One name being mentioned with increasing frequency when the talk turns to the question of who the GOP candidate might be in 2012 is Mitch Daniels. Daniels is the current governor of Indiana and Mona Charen fills us in on his background. Her column should be read in its entirety for what it tells us about the man, but this excerpt might pique your interest:
When Daniels took office in 2005, Indiana, which had been enduring Democratic governors for 16 years, was running an $800-million deficit. Four years later, it had a $1.3-billion surplus. Daniels accomplished this without raising taxes (as 66 percent of states have done); in fact, he passed the largest tax cut in state history. Nor did he cut essential services like education, as 40 states have done. As Mark Hemingway reported in National Review, "In the last three years, the state has repaid $760 million to schools and local governments that had been appropriated to finance the state's deficit spending." Additionally, Indiana has hired 800 new child-welfare caseworkers and 250 state troopers, all while cutting the rate of increase in state spending from 5.9 to 2.8 percent annually.
Having experience in successful governance isn't the only thing attractive about Daniels. Charen goes on to tell us more:
Daniels has successfully courted business investment and has welcomed "two Toyota plants, a Honda factory, a $500-million Nestl� facility, and a British Petroleum project that will bring $3.8 billion to the state."
This is a laboratory of successful conservative governance. As Daniels put it to NR, "Our health-care plan is health savings accounts for poor people. Our telecommunications policy is deregulation. Our infrastructure policy was the biggest privatization in state history." And his spending policy was less is more.
A former chief of the Office of Management and Budget (under George W. Bush), Daniels is known for his incisive mind and mastery of detail. In addition to government service - he also worked as an aide to Sen. Richard Lugar and as Ronald Reagan's political director - Daniels has headed a conservative think tank, the Hudson Institute, and served as president of Eli Lilly's North American operations.
Not only has he governed but he's also run a major business. No wonder they call him the Anti-Obama.
RLC