online at some point in the near future, but I’ll weigh in with a few observations. He is pro-life and believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. His record is generally quite conservative, with the few blemishes being on taxes rather than social issues. And he does understand that when it comes to restoring the country to solvency, solving the entitlements crisis is more important than cutting the defense budget (though all spending needs to remain on the table).
But here is where Daniels is coming from: He believes that the next conservative president needs to be willing to touch all the Third Rails to get the country on the right fiscal path. Doing this successfully will require the expenditure of all that president’s political capital. That won’t leave much left for picking fights on other issues.
And he’s right. Even if there are no further Obama-style expansions of our public spending commitments, the commitments already in place plus the aging of our population will Europeanize our economy. The Democrats don’t have to do anything else for this to happen. They didn’t even need to pass their health care law. The United States will not be able to remain a low-tax country. It will not be able to maintain as strong a national defense. There won’t be much future for the Republicans as a party of limited government or room for a political party to the right of Great Britain’s Conservatives.
The trouble, in my view, is that he has sent the signal that he will capitulate on all issues outside of spending. I’m not sure that this is actually how he would govern, but that’s the impression he is leaving with many people. Ronald Reagan was able to spend the bulk of his political capital fighting stagflation and the Cold War while standing with social conservatives. Chris Christie may devote the bulk of his political capital to fighting the public sector unions, but he hasn’t changed his position on abortion or marriage. That model is a better one than the terminology of truces. There’s a prudent difference between picking one’s battles and surrender.
MacAoidh | 11.5.10 @ 2:46PM
It seems like the rhetorical bridge here is to say "Look, I'm suggesting a truce. And I'm serious about one. But a truce doesn't mean capitulation. A truce means BOTH SIDES stop shooting. Just because I'm not going to push an aggressive social agenda doesn't mean every left-wing group who wants to re-engineer American culture gets carte blanche to do so if I'm president."
I think that largely makes this issue go away, except in the case of people like Tony Perkins, who is destructively stupid in the first place (something which is becoming more patently obvious as the days go by).
PattyMor| 11.5.10 @ 3:19PM
Even after the Tea Party wins, I don't think the Reps. would have enough courage to implement
reforms, if they had the votes. They are too worried about reelection and losing their places in the ruling class.
WL| 11.5.10 @ 3:45PM
After Mr. Daniels pulled his little stunt about "bad candidates" I wouldn't vote for him on any national level.
Sorry Republicans...there has to be a line in the sand. You cross it, no more vote from me.
That said. Everyone is entitled to opinion, but I feel that we are in grave danger of the Repubs letting conservatives get this in AGAIN, just to go limp.
2010 was the last vote from me until I see some real results from them...
I'll vote for some fringe cook first if they come up waffling this year OR a-l-m-o-s-t stick together and take a strong stand.
If they do it again, it would be better to let them get completely wiped out AND START OVER.
Deborah D | 11.5.10 @ 4:50PM
Huh?
Statue of Freedom| 11.5.10 @ 8:47PM
His line wasn't " bad candidates," it was that the Rs did not field the "strongest candidates." But isn't this pretty obvious? Coons, Reid and Bennet were totally beatable and O'Donnell, Angle and Buck weren't great candidates (and I am not saying that the folks that they beat in the primary were any great shakes). Good tea party candidates can win (like Rubio), but you can't put up just anyone.
PALIN 2012!| 11.6.10 @ 1:14AM
If the Republicans would put up Conservatives in the first place the Tea Party wouldn't have to step in. This is the RINO Republican's fault. ALL OF IT!
Are you listening, Senator Graham?
CoolidgeFanForLife| 11.6.10 @ 8:49AM
Amen, Mr. Statue of Freedom. Good candidates win elections. They can be good conservative candidates. Or they can be Turds in the Punch Bowl at the post election party.
