How About We Just Agree on “Go Mitch!”
Apparently some people somewhere are enthusiastic about Mitch Daniels:
I spoke this morning to John McKay, a Chicago-area businessman who runs Switch2Mitch.org, which has launched a petition drive to get the Indiana governor into the race for president.
“We need him more than any other person,” said McKay. “He’s so more qualitfied than any of the other candidates it’s not even funny.”
McKay, who is part-owner of a rehabilitation business in Cinicinnati, said he met Daniels at a 2008 press conference at an Indiana business, Author House, in which a partner of his was involved, and was “captivated by him.”
Okay, so it’s actually “Cincinnati,” but whatever. Here’s the e-mail release I received yesterday:
Robert …I’m doing some work for www.Switch2Mitch.org (to help get Indiana Governor Mitch Davis [emphasis added] to throw his hat into the ring for the White House in 2012), and wanted to know if you cover this sort of thing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
We have a formal press release coming out soon, should we keep you on the list? Please advise, Darren.
I suppose that we’ll be running on a platform of competence and good government…
Is that Author House the notorious vanity press?
Yes. See here, for instance.
Just the type of place that would like Daniels, who has done for Indiana what he did for the OMB before that.
It has to be said that Mitch Daniels actually does seem the least bad of the possible Republican candidates, in terms of being president. He’s not a crazy right wing ideologue, and by most accounts I’ve read is actually fairly smart. That puts him over lunatics like Palin, wingnuts like Huckabee, and empty suits like Pawlenty or Thune, no?
Yes but ‘least bad’ Republican is still like ‘least bad form of plague.’ Bubonic may be somewhat less likely to kill you than septicemic, but its still probably going to kill you. And be friggin’ awful.
Certainly.
I’m a Hoosier and you’re mistaken. He is exactly the sort of right wing corporate ideologue who says one thing in public while doing the opposite with the budget. He would be a disaster for America
The whole party is that. Being the least bad plausible Republican candidate for president still leaves you being very, very bad. But I still think he’s probably marginally better than Thune or Pawlenty or Romney.
Daniels will be the 2016 nominee. If I may engage in more conspiracy-mongering, Obama has been promised someone much less “substantial.” Huckabee sounds about right, though Thune and Pawlenty are certainly in the mix.
This is one of the funnier things I’ve seen today.
..To echo John a bit, at least Daniels isn’t insane. Wrong, seeking wrongheaded outcomes for the wrong reasons, but not insane. Unfortunately for him, I think that means ’12 isn’t going to be his year.
Palin 2012: We Are All Mayans Now.
James Briggs Stratton “Doghouse” Riley has the best-observed and most jaundiced available take on Mitch Daniels. Riley has lived in Indiana since forever; he has read everything, forgotten nothing; and his prose is … his own.
Here’s a sample; a little Googling will turn up several pointed dissections of bits of news about Daniels
http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-tell-theres-real-daniels.html
Must enthusiastically second the endorsement of the blog stylings of Mr. Doghouse Riley.
His piquant postings regarding the Indiana politico landscape almost make me somewhat less reluctant to admit I live across the river, where stomping dissenters guarantees your guy a five point bump, (seven if they’re distaffers).
Here’s his latest on the one he’s baptized the Bantam Menace.
As an Illinoisan, I only remember Mitch Daniels for two things: commercials in the Chicago market at election time, and the massive privatization scheme for the Indiana tollway.
So, if you like privatization schemes that turn over important public infrastructure to foreign hedge funds, then Daniels is your man.
to be fair, that scheme netted several billion (3.9)to Indiana that he has since used to make it appear the budget is balanced, while foregoing the 75 years of an estimated 11+ billion of revenue it would have generated….
Oh, hold, Hoosiers got screwed again and re-elected this douchehag anyway?
So, what advice did you give him, Darren?
And I have no way of registering my disapproval by not shopping at Mr. McKay’s place of business. What a tool.
