Throughout history, the United States of America had constantly faced challenges, and ordinary people stood up to the challenge and saved this nation. From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson along with the Founding Fathers who nurtured the young republic; their selflessness paid off with the “Era of Good Feelings.” Abraham Lincoln stood up to a divided country on the brink of civil war and improved America’s tarnished image by abolishing slavery. Theodore Roosevelt recognized the need for reform in a rapidly modernizing world and enacted progressive changes. Franklin D. Roosevelt finally acknowledged Nazi genocide and acted to stop it before it was too late; the war also helped the United States climb out of the Great Depression.
Ronald Reagan understood the threat of Communism and ensured the fall of the Soviet Union and Capitalism’s adversaries. George W. Bush led the country to the “War on Terror” after Islamic terrorists deliberately crashed commercial jets into American targets. He underscored the terror threat around the world and largely damaged terror networks and infrastructures around the world. With Osama bin Laden’s death, America has not defeated terror, and it remains a threat; nevertheless, his end confirmed America’s exceptionalism once again.
We are facing a challenge once again. Our republic is in danger, and something must be done to save it. We are facing a threat that we’ve never seen before, and we need that ordinary American to stave off this menace once again. This time it isn’t the British monarchy or the Red Army that is our enemy. Our chief antagonist isn’t a Mullah hiding in an Afghanistan cave either, neither is he a tyrant in Iraq or dictator in Libya. This time, we are facing an enemy from within; a Western civilized man in a black tie; a bureaucrat in Washington.
Bernie Madeoff warned us first, and S&P followed up: the American Government is running a Ponzi scheme that is about to explode; taking our economy along with it. We are facing a budget crisis that accumulated over the years due to massive entitlement and defense spending. It was often necessary. America had to make changes to benefit its citizens and make their lives healthy and productive. The U.S. had to defend itself against Nazism, Communism and Terrorism. Yet, the spending levels may have been necessary but it’s dangerous.
We need a president that will reform the way government spends and works, to keep essential and vital programs while eliminating unnecessary ones. One that will know how to balance the budget to maintain triple A ratings and avoid default. One that will act swiftly before interest rates will spike, the Dollar will dive and stagflation will make the 70’s look like paradise. We need an ordinary man at the helm of this nation once again, and that man is Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.
It was Daniels who forewarned the nation about the “new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink” and warned of a “financial Niagara” engulfing this nation. He seems to understand the ramifications of fiscal recklessness, unrestrained liberal governance and over-regulated markets, or isn’t scared to say it.
Daniels doesn’t only talk the talk but also walks the walk. “The Blade,” as he’s often called for his budget cutting, is a competent manager and policy wonk who studied the national budget habits while serving as federal budget director under George W. Bush, and one who turned Indiana’s deficit into a surplus.
Daniels has private-sector experience and knows healthcare better than anyone in the race. His executive experience in Eli Lilly and Healthy Indiana Plan initiative will make him a strong voice in repealing Obamacare, a law he called “a massive mistake.”
Yes. He might be wonky and short but, nevertheless, understands how to win a presidential election and to win over blue voters. The former Reagan Chief Political Advisor was the only Republican to win a state that went to Obama in 2008. He might be too modest and humble, but four years of arrogance proved to be worse.
The public is already sickened by the Obama rhetoric; they want a commander-in-chief not a campaigner-in-chief. Mitch Daniels possesses the “charisma of competence” and knows what to focus on. He understands that Obama’s birthplace isn’t an issue but also knows that social issues are sideshows that must be placed on the side for now. The social conservative called on the Democrats and Republicans alike to put the grave threat before them to focus on fiscal issues. However, Obama doesn’t recognize the threat and repealed DADT while instructing the DOJ to stop defending traditional marriage instead. He focused on “carnival barkers” as the staggering unemployment rate remained and spending levels increased; he has yet to release an entitlement cutting plan.
Daniels often challenged the status quo and became the pioneer for government reform around the nation to make the government fair and efficient. The first governor to challenge the Unions and strip them from collective bargaining rights was also the first to reform property tax and education. Orthodox-Jews, in particular, should admire his latest signature legislation that initiates school choice; one that will set the stage for the rest of country.
Throughout history, political parties often sought a general to run on the top of the ticket. Today, the Republican Party should nominate General Daniels as their choice for president. General Daniels wasn’t a general in the War of 1812, nor did he fight in the Civil War; he is, nevertheless, a war hero. He is the protagonist of the 21st century’s revolutionary war. A leader in the war to restore America’s honor, produce jobs and boost an economy. He, upon his own admission, might not have extensive foreign policy experience, but he has the experience in domestic policy. We need a general to fight for us on the front in Washington, and Daniels is the one who has previously proven to us that he can do it.
