[citation needed]

Seriously, if Tom Coburn isn’t good enough, who is?! You’re darn right we need to be pragmatic: otherwise, we end up in the street like the Libertarian Party and the Greens. I kind of like not letting the Dems have unanimous power, don’t you?

Didn’t know so many Southern states had already passed the 25×25 Resolution. To Right Reason above, I don’t understand exactly what 25×25′s goals are, but to the extent that I understand them, I don’t agree with Daniels on this issue.

are that he both supported a “wellness” program of dubious value (and supported M Obama’s “wellness” stuff, as well) and that I don’t know if he actually cut spending, or what spending he cut, in specific. If someone could let me know, that would be instructive.

WRT Daniels’ ability to negotiate, I don’t think that he cut government in IN without some ability to negotiate and prioritize. IMO, his tax-raising statements are meant to do two things: first, to signal to Dems what would be acceptable tax increases (namely the institution of a VAT), and to be generally honest. At any rate, there’s something to be said for a pol who treats his constituents (current and potential) like adults who can and should be told the truth, than as children who can be manipulated and lied to at will, so long as the outcome is “good”.

that I have seen proposed on the issue by any conservative in Congress. Pence gets high marks from me on that, and many other, issues.

In the interests of comity, though, you are correct: since resources are not “distributed” to the participants in a free market, but rather, are earned through the sweat of their brows and the value they can create or add through said sweat, any government seeking to “redistribute” funds is actually just forcibly “distributing” them to whoever they wish. However, this is true both in the case of the AK govt’s policy and of any socialist state, and I doubt that it was the point that you were trying to make.

Again, there are several conservative solutions, such as removing the barriers to entry for other oil corps and allowing a freer market, which would have met the standard stipulated by the AK Constitution. If you contend that said aspect of the state constitution was not conservative, then the conservative response would have been to repeal said aspect of the AK Constitution, just as a conservative would work to repeal amendments in state constitutions banning homeschooling or allowing gay marriage. Regardless, my post was not meant for you: it was meant for NHConservative, who was railing Daniels for his support of a tax increase (which he backed away from), when his girl proudly worked to pass her own along class warfarist lines.

as there are some things in Palin’s record that I liked (mostly having to do with social issues). I’ll definitely write one for libertarians if she becomes our nominee in the general to try to persuade some of them. At present, it just seems time-consuming. And yes, GnR is always a great listen.

But since JSob didn’t say it, I will: the AK Constitution as it’s interpreted is socialist, and Palin’s interpretation did not deviate from the standard interpretation. So there

was that

1) Obama’s spending was much greater than Bush’s (a true fact), that

2) Bush’s priorities were on education, not spending (another true fact), and that

3) Daniels’ proposals to cut spending were mostly met with indifference by the Bush admin.

Pretty much every single Republican out there has said or would acknowledge the validity of the first two points, which are descriptive statements. Virtually no Republicans in of Washington could say that they tried to do anything about cutting spending: Flake, Pence, DeMint, and a handful of others, but not many. Just because Daniels did not go and tear his old boss a new one doesn’t mean that he was gung-ho for Bush-era spending: he was not.

All that the OMB Director does is make recommendations: it is not in his power to remove a jot or a tittle of government spending. Daniels made several recommendations for cutting government, and basically all of them were ignored in favor of a cute nickname for him (which is one reason that he left the Bush Admin). The only substantive thing he’s gotten flak for as OMB Director was his supposed under-estimation of the cost of the Iraq War, which wasn’t his doing since all he had to work with was the over-optimistic original idea that we would occupy Iraq for 9 months after invading.

Am I saying that Daniels was ineffective at reining in spending during the Bush years? You’re d*** right I am, as were DeMint, Pence, and the few in Congress who stood against Bush and Frist’s revolting expansion of government. I sure wish they had been effective, though: maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess if Bush had listened to those folks, rather than going full speed ahead on p*ssing away my money and that of my grandchildren.

What others might have done in Palin’s situation is irrelevant: just as I don’t need to live the life of a murderer to want to sentence him to death, I cannot know what anyone’s hypothetical response to Palin’s problems would have been, I only know what Palin did. Palin’s administration wrote a bad law that was apparently abused mere seconds after the ink was dry, Palin used a private email address to deal with work matters (BIG no-no as anything above a mid-level manager in a public corp), and Palin did not take full advantage of the already paid-for services of her AG and the state’s responsibility to cover the Gov’s legal defense. Unless you can prove that Palin’s evil mirror universe twin did all of the above, then it is her fault.

I point out that your link is bs on several counts, and that your claim “weak on illegal immigration” is unspecific, and that’s exactly the same as rewriting Palin’s highly-touted tax increase on the rich as a victory for fiscal conservatives? I have no problem conceding or even pointing out where my boy is flawed; I have grave concerns with his lack of specificity on foreign policy. I’ve had to drag you to concede Palin’s role vis a vis tax raises. If you’re comparing me to a Palinista for not backing off when you make a bs or unspecific point, then you have no idea what a Palinista is and why so many people have problems with them.

http://www.redstate.com/nedryun/2011/01/26/i-like-mike-pence/#comment-895

Next time you link to something, be more specific, btw.

You provided a link with a bizarre claim that Daniels’ privatization of roads was a point *against* him. I read it and pointed out how ridiculous it was. You said, “you missed the best part”, by which I assumed that you were referencing the same link. Now that I scroll up, I see that it is a completely different link, which means that I couldn’t have “missed” anything, because I had not read the second link in the first place. Yet *I’m* the one with basic reading comprehension problems?

