Can Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the "Social Activist," Nab GOP Presidential Nomination to Run Against President Barack Obama in 2012?

Can "social activist" Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) get the Republican Party presidential candidate nod to square off with President Barack Obama for the White House in 2012?

Commentary: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), in a roundabout way, suggested IN Gov. Mitch Daniels and NJ Gov. Chris Christie throw their hats in the ring for the Republican presidential nomination for the 2012 general elections. That was a shrewd move on his part and speaks to the feeling that the current slate of would-be candidates, Donald Trump, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin (maybe), Herman Cain and any other wannabes, won't be able to beat President Obama. I have heard about Mitch Daniels and his long political career and decided to shine the Hinterland Gazette spotlight on him this week. So, who is Mitch Daniels and could he be a serious contender for the White House?

Mitchell Elias Daniels Jr. who was born April 7, 1949, in Monongahela, PA, currently serves as the 49th governor for the state of Indiana. He previously served as Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (2001-2003)under George W. Bush. He was a Senior Vice President of Eli Lilly & Company, where in was in charge of the company's business strategy. Here's what I find interesting about Mitch Daniels' tenure at the OMB -- how complicit was he in budgets and public arguments the Bush Administration employed in estimating the cost of the Iraqi invasion. I echo the sentiments of conservative columnist Ross Douthat, who said his "years of carrying water for the Bush administration’s budgets would doubtless be used against him in the battle for the Tea Partiers’ affections." Yes, the ghost of Bush past will come back to haunt Mitch Daniels, no matter how much good he has done in his state of Indiana as governor.

[Daniels] was responsible for forecasting the budget in the event of a war with Iraq. His number came in at fifty to sixty billion dollars. Compared to what some experts were forecasting, it was an astonishingly low figure … Lawrence Lindsey, Bush’s top economic adviser, had said the war could cost as much as two hundred billion, and Daniels had dismissed the figure as “very, very high.” As for the cost of rebuilding Iraq, by April of 2003—with the war already under way—O.M.B. had asked Congress for the paltry sum of 2.5 billion. By the end of last year, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost over a trillion dollars. Source

I wouldn't attribute all the blame for the costs involved in the Iraq war to Mitch Daniels because he was long gone when the war hit its peak -- counter-insurgency, etc., but one has to wonder about his fiscal judgment when making estimations about the "big things" that matter to our country. But how does one jump from having an audacious plan of setting Indiana's clocks to daylight saving time back in 2004, to being considered as a leading contender for the White House? The Republican-dominated 2011 legislative session in his state has forced him out of his comfort zone to take a stand in territories he previously danced around and had asked state legislators to avoid. Those would be the conservative social issues. He signed new laws for education reform, including implementing the nation's largest voucher system, cut funds to Planned Parenthood, removed the abilities of local communities to keep guns out of hospitals and school board meetings and denied in-state college tuition rates for students classified as illegal immigrants (which I completely agree with).

What I particularly like with Mitch Daniels is the fact that the voucher system will give low- to moderate-income families a chance to enroll their children in good schools if their current schools aren't working. That is leveling the playing field in a large way to two groups who would have been shut out of getting a solid education at a private or charter school. The public education system in this country is not working. So, this brings me back to my question about Mitch Daniels and moving outside his comfort zone. Is he doing all these things to please the Republican party, mainly the social conservatives, or does he truly believe in what he's doing? During a 2010 interview with The Weekly Standard, he said the next president "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We're just going to have to get along for a little while." Of course, that comment rankled the hard-line conservative, though some of his latest moves, defunding Planned Parenthood, may placate those critics.

Still, I don't see him as the rock star many are making him out to be. Yes, he turned Indiana's $200-million deficit into a $1.3-billion surplus through recession-era cuts, added sales & tobacco taxes, I'm not sold on his moral beliefs. In fact, we haven't heard what they are yet and that may be what determines if he makes it to the top of the Republican presidential ticket. I'm really big on a candidate having a good home life and not an adulterous past. That speaks to judgment and commitment to family. Mitch Daniels, may have had an issue on that front. You see, his wife, Cheri, left him in the 1993 for another guy, who she married, then divorced that guy and remarried Mitch Daniels in 1997. I wonder why they broke up, if there was some infidelity and on whose part? Could that 15 year stretch be enough to torpedo his presidential aspirations? Those questions will have to be answered on the campaign trail at some point. Sounds a little Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton & Maria Osmond-Steven Craig to me.

To win the GOP presidential nomination, Daniels would have to appeal to the all-important South, not just the "country club Republicans." He can't come across as unacceptable to the conservative right. He has to have a knack of developing a politically platonic relationship with the right factions of the GOP, including the evangelicals, who recently lost their potential candidate Mike Huckabee. I haven't seen enough of him out there to say whether or not he can actually pull that off, particularly since the "ghost of Bush past" will come back to haunt him. The "social activist" Mitch Daniels may not be enough to get the Republican nod to square off with President Obama for the White House. Hey, stranger things have happened on the campaign trail, so we'll see how this shakes out!