Your Next President: Mitch Daniels?

Any day now, the race for White House will begin in earnest. If the appearance of national TV ads signifies the beginning of a presidential race, this weekend's unapproved Pro Bowl spot for Mitch Daniels marks the unofficial starting line for the 2012 marathon to the White House.

It's time to begin scrutinizing the likely candidates one by one, starting with Mitch. In a thumbnail sketch here's what you want to know...

Mitch is a diminutive, balding, ex-pothead Hoosier with Syrian roots, currently serving as a wildly popular governor in Indiana. As a motorcycle enthusiast who is known for crisscrossing the state on his iconic Harley, Mitch has broad-based appeal, even among Indiana's youngest voting demographic.

Through impressive accomplishments as Indiana's hard-working chief executive, Mitch has earned a reputation as a reliable fiscal hawk even as he reportedly eschews the "conservative" label. On the other hand, through his support for a VAT, and through dubious comments about social conservatism, Mitch has spooked many of the conservatives on whom he would depend for a successful GOP primary campaign.

Moreover, Daniels' deep "establishment Republican" roots, his connections with special interests and his cozy relationship with Democrat James Zogby's Arab American Institute will likely disenchant some tea party groups and other influential conservative organizations.

Now the details...

First, a generous slathering praise via Michael Barone:

• In 2008, Mitch was reelected Governor of Indiana, receiving more votes than anyone who has ever run for office in Indiana.
• Mitch received 24% of the Dem vote in '08, up 11% from 2004.
• He received 20% of the African American vote, up 13% from '04.
• Mitch won every age demographic, including the 18-29 year-olds.
• The governor did as well with independents as he did with the general population, winning the independent vote by a 57%-39% margin.

Daniels' everyman appeal:

Daniels kept it real. He has remained in touch and accessible to average Hoosiers through constant statewide travel. His view is always from the taxpayer's perspective and that showed on Election Day. Voters came to appreciate his preference to travel the state on his Harley Davidson motorcycle and his insistence to stay overnight in Hoosier homes, not in hotels. It's no coincidence Daniels did not use campaign consultants, and personally wrote the scripts for all campaign commercials.

Another Daniels fan explains Daniels' impressive electoral success:

Daniels was re-elected to the governor’s mansion in 2008 by a wide margin even as his state went blue. Voters rewarded him for having eliminated in four short years a $200 million hole in Indiana’s budget...

Among his most popular (and typical) accomplishments was to overhaul Indiana’s dysfunctional bureau of motor vehicles – reducing average wait times significantly and raising customer satisfaction to 97%. He is a self-described cheap-skate whose healthy aversion to waste underscores his every move and has rewarded him throughout his career...

Daniels' fiscal accomplishments are quite impressive:

After five years in the statehouse, admirers point out, Daniels has managed to lower property taxes by an average of 30 percent; transform a $200 million budget deficit into a $1.3 billion surplus; and insure 45,000 low-income Hoosiers through a budget-neutral combination of health savings accounts and catastrophic coverage. His approval ratings routinely top 65 percent.

Now some criticism, via our center-left friends at Politico:

Daniels recited from Kahn’s book: “It would be most useful to redesign the tax system to discourage consumption and encourage savings and investment. One obvious possibility is a value added tax and flat income tax, with the only exception being a lower standard deduction.”

“That might suit our current situation pretty well,” said Daniels, who served as George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget director and was a senior adviser in Ronald Reagan’s White House...

The so-called VAT, common in European economies which have stagnated, is a toxic acronym to fiscally conservative activists like Grover Norquist and Dick Armey. It slaps a tax on the estimated market value for products at every stage of production.

Immediately after Politico stirred the hornet's nest, the hornets came out!

“This is outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought, and it is only the zone of extremely left-wing Democrats who publicly talk about those things because all Democrats pretending to be moderates wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot poll,” Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist told POLITICO. “Absent some explanation, such as large quantities of crystal meth, this is disqualifying. This is beyond the pale.”

Speaking of drug use:

While in college in 1970, Daniels was arrested for marijuana possession and spent two nights in jail. Daniels always disclosed that fact on job applications and was forthcoming about it in his public career, writing about the incident in a 1989 column published in The Indianapolis Star.

Democrats' efforts to capitalize on this snippet of Daniels' biography were described as "the great Marijuana Flop of 2004."

