its kinda like you are trying to convict someone with circumstantial evidence. He may not be the guy, but I’m willing to give him a chance and see what he has to say, I dont go to the pre-hanging ceremonies.

Daniels is a RINO. He wants a “truce on the moral issues,” so we can concentrate on reducing government spending. Hey, Mitch, government spending IS A MORAL ISSUE!.

Stealing from some to give to others is stealing, whether the thief is a socialist democrat or a compassionate [sic] conservative.

Shall we review?

“Compassionate Conservatism,” and Other Reasons Why the Republicans Lost in ’08 — http://tomcox.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/compassionate-conservatism-and-other-reasons-why-the-republicans-lost/

Because it didn’t go to certain events?

I understand the distrust here with the “truce talk,” and the TRUCE may turn out to be a fatal blow, but not this.

Still, I wonder at the dislike for Daniels here.

This guy has DONE (not talked) about many conservative dream changes in Indiana:

1) Banned government union collective bargaining back in 2004.
2) Reformed education in ways we mostly only dream about passing.
3) Defunded Planned Parenthood
4) Fixed the deficit and cut the size of government.

Do we want people who DO conservative things or people who TALK about conservative things?

Compare this to Romney who says all the right things but gave us Romney-Care.

Or Perdue/Deal who have done …. what? in Georgia.

A year from now, I hope we’re calling Daniels the Republican nominee for President, but I realize that until he is, he won’t get much love around here.

Current list:

Tier I: Daniels, Pawlenty
Tier II: Romney, Cain,
Tier III: Palin, Trump, Gingrich
Tier IV: Huckabee, Guiliani, Johnson, Huntsman

I want a lot of them, especially some without Gwen Ifyll or Andrew Sullivan as moderator — give me Bret Baier or even Stephen Kruiser.

I want issue ads, with candidates inadvertently delineating their own positions by attacking those of the rest of the field. This is part of vetting, and I want the next president to have gone through it.

I want the race to go to the convention, undecided on the third or fourth vote. It should go long into the night, with the tea party and establishment finally hashing it out. The eventual winner must appeal to both the money and the actual, you know, voters.

And I want every last one of them to give an unequivocal endorsement the winner, on the spot. That’s not so much to ask, is it?

The winner will be the candidate who can best state not only their own difference from the incumbent, but how our principles will restore the country.

We can do better than a truce-loving, anti-Israel, Lugar-supporting charisma-less, anti-tea-party moderate RINO.

So because he accepted an award from the Arab American Institute (on account of his Syrian background), he subscribes to every single one of their beliefs? Come on, now.

If you’re going to stretch logic to confirm an opinion you already held, why not just say, “I don’t like Mitch Daniels, I don’t think you should either, and nothing he’s done or can do will change my opinion.”

I’m a social conservative and live in Illinois. Watching Mitch Daniels from across the state, he has done fine things. Despite his verbal statements on the “Truce”, Daniels has signed every pro-life bill that reached his desk.

I would describe Daniels as “steady”, “quiet”, “competent”, “low profile”, and “non-confrontational”.

I think Daniels would be better than the 2008 retreads, however he keeps waffling on whether to run for President. Many GOP insiders want Daniels to run, but some in Mitch’s family seem relucant about the idea. If My Man Mitch does run, he might lack the fire in the belly to mount an effective campaign.

I just don’t think he’d actually challenge Lugar and the Treasurer is still in the race I’m not sure that would do anything but give Lugar a way into another term.

Daniels appears to be moving to the left to position himself as a centrist conservative. His policies are still conservative but the call for a truce of moral issues and his avoidance of the Tea Party is an attempt to label himself as a centrist.

I would also add that Daniels was pushed into the defunding of Planned Parenthood by the legislature. He did not lead on the issue and many wondered if he would even sign it. He also undermined Scott Walker until his own Democrats rubbed his face in it.

I question Daniels ability to lead a conservative coalition – social, fiscal, and national security – due to tossing the social conservative position under the bus in an appeal to liberals.

His spit in the face of the social conservatives was a “canary in the coal mine” moment. Whenever you see a candidate mistreat social conservatives (and spare me the “BUT HE’S A SOCON!” crap), it’s a sure bet that they will be a horrible candidate and/or office holder. You can pretty much guarantee it.

*…split the moderate ESTABLISHMENT Republican vote…

might have to do with him being of syrian descent, and thereby an “arab american”.

…before they even started drawing.

The distressing part on this issue is that IN legislative Republicans followed Daniels’ lead, and needless ceded Republican territory in their redistricting map – it’s a totally blown opportunity.

But, then again, they also followed Daniels’ lead by capitulating to IN Dem fleebagger scum.

We need a fighter in 2012. Someone who will stand up to the Democrats and Lefties every single time.
Mitch Daniels is absolutely NOT that guy.

So he doesn’t go to a “Tea Party” event (which Tea Party? It’s not a unified movement), or an NRA thing (didn’t we get a lot of angry all caps posts about how the NRA “betrayed” us a while back?), he’s suddenly disqualified?

