Maybe he had concrete solutions to offer, but from this Maureen Groppe piece, during a speech to the right-wing Hudson Institute think tank, Gov. Daniels mostly had platitudes to offer as conservatives’ way back to power. His recommendations:
#Forward-looking;
#Constructive
#Friendly
#Patient
#Espouse Freedom
#Anti-mass transit, small cars, or “homogenized” health care
#Stress deficits when analyzing plans
#Don’t be negative, backward looking, or bereft of new ideas
#Have big ideas on the table and major changes underway
#Talk to people as adults and take risks
#Feel average Americans’ hopes, dreams, concerns, and fears
He also suggested that people chose Obama as a fashion statement. Which is funny considering Daniels’ admonition against being negative, backward looking, and bereft of new ideas; and for having big ideas for major changes. The Republicans in 2008 were a litany of old ideas. If we had a nickel for every time a Republican candidate longingly looked back to Ronald Reagan, we probably could have paid back the debt Reagan exploded. But probably not the debt generated during Daniels’ tenure in charge of the budget. I guess there was always “Drill Baby, Drill” — that was certainly a big idea delivered to people as if they were adults.
i knew mitch was no environmentalist, but what the hell does he have against small cars?!?
One thing I’ll admit: if compiling lists of adjectives was governance, I’d be a Republican.
Let’s say this about The Bonzai Governor: they’ve had a nice little run pretending he’s Large of Brain despite being almost pathologically small everywhere else. But it turns out he’s just another fiscal Republican ideologue, and not a particularly bright one. In four years we’ve gone from wondering what he wouldn’t say to get elected, to knowing he thinks that’s the whole game. Just win, baby, and you’re in charge of doling out the spoils. “Talk to people as adults”. “Feel average Americans’ hopes, dreams, concerns, and fears.” Yeah, like all the empathy he’s showed opponents of DST, the Toll Road deal, I-69, and his environmental record.
Run, Mitch, run! Please. Anything that’ll get you out of Indiana. You might wanna be careful about who tells Cheri that this is one election she won’t spend asking the girl if she “effing understands what ‘light salt on the rim’ means, or is she going to have to learn it in Spanish?”
Sometimes funerals are the quickest way to progress. That said, the Republican embracing of all things Reagan (and for the older persons out there the way they held IKE in high position—he was the treflon president–administration did nothing and was one of the most corrupt and other problems but none were Ike’s fault). Reagan a reasonable agreeable person and about as good as Obama on talk(ing) but the world was not as perfect as the picture painted. While being “loyal opposition” is likely a feasible position for any out of power group—being “anti–” everything is not a defendable position.
Anti small cars? I just don’t get it. I would have something even smaller and more fuel efficient than the Prius if it were available.
Maybe we just need a national penis enlargement program so that some won’t feel the need to compensate so much.
But T, there is another option coming down the ways…
CarGo
Barack Obama was a fashion statement…wow, that is amazing. very demeaning to the electorate. What does it say about how he feels about voters, who also voted for him. I voted for Obama because I believed he was going to end the Iraq War, fix health care, help strengthen regulations so that the greedy Wall Street types could not take our economy down the tubes and because he helps the rest of the world see us as something other than some mayberry machiavelian cowboys. Is that a fashion statement?
Just a comment about small/large cars referenced above.
A small car is OK for local driving.I’ve ridden is small ‘family cars’ in Europe and they’re unconfortable for long hauls,but few ever drive from Berlin to Paris,or equivalent, and that is ‘only’ 500 miles.
I would like to see a Mercury Grand Marquis give us 40 miles to the gallon.Why must an efficient, high mileage car be small?
Well, Doug, if it took a nickel for every ‘look-back’ to Reagan to erase his deficit, what’s it going to take to erase Obama’s deficit? I know: It’s hard to tell, because he’s only been in office a half-year, and has already built more deficit than Reagan ever had. It’s going to make Bush look like a disciple of restraint.
Referencing any other Administration in the history of the nation against Obama’s deficit is probably a bad idea, unless a foe of Obama.
It’ll take some time to see whether we are in a death spiral. But, as a rhetorical matter, it’s not typically the Democrats who talk about fiscal restraint in the same breath they’re paying homage to one of history’s greatest budget buster.
Perhaps an aside, perhaps not, but I (and I’m not the only one, certainly) have had the suspicion that the big deficits of the Reagan/BushI/Bush II years were meant, in no small part, to deprive Democrats of the ability to spend money to the benefit of constituencies of which those three disapproved. (The spending also had the salutary effect of channeling gobs of cash to people on Barbara Bush’s Christmas card list.)
And those budgets were passed by which party, again? I have trouble keeping track…
Why must an efficient, high mileage car be small?
simple physics dictate that the larger (heavier) a vehicle, the more energy will be required to make it move. thus, all else being equal, smaller/lighter cars will always be more energy efficient.
Yeah, yeah. I know. It was the Democratic Congress bringing the Russian Bear to its knees.
And those budgets were passed by which party, again? I have trouble keeping track…
With the exception of two years of Republican control of the Senate, they were passed by Democratically-controlled Congresses.
Though we might note two things about that: 1) “Democratically-controlled” does not mean quite the same thing as “Republican-controlled”, as, for example, in the sentence “Evan Bayh is Indiana’s Democratic Senator.”
And 2) every last one of those budgets came in smaller than the one the Reagan administration proposed. Congress spent $29.4 billion less than Reagan asked for over eight years.*
Funny how no one ever has trouble keeping track of which party cut the taxes that worked the “Reagan Economic Miracle”, or which spent the money that built the Star Wars system that defeated Communism, since Reagan did those single handedly…
* House Appropriations Committee study. Please, do not unthinkingly quote back to me the standard Wingnut defense showing Reagan’s proposals far undercutting what was actually spent. The proposal numbers sent to Congress were based on economic forecasts made of ice cream, unicorns, and bullshit. The HAC numbers adjust the Reagan proposals for the real world.