Just saw Gov. Daniels got a mention in a Frank Rich column.
There was one serious speech at CPAC — an economic colloquy delivered that night by Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor much beloved by what remains of mainstream conservative punditry. But Daniels was quickly thrashed: Limbaugh attacked him for his mild suggestion that the G.O.P. welcome voters who are not ideological purists, and CPAC attendees awarded him with only 4 percent of the vote in their straw poll. (The winners were Paul, with 30 percent, and Romney, with 23 percent.) Indeed, Daniels couldn’t even compete with the surprise CPAC appearance of Donald Trump, a sometime Democrat whose own substance-free Obama-bashing oration drew an overflow crowd. Apparently few at CPAC could imagine that Trump might be using them to drum up publicity for his own ratings-challenged television show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” which returns in just two weeks — or that he had contributed $50,000 to the Chicago mayoral campaign of no less an Obama ally than Rahm Emanuel.
The idea that Donald Trump is a better candidate for President than Mitch Daniels disgusts me, in the same way that listing Ralph Sampson as an NBA Finalist without Reggie Miller disusts me (just more so).
Unfortunately, you get the politicians you deserve, and Donald Trump is the lowest common denominator.
I’m not ready to bag the whole democracy experiment, but the popularity of people like Donald Trump does make me raise a skeptical eyebrow in that direction.
Obviously, Trump’s love of firing people is certainly not going to help unemployment.