If David Broder is still capable of having an orgasm, it would appear that Mitch Daniels has given him one:
Back in Washington, the luxury of having a thoughtful presidential contender was striking for everyone hearing Daniels. The onetime Reagan White House political director and Bush White House budget chief is not your run-of-the-mill intellectual. His style is to be down-home, but his record of accomplishment is dazzling.
The turnout was a reminder that during the Reagan and Bush years the Republican Party mustered battalions of policy wonks who were at least the equal of their Democratic counterparts. Most of them have retired to think tanks and law firms now, but they are plainly eager to get back into the battle if Daniels summons them to the 2012 campaign.
[…..]Still, in a party where a candidate such as Angle can be the nominee against the majority leader, brains are clearly a precious commodity. What we saw in Washington on Thursday night was a reminder that despite the occasional appearance, Republicans do not lack in that regard.
I can’t see Daniels winning the Republican primary, but if I had to take a wild guess what the 2012 Republican ticket is, I’d go with Thune-Daniels. It’s a good ticket. Take some supply-side whackiness, sprinkle a little Greg Mankiw tax magic on them, have Daniels discuss them with a mixture of “wonkiness” and “just a bit of a Southern country twang“, and presto, you have serious economic policy! Bobo can gush about Thune’s prairie good looks and Daniels’ sound Burkean reserve.
All this talk about the danger of the Palinistas is nonsense. O’Donnell and Palin have horrific favorability numbers because they are seen as idiots by much of the population. Anyway, if O’Donnell is elected Senator, she’ll vote exactly the same way that Thune does and pretty close to the way the triumvirate (Collins, Snowe, Graham) does. She’ll just look stupider doing it. For liberals, that should be seen as a feature, not a bug.
Serious Republicans led us into Iraq. Serious Republicans made the Citizens United ruling. Serious Republicans along with serious Democrats oversaw the financial meltdown. If Republicans succeed in destroying our society, they will do it with seriousness, not with anti-masturbation campaigns and reality tv shows.
debit
Serious question: if people are turned off by the crazy and the stupid, why does Michele Bachmann keep getting re-elected in Minnesota, home of the supposedly sensible German, Norwegian and Swedish heritage type people. My dad is not normally stupid, but he loves Michele. Loves her and thinks she introduces sensible and helpful legislation. Is it the power of her crazy, whirling eyes?
Princess
Thune-Daniels sounds about right to me. But Palin will run. And when she drops out, the outraged screams of her followers at the meanies who beat her will rend the Republican party in two. Thune, or Romney, or whoever, is not going to be able to get the nomination without going straight through Sarah. And her followers will make the PUMAs and Hillaryis44 and NoQuarter look like Obamabots.
Good times.
arguingwithsignposts
It is alive!
Also, this:
Really? She’s wingnut squared x eleventythousand. At least Collins and Snowe were picked off for a few votes.
arguingwithsignposts
@debit:
Gerrymandering. SATSQ.
Napoleon
You are really underestimating the chance she is their nominee. Her numbers in general are irrelevant. All you need are two candidates like Thune and Daniels hanging on in the Rep primary and with the winner take all system they have pretty soon you have Caribou Barbie as your nominee.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@debit:
It’s a Republican +7 district.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Napoleon:
Yeah, but she’ll lose in the general.
arguingwithsignposts
@Napoleon:
There was some discussion about the female vote on several threads yesterday specifically with relation to Palin. I’m curious what her numbers are with Repub. women.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@arguingwithsignposts:
A few votes. Not many.
Hunter Gathers
The MSM blowjob of Mitch “The Iraq War Will Cost $1.05” Daniels has begun. His record of accomplishment is dazzling. A guy with 5th grade level math skills is now the GOP fav among the press for the nom. Never mind that Indiana is a bigger shithole than when he took office, and it’s budget will explode the day he leaves office, but he’s white, from the Midwest, and is Broder’s choice to save us from that uppity ni-
Davis X. Machina
No one can discuss Mitch Daniels without a trip to Doghouse Riley’s Bats Left, Throws Right blog…
Look for posts with the ‘Midwestern States Governed By Surly Megalomaniacs With Napoleonic Complexes’ tag.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hunter Gathers:
Interestingly, I was in the room with an African-American newspaper editor in Indiana (that probably narrows it down considerably) recently who spoke very highly of Daniels, and even mentioned the “entitlements like SS are draining the budget” right-wing b.s. talking point.
Very weird.