JP| 11.5.10 @ 4:05PM
James,
I think you hit on a sailent point. Why in the world would a successfull politician like Daniels say such things as he had if he didn't have a political tin ear? In national politics, one must take into account how the opposition will interpret things as well as ones allies. In essence, Daniels was signaling to the MSM and Progressive/Liberal Establishment that he was surrendering on all of the issues save budgets and taxes - or at the very least he signaled that he has no stomach for the fight. Dissing conservatives may get lots of cheers from the Upper Westside; but it will also lead to a very short run as a prespective GOP frontrunner.
Bush 43 governed as such ,and in the end his party got rolled. One would think that a man as intelligent as Daniels would figure this out. I think many conservatives assume that Daniels is nothing more than another RINO. The govenor of Indiana had better get this thing figured out, and quick.
Tim*| 11.5.10 @ 4:45PM
We Tea Party Rebels are urging Our Tea Party Kingmaker & The Senate Point Man, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina to run for The Presidency in 2012.
No other Senator has been willing & strong enough and committed enough to stand up to repeated Democrat & RINO-CINO Anti-Conservative Counterattacks than DeMint.
Only John Boehner in the House has taken more incomin' lately & it was because he was gonna bethe new House Speaker.
DeMint's smart, politically & business experienced & accomplished and He has repeatedly demonstrated the lead from the front courage of a Real Leader.
The Tea Party Rebellion is inside Congress & The GOP.
Carpe Diem.
Deborah D | 11.5.10 @ 5:00PM
This is disturbing.
I guess, since Daniels is a numbers guy -- he sees saving the country as a numbers game. This is beyond my scope -- but, he might be right. But, I could be wrong. All I know is that if you're trying to save the country -- some things are more important than others depending on where you are at that point in time. Does that make sense?
It also depends on what you (as the president) think is the most important thing to save the country. For Lincoln it was keeping the republic together. It's debatable whether he was right or wrong. I think we're in a similar situation...just a different set of circumstances. What is the right path? It's something we all need to think about because we're in a scary and "interesting" time.
God bless the USA -- please, God, bring us the right man for the job and give us the strength to let him carry that out.
luvntheBIGsites| 11.5.10 @ 5:22PM
It makes perfect sense. No one man can get it all done in the time allotted. Can Daniels save the country? No one knows, But we do know he has more governing skills in his fingernail clippings than the current POTUS. And I think we understand that WE should choose our next president... Not the Media... Not the ruling class. Us.. We the people. (see McCain). Keep your chin up Deborah D... and keep them prayers coming. ;)
John McMenimon| 11.5.10 @ 5:23PM
I think we are getting to the stage now where EVERYTHING has to be on the budget cutting table. We are going to have to raise the retirement age, limit benefits, contribute to our govt. pensions, cut back on Defense spending, etc. I think Daniels, more than anyone I can think of, has the experience and gravitas to pull this off. We don't need "celebrity" politicians on either side. We need a serious person to seriously get our house in order. We can no longer expect the streets to be paved with gold. I don't want to crush my children's future under this mountain of debt just to make my life easier.
jrs| 11.5.10 @ 9:07PM
Daniels seems like he's got a chance in my book. After the baby boomers spent the past 30 years living well beyond their means, this country is going to have some very difficult decisions to make. The mathematical reality is we'll need to severely cut spending (including defense), reign in entitlements, enjoy less services and pay higher taxes. Most likely there's enough pain for us all to have multiple servings. We need leaders that can be honest with us and not those who try and hock magic beans (liberals, democrats, republicans, many tea party aficionados, etc) . We can't have our cake and eat it too, since all we've been doing as a nation is eating our cake. It's now time to diet and exercise otherwise our bloated self is going to keel over with diabetes. If we didn't gourd ourself as well as preoccupy our discussion with petty social issues the past several decades, we'd likely not be in the mess we are today.
Nobama| 11.6.10 @ 1:19AM
Those "petty social issues" are the reason our country is dying.
You can't kill 1/3 of your children and expect peace; we're just reaping the whirlwind.