Mitch Daniels has the patriotic duty to run for president and lead the country as it braces for economic crisis. He is the only one that can enact major reforms, articulately explain the necessity to the citizens and care more about his country than his career. As The Economist stated, “He is, in short, just the kind of man to relish fixing a broken state – or country.” Even if he goes on to lose the primary or general election, his mere presence will shape the debate. His fiscal message will be heard, and candidates will have to be poised to offer solutions. Therefore, it is incumbent for Governor Daniels to step up to the plate and run for president of the United States.
Dave Hirsch is a political analyst and columnist. He can be reached at[email protected]
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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6 Responses
Why is it that the other major democracies can conduct elections on a few weeks notice, and the US takes several years of this nonsence to elect a president? Why don’t they all go away until next fall, at the earliest?
I would say our method is better. There is more stability in four-year terms. In addition, take the example of Bush II, who was a (relatively) good President. But people loathed him. If they would’ve given him the boot earlier and elected a liberal in mid-term, imagine where we’d be now!
” one who turned Indiana’s deficit into a surplus.”
True. He did it by raising the state’s sales tax and selling off a major highway!
He also raised taxes to fund a sports arena and a convention center.
While Bush’s budget director, he say a $200+ billion surplus turn into a $400+ billion deficit.
Daniels also has no foreign policy experience.
“However, Obama doesn’t recognize the threat and repealed DADT while instructing the DOJ to stop defending traditional marriage instead.”
From the beginning, DADT was always a stupid policy. There is no reason to permit someone to escape military service by claiming to be Gay. The IDF certainly doesn’t allow such nonsense, nor do most if not all of America’s NATO allies.
And there is no obligation for the government to defend a law (DOMA) they think is certain to be overturned in court. Talk about a waste of money!
This is so wrong in so many ways, I don’t know where to begin, but I shall start with the first paragraph.
The author states, in the first paragraph: “Abraham Lincoln stood up to a divided country on the brink of civil war and improved America’s tarnished image by abolishing slavery.” Emancipation was not an image makeover. Mr. Lincoln did not order emancipation at the start of the war but in the second year of the war, to become effective on New Year’s Day 1863. Lincoln’s initial purpose was to weaken the confederate states – emancipation did not apply to the slave-holding states that were not part of the Confederacy. The Emancipation Proclamation led to the 13th Amendment, which settled the debate over slavery that was left open by the founders in the constitution. Enactment of the 13th Amendment was an act of justice and humanity, notwithstanding that Lincoln ordered emancipation it solely as a military strategy to weaken the confederate rebellion. A real political analyst would know that. Perhaps someday, the author will present to YWN’s readers his credentials as a “political analyst.” For the present, he sounds, merely, like a yenta without portfolio.
Now, here’s a mistake I would not expect even from Mr. Hirsch or YWN: “Franklin D. Roosevelt finally acknowledged Nazi genocide and acted to stop it before it was too late; the war also helped the United States climb out of the Great Depression.” Regrettably, Roosevelt acted to stop Nazi genocide long after it was too late – if Roosevelt acted “before it was too late”, 6,000,000 Jews – a vast majority of the Jews of Europe – would not have died. If there is anything that diminishes the greatness of FDR’s presidency, it is surely his insufficient response to the Nazi genocide. FDR had strong political opposition that may have impaired his ability to address the genocide, and the American public may have been indifferent to the genocide, but Mr. Hirsch is giving credit where credit is not due.
Yes, the war helped end the Great Depression, but FDR did not enter World War II for that purpose, and I am not even sure whether he or his advisers appreciated that the war would have such an effect until after it was over. And surely, war cannot be justified as an economic policy, but that is what Mr. Hirsch’s inartful prose implies.
Yipes; it took me 3 paragraphs just to recite the major errors in Mr. Hirsch’s first paragraph.
The second paragraph starts with the Reagan-lovers’ favorite boast: Ronald Reagan, without any contributions from his predecessors going back to 1948, defeated Communism. Maybe Mr. Hirsch can take some of that credit he wrongly applied to FDR and apply it to Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. I omit Nixon because, in his words, “we got snookered on that wheat deal,” referring to the time that there was a Communist crop failure, and Nixon enabled the Soviet leaders to cover up the failure of their economic system by giving them a cut rate on the wheat they needed to feed their subjects. Perhaps I am being too harsh on Nixon, but given what he did to America, he has earned some harsh treatment.
As for George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” he truly taught us that you can spend a trillion dollars on something and have nothing to show for it, other than improved technology in prosthetic limbs, and growth in the number of young men and women who need them. Does Mr. Hirsch consider this a shining example of a free market matching supply with demand? Well, it wasn’t a free market, and it wasn’t necessary. Mission not accomplished.