Napoleon
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I hope. I have thought all along that she would get way more votes then she should in a sane society (45%) but after what I have seen this year with at least several Rep Senate candidates actually appearing to me to have mental illness issues, and even more of them being very radical, and most of them are competitive, it scares me.
wonkie
Exactly right. Politicians like Rossi out here in Washington are dangerous to our nation because they are just as extreme and selfish and dishonest as any other Republican but slick, able to package the crazy in moderate sounding language. Palin etc are beneficial because they show everyone what conservatives really are.
me
Hey, this isn’t Broder-esque! He’s supposed to compare Reid and Angle as being somehow similar.
morzer
i.e. bigoted liar and numerical incompetent
Corner Stone
@Hunter Gathers:
It’s funny because that’s exactly how much Freedom costs too.
It’s not free you know. Freedom costs a buck O five.
And if you don’t throw in your buck ‘o five. Who will? You don’t throw in your buck ‘o five. Who will? Oooh buck ‘o five. Freedom costs a buck ‘o five …
arguingwithsignposts
@morzer:
you left out the “evil” part.
Hunter Gathers
@arguingwithsignposts: Baby Boomers eat that talking point up like Baskin Robbins ice cream. If Daniels ran on a platform of gutting SS for everybody under the age of 40, while keeping it fully funded for the geezers, he’d win in a landslide. It’s the ultimate in IGMFU. Nothing in this country will ever get fixed until the Boomers ride off into retirement and/or the grave. Every problem we have and the lack of will to fix them can be traced back to that generations’ feet. Apologies too any Boomer reading this with more than 2 working brain cells and a lack of anger issues.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hunter Gathers:
I agree with you mostly, but this guy was closer to Gen-X, unless I’m wildly underestimating his age.
People talk about class warfare, racist dogwhistles, etc., but the GOP is much more subtle in using generational warfare, imho.
Hunter Gathers
@arguingwithsignposts: You probably weren’t underestimating his age. Gen Xers (my generation) tend to fall for that type of shit as well. Most of the people I went to high school and college with believe most of the right wing crap that is out there. Especially the ‘All Muslims are evil’ shit. My Facebook page is littered with right wing garbage from people I used to hang with.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hunter Gathers:
I’m in gen-x too, and the comment right there is one of the reasons I don’t spend a lot of time on the facepages.
Hunter Gathers
@arguingwithsignposts: It works pretty well as a phone book/e-mail depository, but other than that it’s worthless. And no, I will not help you when you play Farmville or Mafia Wars.
cat48
Can’t wait for Broder’s new boyfriend to run. We’ll be glad to tie the Bush budget around his neck. Iraq War & tax cuts for the rich that any capable budget director could identify as deficit spending. Figures that the black guy gets blamed for it. The white man always wins.
Michael
@Hunter Gathers:
Fishville! L’il Green Patches! Send around some Hearts at Love!
Steeplejack
“Bush White House budget chief” on your rĆ©sumĆ© should be a badge of shame that in a just world would see this guy lashed from the halls of power into exile. Having the federal deficit go from $– 128 billion in FY 2001 (that is, a surplus) to $459 billion in FY 2008–and an estimated $1.84 trillion in FY 2009 (which began in midyear of calendar 2008, I believe)–on your watch is not something that inspires confidence, to say the least.
Numbers here.
ETA: I don’t know if this guy had the job for the whole of the Bush administration, but I think the carnage was extensive enough to cover whatever periods he was there.
ETFA: FYWP for making me go through weird hyphen-fu.
Brachiator
Thune got a perfect 100 Conservative rating in 2006. He’s been the GOP’s Chief Deputy Whip. Snowe, on the other hand, has been branded a RINO because she has broken ranks with the Republicans. To say that O’Donnell will vote like Thune or close to Snowe isn’t really saying or predicting much of anything.
And would anyone really expect her to grow into the job, or simply be an empty headed Republican rubber stamp?
Fortunately, she will likely be defeated, but the idea of O’Donnell in the Senate is as frightening as was the idea of Harriet Meirs sitting on the Supreme Court. But somehow, the line has been shifted and we now more easily consider the idea of putting incompetents into government.
ThresherK
@Hunter Gathers: Never mind that Indiana is a bigger shithole than when he took office, and itās budget will explode the day he leaves office.
With Broder getting all sparkly over “good-government” GOopers like that, who needs a CEO in office?
Capri
Mitch Daniels isn’t nuts enough to win the GOP nomination. He already got in hot water for suggesting that republicans put social issues on the back burner until the economy is dealt with. That was walked back, but it won’t be forgotten.
He doesn’t lie about stimulus money or grandstand against it. He’s tried to get rid of the most crooked political appointments in the state with varied success.