Stop blaming the baby boomers for all of our economic problems--younger Americans have been living high off the hog, too.
jrs| 11.6.10 @ 1:42PM
I'm not saying I'm innocent, but since I'm only 29 I've had little time to screw up the economy the way the boomers have. For the past 30 years (yes our hero Reagan is partially to blame) we've lived in this era that deficits don't matter. Live for today. Don't save. Buy the biggest house you can. How'd that work out. The boomers are getting ready to retire (i.e. making less so paying less in taxes and therefore not paying back their mess), and unprepared (so all this talk about fixing entitlements means that most likely boomers will be exempt from most of the pain of entitlement reform.
jrs| 11.6.10 @ 1:48PM
Second, even if social issues aren't petty, they're surely a distant second to the more important fiscal cliff this country is facing. I'm with you on the tragedy that abortion is, but my question is that for all these years of bickering, have we accomplished anything. I'll give you that we finally have a supreme court that might rule differently on several key supreme court cases. However, the reality is that simply making abortions illegal will reduce the number but won't end it. Increased education and use (and ultimately a male pill) are ultimately much more effective in preventing pregnancies.
Zbigniew Mazurak | 11.6.10 @ 4:08AM
Are you insane? You want to severely cut defense? The DOD budget is already too small (it constitutes a paltry 3.65% of GDP and just 14.87% of the federal budget), inadequate to provide for a strong defense, and America's enemies (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela) are arming themselves to the teeth. They're itching for a war.
Severely reducing defense spending would mean a weak, totally decrepit, totally impotent US military that would be utterly unable to defend the US even from Iran, let alone NK or China. The US military nowadays uses weapons produced during the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s, while America's enemies are arming themselves with 1990s' and 2000's Russian, Chinese and native weaponry (Su-30s, Su-35s, Su-35BMs, J-10s, JF-17s, Sovremenny class vessels, etc.).
Also, the mathematical reality is that cutting defense spending is NOT necessary, nor would it significantly reduce the defense budget. Defense spending constitutes only 14.87% of the total federal budget, and the GWOT supplemental less than 4%. 81.5% of the total federal budget is purely civilian spending. That is the spending which must be radically reduced. Even a TOTAL ABOLITION of the defense budget ($534 bn in FY2010, $549 bn proposed for FY2011) would not even HALVE the budget deficit, let alone balance the budget. Even with the DOD completely abolished, you would still have had an almost $800-bn-dollar budget deficit in FY2010.
The budget could be easily balanced if the Congress bothered to dramatically reduce bloated domestic spending (entitlements, subsidy programs, welfare programs, etc.). And it is the ONLY way to balance the budget.
Zbigniew Mazurak | 11.6.10 @ 3:43AM
Yet another BS article and BS blog post by the utterly discredited James Antle.
Antle writes:
"My cover story on Mitch Daniels should be online at some point in the near future, but I'll weigh in with a few observations. He is pro-life and believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. His record is generally quite conservative, with the few blemishes being on taxes rather than social issues. And he does understand that when it comes to restoring the country to solvency, solving the entitlements crisis is more important than cutting the defense budget (though all spending needs to remain on the table)."
No, Mr Antle, Mitch Daniels is NOT pro-life - he's a pro-abortion liberal who has called for "a truce" with the Dems on social issues so that the he can work with them to gut the military. And such a "truce" would be fake, because the Dems don't need any "truce". They've already accomplished almost all of their goals on social issues. Abortion on demand, without any limitations (not even a ban on transporting minors across state lines and not spousal notification) is the law of the land, as SCOTUS ruling. The Defense of Marriage Act has been ruled unconstitutional by federal courts; ESCR is financed by the federal government; 2 activist judges nominated by Obama have been confirmed to the SCOTUS; the Pledge of Allegiance and the 10 Commandments have been banned from the public square; and the Senate plans to repeal the DADT policy during the lame-duck session.
It is also untrue that Daniels is conservative on taxes and spending. Daniels is a tax-hiker (he has increased taxes on cigs), believes in AGW, and has spent taxpayers' money on "renewable en." projects.