Lots of Americans buy Toyotas, Hyundais, and Hondas all the time for their quality over “American” cars: what is the difference between that and hiring a foreign corp because it gives you the best bang for your buck? (Also, the “on the verge of bankruptcy” claim comes from some random D pol from IN, not the corp or a reliable source. I put it in the same league as a Maxine Waters claim on anything.) Right now, the toll roads are widely supported across Indiana, and the privatization worked very well for the state.

Sounds more like you’re agitating for her to win Victim of the Year Award, not to be steward of the most powerful and free nation in the world (yeah, the line between the two has blurred in recent years).

The question to ask is not if she is “smarter and tougher” than anyone on RS (or even Obama); it is whether she is “smarter and tougher” than other prospective GOP nominees. Besides that, there’s much more to the Presidency than guts, at least for a conservative; the ability to rein in bureaucracy involves much more than simply willpower, and the discussion should focus on whether the traits demonstrated by Palin in her public life (including “guts”) are suited for the budgetary challenges that we will be facing come ’12, as well as whatever else is on the docket. Aw, that sounds too hard; let’s just focus on what’s important: that Palin knows how to hunt and fish.

and to be fair to Palin supporters, I imagine that supporters of any candidate this early on would probably poll similarly.

I find it far more probable that Palin will not make a serious run for Pres in 2012 than that she will win the Presidency.

The OMB Director should be taken to task when his spending regimen is followed, but has no authority. If Daniels were running for Pres based solely on his record as OMB Director, I would politely but firmly decline (just as I have with potential Pence and DeMint candidacies).

On illegal immigration, there are several people who don’t think that business should bear the brunt of the costs in an enforcement regimen: Daniels is one of those people, and so is GC on RS. That statement, in and of itself, says nothing about how strong or weak one’s position on illegal immigration is: I know for a fact that I am “weak on illegal immigration”: I’ve owned up to that fact several times in immigration debates. All that I know about Daniels is that, per his statements, a) he wants immigration reform that allows businesses flexibility to hire workers from abroad, b) he wants borders to be enforced, c) he does not want businesses to be unduly penalized in an enforcement regimen, and d) he does not consider immigration issues a high priority for his governorship. With the exception the fourth point, Pence believes the exact same things, and wrote an outstanding bill to that effect. You can say that Daniels is lying through his teeth or that you believe that he is more simpatico to illegals than he’s letting on, but those statements are not in and of themselves “weak on illegal immigration”.

that going after employers is one of the best, if not the best, way to nip the problem in the bud, and it’s the way that I happen to support — that said, it is not the only way. I know several conservative people and groups in AZ who do not agree with me, and who think that other forms of enforcement are much more important. All of the people that I know who think this way are more anti- illegal immigration than me. I don’t know that such is true of Daniels. My general impression of Daniels is that illegal immigration is not an issue that particularly motivates him and that he would go with whatever the leg decides, but that’s based on pretty much nothing but the fact that he hasn’t said much on the issue, which leads to my next point:

Illegal immigration is not a major issue in Midwestern states for reasons that should be obvious, and a governor making a big fuss over it one way or another (“another” being stumping for open borders) is probably grandstanding. It’s a really big deal for governors in the west and in parts of the south, but that’s pretty much it. I don’t think that Palin, Barbour, or other govs should make a priority of illegal immigration (meaning that other stuff gets put in the backburner, instead) either, when their states aren’t particularly affected. See, I’m not going to pretend that I can read Daniels’ mind: to me, it seems just as possible that Daniels just hasn’t thought about the issue much, or that he doesn’t care too much about it since it doesn’t affect his state. From what you quoted, it seems like he would sign whatever the leg passes, but that he wasn’t focused on it. Could be that he’s a crypto-open borders guy, but again, I’m not able to read his mind to find out, so without more info, we can’t say much one way or another about his stance on the issue.

BTW, you may want to check with your girl on the issue, since she’s had interesting things to say about amnesty. I’ll even be nice enough to quote the relevant sections, rather than randomly tossing links into the post. From DiggersRealm.com:

“Univision: As governor, how do you deal with them? Do you think they all should be deported?
Sarah Palin: There is no way that in the US we would roundup every illegal immigrant – there are about 12 million of the illegal immigrants – not only economically is that just an impossibility but that’s not a humane way anyway to deal with the issue that we face with illegal immigration.

[...]

Univision: To clarify, so you support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants?
Sarah Palin: I do because I understand why people would want to be in America. To seek the safety and prosperity, the opportunities, the health that is here. It is so important that yes, people follow the rules so that people can be treated equally and fairly in this country.”

The O’Reilly Show:

“And let

when it comes to which is more conservative: as I’ve noted, employer sanctions are far from the only solution preferred by conservatives. In fact, only recently they were considered the mark of a moderate on the issue (though I’m glad that conservatives are seeing it more and more as the way to go) I do think that Palin’s rough position (employer sanctions + amnesty/path to citizenship; maybe a solid guest worker program a la Pence?) is better than what Daniels would come up with, if he’s going to rule out employer sanctions altogether (which wasn’t entirely clear from what was mentioned by your two links).

Suffice it to say, Palin’s instincts on the issue are much closer to mine than Daniels’, but would not necessarily note them as “more” conservative when the stipulation that is typically noted as a barometer for conservative thought (“no amnesty!”) is not adhered to by Palin. My guess (and it’s purely a guess) is that both are approaching the issue from different (but equally conservative) perspectives: Daniels is probably considering the costs to business that would result (if he’s even applied much thought to illegal immigration), and potential restriction of business from government resulting. Palin is probably considering it from a more libertarian point of view: i.e., is government forcing people who have done nothing wrong to leave really the right or realistic way to go about resolving the problem?

He has mostly squandered the inheritance his father left for him, and destroyed several of his businesses. I have no idea why he’s so popular.