More important to Daniels' potential political aspirations is his relationship with social conservatives. When given the opportunity to ingratiate himself to social conservatives with a fiscally responsible position, Daniels failed utterly:

Daniels, speaking to reporters in Washington last week, said he wanted to declare a “truce” on social issues with the left. Daniels wants to focus on fiscal issues in Washington. However, in so doing, Daniels is signaling he is not so much of a principled fiscal conservative as he is a technocratic policy wonk.

When asked if he would reinstate the “Mexico City Policy,” which Ronald Reagan put in place to ban federal funding of abortions overseas, Daniels responded “I don’t know.”

If rendering opinions on abortion are above Daniel's pay grade, it's not because he hasn't had an opportunity to hone his communication skills. Daniels' résumé is golden:

Career History: Director, Office of Management and Budget, Bush Administration, (2001-2003); Senior Vice President, Eli Lilly and Company, (1990-2001); CEO, The Hudson Institute, (1987-1990); Served as director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee under Dick Lugar in 1983-84. In the second Reagan Administration, he was political director and head of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs but quit after clashes with Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan.

Education: Georgetown law school, '79; B.A., Princeton, '71; J.D.

Lately though, Daniels' has impressed all the wrong people. Lefty writers at the Washington Post, Politico, Newsweek ― all smitten. The conspicuous backhanded infatuation with Mitch Daniels is highly suspect and strangely reminiscent of the love fest enjoyed by John McCain, circa 2007.

While Daniels certainly has the right credentials to make a serious run for the White House, it remains to be seen whether his establishment pedigree would serve as an asset or a liability in the Tea Party era. Daniels would do well to show grassroots conservatives that his values are more in line with those of Ronald Reagan than with those of his good friend of four decades, Liberal Republican Dick Lugar.

There are other portions of Daniels' résumé that Daniels may need to downplay if he runs for the GOP nomination. From his history with Eli Lilly, an Indiana-based pharmaceutical company that rallied in support of Obamacare to his warm relationship with Democrat James Zogby's Arab American Institute, Daniels would have much to explain to GOP primary voters. Any lingering reluctance to identify himself as a conservative would be especially problematic.

Last, but possibly not least, there's the matter of Daniels' diminutive and unpresidential physical appearance. This is from our socialist buddies at Newsweek:

At 5 feet 7 (in boots), Daniels is shorter than Obama’s 12-year-old daughter, Malia. His rather uninspiring demeanor—reticent, stiff, and slightly skittish, with darting eyes and long blanks between words—better suits a former director of the Office of Management and Budget, which he happens to be, than a leader of the free world. And his comb-over is borderline delusional. As conservative journalist Andrew Ferguson recently put it, “I see [Daniels] as he strides toward the middle of the stage to shake hands with Obama before the first debate and comes up to the president’s navel. Election over.”

Are we getting ahead of ourselves? Jennifer Rubin reminds us that at this point, perhaps the most important question to ask about Mitch Daniels is whether he's serious about running.

X-posted

Next in the series: Herman Cain, Pros and Cons

What's Next?

In the wake of the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Parties, conservative groups and the GOP are asking, "What's next?"  

Here's my answer: It's time to reform the Republican Party so that it is more convincingly responsive to the concerns of those who were at the Tea Parties.

Conservatives understand that government is inherently greedy, that big government is destructive, and that redistribution is unfair. On these key issues, the Republican Party is out of touch with mainstream conservatives and out of step with most voters. The Democratic Party simply ignores our demands for fiscal responsibility or uses the issue as pretense to cut spending on national defense and to increase taxes on those who are already bearing most of the burden. This is why the Tea Party Protests came to be.  

If the GOP does not quickly align itself with those who are serious about fiscal responsibility, it will find itself walking down the path to extinction. This will open the door for the growth of right-of-center third parties who will splinter the conservative vote. As a result, the Democratic Party will solidify its power, move further to the left and impose socialism on this nation.  

If we do not act decisively, future generations will pay a great price. 

What do you think?

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Barack Obama and The Bloodletting of America

Through all kinds of poorly-conceived schemes, our leaders in Washington seek to revive our ailing economy, or at least to give the impression that they are taking the problem seriously.  These remedies will ultimately do more harm than good, and as they draw us closer to wholesale socialism, they could turn a case of the sniffles into a life threatening illness.  Obama urges Congress to "act quickly" on yet another economic stimulus plan.  I hope they don't.  In this case, the cure is almost certainly worse than the disease.  For all the stimulating and reviving we've seen lately, we've seen little or no success.  Our elected officials are bloodletting the economy.

Here's a refresher on the practice of bloodletting. Bloodletting was the longest-running tradition in medicine. It originated in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece and lasted through the second Industrial Revolution.