Most worringly, Daniels has called for radical cuts of defense spending, which would utterly wreck the military and invite war against the US while not balancing the budget.
Daniels is a strident liberal, and so is James Antle, who has praised him. Nominating Daniels for the presidency or the vice presidency would be a heinous betrayal of every conservative principle that Ronald Reagan espoused.
Sandy| 11.6.10 @ 10:54AM
Zbigniew Mazurak- I am with you all the way, particularly with respect to the defense issue. At a time when America's enemies are ramping up, and our current president is apologizing for how bad America is, the last place to cut the budget is in defense. After Clinton all but decimated our military, equipment,and weapons, we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq "with the army that we had" rather than with the army that the world's superpower should have had. We are lucky we did as well as we did, and that credit goes to our finest and bravest, working on shoestrings.
I am please that Daniels has been saying what he has, as we have the chance to "vet" him before he throws his hat in the ring. So far he has-
Peed on the Social conservatives in calling for a "truce" on social issues. We just threw out many immoral social engineers, that have worked diligently to denigrate the traditional morals this country was founded on. It is the 60's "if it feels good do it" hippies that are now in power in Washington. Pro-life rhetoric has not decreased, it has been very loud and very vocal in this election cycle particularly. Same sex marriage has been voted down in almost every state by that states voters over the past few years, except of course in Daniels ID.
Peed of the National defense conservatives, for the reasons I listed above.
Peed off the fiscal conservatives with his support for a VAT.
Peed off the Tea Party people with his comment about the Republicans running some bad candidates. I wonder who he means- no doubt O'Donnell, Angle, Buck and Miller. I suspect he would have been on board with the elite class in DC who shunned Rubio for Crist. No doubt he would prefer Murkowski to Miller.
There really aren't many more segments of the voting public that he can appeal to, except of course the Progressives. His positions all lean that way.
W. James Antle III | 11.22.10 @ 3:09AM
Yet another cry for help from Zbigniew Mazurak, whoever he is, trying to drive traffic to his obscure blog (on which, by the way, he doesn't have the courage to post my comments, even as he is free to leave his droppings here).
What is your evidence for the argument that Daniels is "pro-abortion"? What pro-abortion legislation has he signed or pro-life legislation has he vetoed? Why has he been supported by Indiana Right to Life and most other social conservatives in Indiana?
You can disagree with the social issues truce comments. I, despite your repeated assertions to the contrary, disagree with them too. But that doesn't make him pro-abortion any more than Nancy Pelosi's initial willingness to let the Stupak Amendment pass the House in 2009 makes her pro-life. This is a non sequitur.
"Most worringly, Daniels has called for radical cuts of defense spending, which would utterly wreck the military and invite war against the US while not balancing the budget."
Saying that you will include the military budget, which includes a great deal of spending that has absolutely nothing to do with national defense, when considering budget cuts, is neither the same as saying the budget can be balanced solely by defense cuts or advocating "radical cuts" in weapons or troops that actually protect the United States.
You do not ever bother to name the budget cuts you find so radical. Though I suppose that would once again require you to supply evidence for your assertions, rather than to filibuster endlessly about things that don't have anything to do with the matter at hand.
"Daniels is a strident liberal, and so is James Antle, who has praised him. "
So are you a strident liberal based on your support for gays in the military? Based on your "logic," to use the term loosely, you are.
This is pathetic.
Tom| 11.6.10 @ 10:10AM
"Switch" Daniels won't get much support from Indiana conservatives, who have had the opportunity to watch him first hand. His first acts when assuming the IN governorship were to expand government, raise taxes, and put all his political capital into a foolish campaign to change the time zone - to help out the golf-courses.
Sandy| 11.6.10 @ 10:57AM
There is a much better candidate that could come out of ID, for the Presidency in 2012. Mike Pence. I pray he chooses that path.
All Hail The Stupid Party!| 11.6.10 @ 2:34PM
Mitch Daniels = GOP Ruling Class = "Compromise" with Democrats = NO SALE Mr. Antle! He can keep his "truce on social issues" too!