Daniels

Mitch Daniels acquired an impressive amount of baggage, for such a short time in the limelight. The big one, to my mind, is that he was Bush’s budget director. During his tenure the government racked by some of the biggest deficits in the history of the planet; he was criticized for turning a $200 billion surplus into a $400 billion deficit, all within his 29-month stretch at the OMB, and his insistence that the Iraq war would only cost $60 billion was off by about a trillion. Incredibly he blames the whole budget thing on the dotcom bust; at least the last disastrous budget guy, David Stockman, had the good manners to hang his head and admit that the Reagan budgets were idiotic, but Daniels is still laboring under the delusion that the emperor is still clothed. He still speaks at length about budget issues, as though he had actual credibility.

Other factors working against him:

·         His Indiana track record. He attacked Planned Parenthood and union collective bargaining rights, which would make him stronger in the primaries but fatally weak in the general.

·         In Indiana he demanded a tax increase that was so sloppily handled that the legislature threw the idea in the trash; eventually it emerged that the tax increase was never necessary. Also he admitted that nationally taxes may need to be increased.

·         Health care. Daniels implemented Obama’s health plan and took the money for it, all while advocating repeal; he supported mandates, supported universal coverage, signed a law keeping children on their parent’s plans until age 24, required Medicaid to expand eligibility, required hospital error reporting, raised cigarette taxes to pay for health care, and crowded private insurers out of the market according to critics.

·         He called for a truce on social issues, promising to “take the venom” out of political debate and “show respect for our opponent”, which will not sell in Iowa or South Carolina, for example; people like Santorum were already slapping him around for being insufficiently wingnutty.

·         He’s not an intellectual giant. Like many governors he’s weak on national issues, and he admitted openly that he’s probably not prepared to debate Obama on foreign policy.

If he had run, I could hear the Romney ads now: “Mitch Daniels, budget buster, wants to increase your taxes, wants to surrender on social issues, and what’s up with the wife and the drugs?” Daniels once said he wants Condi Rice as his running mate, presumably because he’s clueless on global issues. Despite all this, desperate Republicans wanted Daniels to run: Barbour was pestering him, the GOP media worshipped him, and even Cafferty on CNN said Daniels was the only Republican with a chance to beat Obama, which is rather incredible since Daniels polled a toxic 14 points behind Obama.