Mr. Hirsch’s third paragraph deserves an award for bad drama. He alleges that America’s chief antagonist isn’t a Mullah hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but ” a Western civilized man in a black tie[,] a bureaucrat in Washington”. And who is this bureaucrat in Washington in a black tie? Mr. Hirsch never tells us. In the following paragraph, he suggests that Bernie “Madeoff” (an fitting misspelling, but undoubtedly not intended by the unwitty Mr. Hirsch) might be the villain, but then he tells us that someone other than Mr. Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme. Mr. Madoff never warned anybody about any Ponzi scheme, until he came clean to his sons and turned himself over to federal authorities, but that was only because he ran out of suckers to keep his Ponzi scheme afloat. There is no Ponzi scheme about to explode. There are federal programs which, if not modified within a reasonable time – about the next 10 years or so – will present serious problems, but nothing is “about to explode,” and it can all be fixed if Congress addresses the problems realistically and in good faith. Instead, we have a Republican House of Representatives bent on symbolic gestures like “repealing Obamacare.” The president’s health care reform law is a good-faith and, if not repealed, effective, good first step to get a handle on growing Medicare costs, but the Republican majority in the House denies that fiercely with false information. The balance of Mr. Hirsch’s 4th paragraph is more gibberish than I can deal with at this time.
Mr. Hirsch then tells us that the current Indiana governor and former federal budget director under George W. Bush is the man who can save America from Mr. Hirsch’s imaginary crisis. I do not know much about Mr. Daniels, but if he was federal budget director under George W. Two-Wars-No-New-Taxes Bush, he clearly knows nothing about fiscal responsibility. I do know that many respectable economists have looked at Mr. Daniels’ proposed federal budget and found it unsound if not actually laughable and/or contemptible. I hope that others better-schooled in economics and fiscal policy can give a detailed explanation of why Mr. Daniels’ proposal is hokum.
Good grief. I’m only half-way through Mr. Hirsch’s latest bout of nonsense, and already I’m falling asleep just reading my own tedious prose. I’ll give us all a rest and leave an explication of Mr. Hirsch’s nonsense to others with more stamina.
Well, I’m baaaack.
Mr. Hirsch’s fifth paragraph starts off with two sentences that should earn him a medal for (a) understanding the obvious and (b) outstanding declamation of insipid platitudes. But then Mr. Hirsch gets down to his business of being wrong by raising the spectre of inflation when all relevant measures of inflation show a complete absence of inflation. Mr. Hirsch then non-sequituriously declares that an ordinary man would make a great president. That’s an interesting strategy for suggesting that President Obama is not the right man for the job of US president in difficult times – he’s not ordinary enough. Why not skip Mr. Daniels and go right to Joe the Unlicensed Plumber?
Paragraphs 6 and 7 are two of the wrongest paragraphs the persistently wrong Mr. Hirsch has ever written. Mr. Daniels did not forewarn anybody about the Red Menace of red ink (i.e., metaphoric and poetic synonym for deficit spending). He merely joined the chorus of born-again deficit cutting chicken littles who previously assured us that deficits don’t matter, when a Republican president was growing the deficit at a record pace. (I do like the allusion to the previous Red Menace of communism, which was likewise overstated and led to counter-productive policy decisions.) (And by the way, what is the difference between being “forewarned” and being just plain “warned”? Is there such a thing as being “after-warned”? Such are the peculiarities of English.)
For information about Mr. Daniels’ deficit-cutting expertise, we need look no further than Comment No. 3, 4th paragraph, which points out that on Mr. Daniels’ watch as budget director, he turned a big budget surplus into a bigger deficit. Mr. Hirsch, of course, evidently does not believe that his opinions should be connected to facts.
9th paragraph, last sentence reads: “He [Mr. Daniels] might be too modest and humble, but four years of arrogance proved to be worse.” The last president to have served at least 4 years was George W. Bush. And I agree that he was arrogant – no other Yale shoo-in, lazy, ignorant legacy has used his family’s prestige and influence to inflict himself on the American people as its president. But I thought – perhaps wrongly – that Mr. Hirsch was a supporter of Mr. Bush. Perhaps Mr. Hirsch was referring to Mr. Obama but messed up when he counted Mr. Obama’s tenure as president. When facts don’t matter, I guess counting years of tenure doesn’t matter either.
I have grown tired of explaining why Mr. Hirsch’s nonsense is nonsense. I’m starting to feel that I am competing with Mr. Hirsch for that obviousness award I referred to above. What I truly would like to know about Mr. Hirsch is his credentials for calling himself a “political analyst.” For now I would only suggest that until he does present such credentials to YWN’s readers, he should be described as a “yenta without portfolio.”
Are you aware that Daniels is an Arab? Does this not worry you even a little bit?