"Most bloodletters would open a vein in the arm, leg or neck with small, fine knife called a lancet. They would collect the blood in measuring bowls. Doctors bled patients for every ailment imaginable. They bled for pneumonia and fevers, back pain and rheumatism, headaches and melancholia; even to treat bone fractures and other wounds. Yet there never was any evidence that it did any good.

"Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluids were considered to be 'humors' whose proper balance maintained health. Sick patients were thought to have an imbalance of their humors, which bloodletting was thought to restore. Bleeding was as trusted and popular in ancient days as aspirin is today."

"George Washington, the first President of the United States, was bled to treat severe laryngitis in 1799 and died shortly thereafter. Of this incident, one medical historian writes: 'Today we find the removal of about eighty-two ounces of blood from a sick patient in less than sixteen hours to be incredible. However this was the method of treatment being taught in those days. It was the treatment of choice for many diseases and the complications of using this method were not understood by the physicians of that day.'" 

Reports indicate President Washington had somewhere between five to nine pints of blood drained from his body.  We don't know if these multiple bloodlettings resulted in his demise, but bloodletting clearly was not the solution. 

"It wasn't until well into the 19th century that people began to question the value of bloodletting. Scientists such as Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Robert Koch showed that germs, not humors, were responsible for disease. Furthermore, medical statisticians tracking case histories began to collect evidence that bloodletting was not effective. Eventually the practice died, although it continued in some parts of America into the 1920s."

It is important to keep in mind that well loved remedies do not always have a basis in any kind of evidence. They often have no impact on the underlying causes of disease, and in many cases they are very harmful. 

This brings us back to the economy.  As has been widely publicized, president-elect Barack Obama believes in the power of redistributionism to heal our ailing economy. Barack's famous words to Joe the Plumber: "...I think that when we spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."  This statement represents the redistributionist essence of socialism.

But socialism was the twentieth century's economic equivalent of bloodletting, a well loved remedy with no evidence so support its efficacy.  In fact there is abundant evidence to show that socialism is every bit as irrational and harmful as bloodletting.

"As a buzzword, 'socialism' had mostly good connotations in most of the world for most of the twentieth century. That’s why the Nazis called themselves national socialists. That’s why the Bolsheviks called their regime the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics..."  But the promise of socialism never materialized.

"While [socialism] promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery. 

"In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery. 

"A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives. 

"In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter! 

"Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don't matter!"

"Both history and current events demonstrate that the socialist reality is always bad for the individual, and this is true whether one is looking at the painfully brutal socialism of the Nazis or the Soviets or the Chinese, with its wholesale slaughters, or at the soft socialism of England, in which people's lives are ever more tightly circumscribed, and the state incrementally destroys individual freedom.  And that is why Obama's socialism matters. Regardless of Obama’s presumed good intentions, socialism always brings a society to a bad ending."

Evidence-based political solutions would be ideal. As with evidence-based medicine, evidence-based politics would promote policies that have been proven to work. Bad ideas like Marxism and socialism would be abandoned. 

But political thinking is still as backward and irrational as medicine was 200 years ago. Too many politicians don't care if their policies don't ultimately work; they only care about getting votes in the easiest way possible. The ideas of socialism are easy to sell, and the consequent failures are easily attributed to other causes.  Therefore, despite the fact that Marxism and socialism have been repeatedly proven to be failures, leftists keep going back for more. 

Americans gave up bloodletting in the practice of medicine over a century ago.  How long will it take for Americans, and the rest of the world, to give up bloodletting in the practice of politics?

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Why Socialism Failed

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Civics Quiz

Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? 

Congress and the Courage of Conviction

In the midst of a bailout frenzy with no end in sight, I think now is a good time to revive an old idea.  As the Imperial Federal Government pumps our hard earned money into the coffers of every failed institution and into the pocket of every reckless spender, we should insist on a "taxpayers addendum" for federal legislation. The idea is to have a standard addendum added to every piece of legislation introduced in the House or Senate. The addendum would do nothing to change the nature of the legislation.  It would neither increase nor decrease spending.  It would simply be an expression of how important the sponsors think their legislative idea actually is.  The Taxpayer's Addendum would simply read:

"We, the undersigned sponsors of this legislation, hereby state that it is our belief that it is more important for the Federal Government of the United States to spend the taxpayer's funds necessary for the implementation of this legislation than it is for the private and corporate citizens who actually earned this money to retain it and to use it for their own purposes."

Would this be too much to ask?

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Taxpayers Addendum

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Conservatives Really Are More Compassionate

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