Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' Problems: Too "Civil" to Beat President Obama
Far Leftists reject and undermine fundamental America values. They ARE enemies, not honorable opponents. Pretending otherwise is unacceptable.
There's no question that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels would be much better in the White House than President Barack Obama.
But Daniels doesn't have "the right stuff" to get there and America needs better than Daniels.
National Review editor Rich Lowery seemed delighted with Daniels' keynote speech as the CPAC President's Banquet last week.
I wasn't.
Daniels' speech told me that he wasn't up to the task of exposing the man in the White House as a liar and stealth socialist instrument.
Lowery was enamored with Daniels' "civility" and economic approach.
I remember former President Reagan saying "I paid for that microphone!" at a debate in New Hampshire in 1980.
Daniels is no Reagan.
Lowery titled his article "Mitch Daniels Is No Panderer" (www.nationalreview.com/articles/259758/mitch-daniels-no-panderer-rich-lowry).
I don't want a panderer either, but I do want a candidate who won't pretend that Obama is a man whose personal integrity must not be questioned.
Lowery on Daniels:
"At CPAC, the Indiana guv didn’t deliver a typical presidential-campaign speech.
"Indiana governor Mitch Daniels did not get the memo about CPAC, the annual gathering of conservatives in Washington. The etiquette is that presidential wannabes should hew to a narrow band of harsh and harsher denunciations of liberalism, or anything suspected of having a liberal taint."
"...Daniels...seems temperamentally incapable of unseriousness; he is the anti-panderer. He gave a speech at CPAC that was characteristically thoughtful, standing out in his willingness to tell hard truths about the nation’s fiscal condition and to challenge his audience.
"Daniels spoke in favor of principled compromise — 'should the best way be blocked,' he argued, 'then someone will need to find the second-best way.' He called for reaching beyond the conservative base to voters 'who surf past C-SPAN to get to SportsCenter.' He said the Right 'should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government.' He plugged civility."
Lowery's take on the Daniels strategy: "Daniels struck these admonitory notes not to lecture friends, but to prepare them to summon all the persuasiveness and coalition-building necessary to fight 'the Red Menace,' his phrase for 'the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence.'"
Daniels and Lowery are right about the need to fight the new "Red Menace," but Daniels' apparent obliviousness to the old "Red Menace" trying to "fundamentally transform" America and unwillingness to expose President Obama as a liar on civility grounds make him far from the ideal challenger to Obama.
In his speech Daniels pointedly recalled the President Ronald Reagan referred to Democrats as opponents, not enemies.
That's true.
But that was in the 1980's and things have changed, for the worse.
"The Senator from ACORN" became President and White House resident.
Far Leftists reject and undermine fundamental America values. They ARE enemies, not honorable opponents. Pretending otherwise is unacceptable.
Lowery concluded: "At CPAC, [Daniels] again proved himself centered, clear-eyed, and honest. He’s the kind of guy who makes you think, 'He should run for president — and probably won’t.'"
Daniels made me hope he won't.
In his acceptance speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention, President Ronald Reagan said: "Four years ago we raised a banner of bold colors—no pale pastels."
Those who think that challenging Obama on his ACORN ties and lies is futile are fooling themselves.
The Republican challenger to Obama in 2012 should be bold, not pale, or else that challenger will fail.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.
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