IMHO he’ll sit out 2012, let whichever nutbag ends up running against Obama get their butts kicked, and be there in 2016 when the GOP comes back to its senses.
Hunter Gathers
@Capri:
By the time 2016 rolls around, after Indiana’s budget explodes (he fudged the numbers around to make it look like he’s running a surplus, AKA Bush Math), he’ll be toast. Like Palin, it’s 2012 or never.
Elia
I can’t decide whether having an empty suit like Daniels ascendant would make me feel more or less despondent about the state of American political society than I would if Grizzly Mamas, Militia Women, and recreational SS officers were gripping the levers of power.
Which cast of characters makes it more apparent that we’ve got what that DFH Alterman called Kabuki democracy? Probably Daniels et al, right?
I’ll take Mooseburgers, I guess.
Wile E. Quixote
If John Thune runs I want the Democrats to go after him for his ties to the credit card industry. You could have an ad that says “Have you ever been screwed over by a credit card company? Thank Senator John Thune, because John Thune is owned and operated by the credit card industry, he’s their boy in the Senate and when it comes to voting for the interests of big banks and credit card companies or the interests of citizens John Thune makes the wrong choice, every single time.”
cleter
I’m pretty sure that the budget director who presided over turning the Federal surplus into a deficit is not going to peel a lot of tea-baggy primary voters away from Palin. Besides–have you ever seen this guy? He has all the charisma and charm of the surly bank examiner in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Put that guy up on a stage next to Obama, and it would be a fiasco. Obama can out-wonk and out-charm that weasel.
Jamey
This, DougJ, is one of the most astute observations I’ve EVER read, here or elsewhere. It perfectly summarizes what I try to explain to “centrist” friends (who, per custom, are Republicans who are ashamed of their party affiliation). I will name-check you when I explain to them that it’s not the Palins and Bachmanns, but the “reasonable” adults who’ve fucked this country six ways from Sunday.
hurricanesmith
I grew up in South Dakota and have heavy ties there and continue to find the prospect of John Thune winning the Republican primary baffling. On the other hand, I don’t know who ELSE would win, so …
timb
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: So will Mitch “sold my public infrastructure and raised my taxes three times but claims it didn’t happen” Daniels. I, for one, will be happy to be rid of the pipsqueak corporatist bastard too
timb
@cleter: Especially since Daniels is like 5′ 6″. People like their politicians tall and pretty
timb
@Hunter Gathers: Not only that, but by then the 2010 Tea Party victors will have alienated every Hispanic voter in America and there will be 50 million of them. Texas is almost 50/50. Good luck winning a national election without Texas, New York, and California, Republicans
Bill Murray
@Wile E. Quixote: hey don’t forget his career as a lobbyist after Tim Johnson beat him. $5 million in 2 years is good work if you can get it.
mclaren
Thune-Daniels? Please. Palin-O’Donnell. And Palin-O’Donnell will win.
Bernard
right, all this talk about Palin, O’Donnell being unelectable is oh so wrong. with the zombie like minds of the average American, and Obama as opponent, Palin would win. She is more than electable. she is the Republican party after all the Zombies die. Reagan’s cohort could sell Americans their way to slavery, just like Reagan did. That silver tongue and her “innocence” will triumph over any and all competition.
is there any organized opposition that could stop Palin? only Republican. the Democrats are so gone… they’ve been doing a good job snatching defeat every single time.
remember, Look forward, not backward, courtesy of Obama, Pelosi, Reid. with leaders like O, P and R, Palin would make mincemeat of her Democratic foe. especially Obama. that uppity so and so would lose so bad.
the Republicans are Palin’s only threat. She ain’t dumb, either.
Palin and O’Donnell, Dumb and Dumber Team, would glide right into the White House to make sure and “take America Back.
liberal
This rocks.
RobW
I’d just like to point out here that, serious (or seriously catostrophic) consequences of that ruling aside, the full original name of the plaintiffs’ organization was, “Citizens United, Not Tyranny.”
This group was formed in early 2008 for the sole purpose of calling Hillary Clinton a cunt.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@mclaren:
@Bernard:
Somewhere, there are street corners and signs missing their disheveled lunatic.
4jkb4ia
I showed up to see if John had decided to write about Frank Rich today, but you made my point. On Friday I learned that Ron Johnson had told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the CRA was responsible for the financial crisis because the banks “had to avoid redlining”. This is documentably not true five times over. But even Steve Benen didn’t notice because there were crazier targets to go after. The idea, I believe original with Josh, is that serious Republicanism has been defined down.
J Frank Parnell
Thune-Daniels: yup. Now how do I use this Intrade thingy?