Yeah, sure Daniels lies about his state’s growing debt even as he crushes public education and sells off public infrastructure to foreign investors, while boldly protecting the rich from taxes, and has implemented methods of fighting fictional “voter fraud” to suppress likely Democratic votes … but at least he’s not a conventional Republican. Apparently because he hasn’t explicitly declared war on Iran yet.
Mds, it’s only fictional because it hasn’t happened! And, look what it got people who like to suppress citizen’s voting: Rokita was elected to the House (keep that governor dream alive, Todd) and Daniels is being mentioned as a Presidential candidate.
Apparently, selling people out pays very well. I’ll have to remember to mention it when I have lunch with Jay Bybee next time. He always gets a kick out of that
Daniel’s first major move as governor of Indiana was proposing and pushing a 1% tax increase for all individuals and entities earning over $100,000 a year.
And the toll road deal occurred at the height of the bubble and has turned out to be a rather poor deal for the foreign investors (I don’t really understand the xenophobic undertones of your statement on that either). The deal basically took $4B upfront, guaranteed another $4.5B in private capital investment, and turned around to invest that $4B into other public works that had been stalled for decades. If a liberal had pushed it through, it would have been spun as a stimulus success story.
Presidential nominee? I don’t see it. What’s his stand on encroaching Sharia Law and death panels?
I’m not sure who the next GOP nominee is going to be, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to one of the Bush budget brain-trust guys that presided over turning a surplus into a deficit.
Every presidential election cycle there’s some obscure guy that gets inexplicable presidential buzz for about 15 minutes, who never actually goes anywhere. Looks like Mitch is jockeying to be that guy this time.
Who is going to be the establishment candidate, though?
Marco Rubio.
The Republicans desperately need someone who has strong Tea Partyish support, it’s the only way to stop Palin. Rubio’s got that, he ran an excellent campaign, he’s young and attractive, and he’s Hispanic. (White Cuban, but hey, they’ll take it.)
Marco Rubio is going to be the Republican nominee. He’s clearly the best option they have, and the Republicans are very good at nominating their best candidate.
I’ve been thinking for a while that if Rubio won this year he would end up being the nominee, for basically the reasons you give. Would he want to run so soon, though? It’s too soon to tell whether 2012 will be another Republican year.
I think you’re more likely to see Rubio as the VP for somebody. I could see Romney/Rubio or even Palin/Rubio, and then Rubio being the nominee in 2016. If Rubio ran, I think he and Palin would split the teabag vote, making it easier for Mittens.
I think if Rubio ran, the establishment would recognize that he would split the base vote, but not be utterly incompetent and uncontrollably deranged, and they’d abandon Mittens in a hot minute.
The only question with Rubio is whether he will run or not. I agree that if he doesn’t run, he’ll be an obvious VP selection.
Bob Dole is on the phone. He wants to talk to you about being the “best option.” Weirdly enough, the caller id says John McCain
Dole is the only selection in the last couple decades that doesn’t fit my assumptions. But ’96 was obviously unwinnable from quite a distance away, so it didn’t matter much.
On McCain, check out the horse-race polls from 2007 – he was running about 10 points ahead of every other Republican nominee. He was the best Republican candidate by an extremely wide margin – it just happened to be a bad year to be a Republican.
I was always rather of the opinion that McCain and Dole were less ‘best option’ and more ‘Well, it’s their turn.’
Yeah. Which probably means tis time it’s Mitten’s turn.
While I agree with your second paragraph, I don’t know how you can write the first in light of who Ohio just sent to the Senate.
there is no such as a “good” republican, some are just slightly less toxic than others. however, they are still toxic. the only good republican is one sitting in an institution, bound and gagged.
Mitch Daniels probably isn’t crazy, but he was Bush’s OMB director, remember? Specifically, he was allergic to speaking truth to power on the costs of the Iraq War. So in terms of leadership and political will, Daniels is every bit the empty suit that the rest of the Republicans are intellectually and on policy.
Yes, ol’ “Rhymes with Rich” Daniels has a history, none of it good.
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