Posted on 01/22/2011 6:36:32 PM PST by Bigtigermike
If pundits and columnists represented the GOP base, Mitch Daniels would be the odds-on favorite for the presidential nomination in 2012.
The Indiana governor has been showered with favorable coverage from political thinkers and analysts in recent months, most of which heaped praise on his thoughtful and principled approach to governing while celebrating his serious yet down-to-earth mien.
“Of all the Republicans talking about the deficit these days, Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, has arguably the most credibility,” claimed The New York Times’ David Leonhardt in an Indianapolis-datelined economics column recently.
Daniels is hardly the first presidential prospect to be greeted with bouquets from the cognoscenti as the Last Honest Man in politics. There is a long, bipartisan tradition of White House aspirants who play the truth-teller role and they almost invariably receive better reviews in print than at the polls.
Bruce Babbitt, Paul Tsongas, Ross Perot, John Anderson, Lamar Alexander and John McCain in 2000 all won plaudits from elites for their willingness to speak hard truths about the real problems facing the country rather than just pandering to the partisan rabble.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I am in favor of road privatization as fast as is technically possible.
I think we had enough of the elites in high office ! The last non-elite POTUS was Ronald Reagan. Carter was a Naval Academy ring knocker. Time for a non-elitist for POTUS !
It seems as far as those who post on FreeRepublic are concerned it is Palin or Duncan Hunter or the country will just have to get along with another four years of the disasterous Obama.
Nice.
He’s the go to the guy FTABR Crowd - that is, for any one but Romney. Daniels doesn’t have Romneycare as an albatross around his neck and he’d carry his home state in the general election. Romney can’t.
Out of curiousity, what is Romney's home state this week?
Describing the Economist as “right-leaning” indicates a whole lot more about this writer than the Economist itself.
“Leased it to a private company. And so far, it’s working far better than the alternative (which was to allow the government to continue operating it).”
You obviously have not driven the Indiana Toll Road in recent years. And, speaking of monopolies taking over previous government-run systems, how much do you know about the private enterprise (monopoly) operating parking meters in Chicago?
And I am well-familiar with the differences between the Chicago parking meter and the Indiana Toll Road contracts. The former is fraudulent, the latter is not.
Its would be an interesting contrast of Midwesterners. A conservative Hoosier against a Far Leftist Illinoisian. One guy fresh off two terms as an experienced chief executive vs a President who talks a good game but hasn’t done anything to turn the economy around. A solvent state vs a basketcase one. We could do worse.
And, last I checked, the governor of Indiana had no authority over Chicago's parking meters.....
You are clueless -- and it's not funny; it's rather sad.
And that, sir, shows that you’ve bought the spin without reading what he actually said.
— Agreed. When I first read him saying ‘truce’ I was non-plussed but as socially conservative as I am, we are near financial meltdown. Lets get the ship righted first.
No they have a clue. People here post that so and so or Obama is stupid. They know exactly what they are doing. They want another McCain or Ivy League puppet.
Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama - all Ivy League one worlder elites. Obama cannot speak without a teleprompter so I would be he is probably semi literate. No one even saw him at these schools. He was groomed with Saudi money and possibly CIA leftist elites.
They are not stupid - just evil.
Agreed. If we don’t turn our economy around, people won’t want to raise strong families. We won’t have them for sure if the government is in charge of our lives.
“you have to be a democrat from south bend.”
No, actually I’m an American from Texas. We have a governor who was trying to pull the same stunt - STATEWIDE. Basically sell off our highways (including freeways - as in I-10) to private companies for unrestricted tolling. We knew it was a SCAM and it was going to WRECK our state, so we (mostly Republicans on the outskirts of Houston), fortunately (and barely), managed to stop him (at least for now).
And sorry, you may wish to live in the fantasy of a ‘lease’, but when that ‘lease’ doesn’t end until my kids are dead, it is a SALE as far as I’m concerned.
Those crafty Texan conservatives . . . insisting that their roads be operated and maintained in the least efficient and most expensive way possible, by their government.
And his comment wasn't that social issues don't matter; it was that social issues shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of dealing with the very pressing crises we face.
So many people want easy answers, and they want their own issues to be the only ones people pay attention to -- that single-issue focus has been the bane of conservatism for years.
I don't know if Daniels is the best guy for the job, but he comes across as a thoughtful, intelligent, and able guy who by all accounts has done a very good job as governor of Indiana. (See this video to get a sense of the guy....)
Seems to me that he deserves a bit more honest look than the shallow twaddle that passes for political commentary by some on this thread.
a sale indicates ownership without restrictions....they have plenty of restrictions, rules, regulations, expectations, responsibilities etc.....and they can't take it out of the state(without permission)
“Those crafty Texan conservatives . . . insisting that their roads be operated and maintained in the least efficient and most expensive way possible, by their government.”
No, actually preventing a very slick company from signing SWEETHEART deals (as they did in Ontario and Chicago) with an IDIOT governor.
Here in Texas our highways were doing great and keeping ahead of the traffic, until we diverted a bunch of gas tax money, and then let the gas tax lapse (by not increasing it in 20 years). And I have driven freeways many times in Indiana, and they seemed just fine too.
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