You know, I’d go with Lugar, too: at least that guy hasn’t been calling for “humanitarian” ground wars with no national interests at stake as John McCain has done several times (especially in Libya), or nation-building, or dramatic escalation in current conflicts in ways that don’t make sense — and if border security is part of our national security/foreign policy, then McCain is a miserable failure on that front, as well. They’re both crap sandwiches, but knowing what I know of both, I’d go with Lugar over McCain any day of the week.

An Arab-American award? Give me a break.

While we’re on the subject, I’m starting to sour on the Tea Party movement, tbh. What used to be a simple grassroots attempt to assert authority in Washington and to stop spending appears to have become yet another gatekeeper for the Republican party. What was unique and novel about the Tea Party has been substituted for “Tea Party” views on everything from defense to abortion.

Reading this discussion, I’m reminded of the ‘blind man describing the elephant’ thing. What I keep coming back to is, Mitch talks a poor game, but then seems to deliver in the crunch, most of the time. So what do we make of it? Lugar’s a semi-senile disaster, but he was Mitch’s mentor early on. He’s done wonders with Indiana’s finances, but he was Bush’s budget guy and W was only marginally less profligate than The One. He told us to shut up, but he defunded Planned Parenthood. What to make of all this? Honestly, I don’t know. What I keep coming back to is, he has the charisma of the second undertaker in a backwater midwest town and a comb over even his mother couldn’t love (yeah, yeah, cheap shot coming from a fat bald guy . Even if you could reconcile all these factual things, I don’t think you could elect the guy. He’d get steamrolled, IMHO. He reeks of being the “it’s his turn” candidate and we know how they do.

To be honest? I don’t like any of them. What saddens me is I’m not comfortable that any of them are electable.

His accepting of an award from the Arab-American institute doesn’t mean anything except that he’s proud of his heritage.

As for the foreign-policy quote, I would respect him even less if he stabbed his friend and mentor Lugar in the back. Loyalty counts for me.

As for not attending a “Tea Party” event, people should stop assuming that the entirety of the conservative movement is part of the Tea Party. Anyway, what is the Tea Party anyway? An official Tea Party event is no more conservative than a party in my back yard.

And the NRA? These are the guys praising Harry Reid, remember? I wouldn’t want to be seen with them after that.

And when you look at the positives, they completely outweigh the negatives. He’s an intellectual man with genuine executive experience who’s shown So-Con credentials and has reformed Indiana. Yes he’s less charismatic than a wooden block, but do we want a charismatic extremist (Obama) or a dull but solid candidate (McCain).

Perhaps he’s anti-Tea Party, but if he runs, he will be the most conservative mainstream choice. Don’t underestimate him.

wet paint wouldn’t watch him.

He is looked at for being so brilliant because of what the legislature did as much as for anything he did.

The fact Indiana has a balanced budget includes a tidbit that his fans keep trying to paper over which I’ve pointed out over and over again. His “Tax the Rich” inclination in his very first budget had to be slapped down in short order…BY THE LEGISLATURE.

The Right to work fight was conducted BY THE LEGISLATURE and he refused to get out in front of it.

Planned Parenthood was defunded BY THE LEGISLATURE and would have happened anyway no matter what he did…but we still had to guess what he would do till he did it.

He lead the charge on Indiana redistricting where he’s following the RINO establishment’s plan to undermine grass roots Tea Party influence by up districts won and occupied by Tea Party freshmen and lumping the voters into districts with moderate incumbents in order to pad their numbers and get rid of those troublesome freshmen who think representatives should participate in such novel and absurd activities as “representing their constituents and living up to their oaths to the Constitution.

His call for a truce could be overlooked if none of the above were factors but taken as a whole tells me he’s an establishment guy.

The fact that he’s now sucking up to the Inside the beltway RINO crowd and the NY/DC corridor establishment crowd while stiff arming the tea party is not a surprise to me and just proves my suspicions about him.

Then we go to his history as the “Compassionate Conservative’s budget director and I ask you…what is everyone crowing about?

The Eli Lilly *Viva Zyprexa” scam occurred 1996-2003 so Mitch Daniels was 4 years in the thick of it.
Eli Lilly Zyprexa can cause diabetes I took Zyprexa a powerful Lilly schizophrenic drug for 4 years it was prescribed to me off-label for post traumatic stress disorder was ineffective costly and gave me diabetes.
Eli Lilly’s #1 cash cow Zyprexa drug sale $40 billion dollars so far,has a ten times greater risk of causing type 2 diabetes over the non-user of Zyprexa. So,here we have a conflict of interest that this same company also is a big profiteer of diabetes treatment.
FIVE at FIVE
The Zyprexa antipsychotic drug,whose side effects can include weight gain and diabetes, was sold for “children in foster care, people who have trouble sleeping, elderly in nursing homes.”
Five at Five was the Zyprexa sales rep slogan, meaning 5mg dispensed at 5pm would keep patients quiet.
Google * Eli Lilly Zyprexa * and read the links. I took Zyprexa it gave me diabetes and was as addictive as tobacco.How so? Because withdrawal is accompanied by severe insomnia for 6 weeks.
– Daniel Haszard Zyprexa Whistle-blower