Gov. Mitch Daniels is reaching out to the wrong people as he prepares to launch his presidential bid--at least according to Redstate's Erick Erickson, who dubs him the "
Anti-Tea Party Candidate". Erickson, who doesn't like me either because I thought Obama should produce his birth certifificate like other presidential candidates have done in the past, says of Daniels:
I’m still pretty sure he wants to run for the Senate and not President, but it does seem to me that Jenn Rubin delivers a fatal blow to Mitch Daniels’ run for the Presidency.
The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg explains that Daniels didn’t go to the Tea Partyers or to the National Rifle Association for a testing-the-waters confab. Instead, he went to Manhattan
Surrounded by people across the spectrum, the liberals seemed to like him better than any of the other Republican candidates out there. Well, there you go. But more so, when asked who he’d call at 3 a.m. for foreign policy advice, given the choice between John McCain and Dick Lugar, he went with Lugar.
I don’t think I need to remind you that, as Jenn ably notes, Lugar “has run interference for President Obama on foreign policy issues such as START.”
Oh, and Daniels also received an award from the Arab American Institute, led by James Zogby. The group is not exactly on board with a foreign policy that treats Israel as a friend
I wasn't bothered by him going to Manhattan as much as I was bothered with
the reporters he sat down with to discuss his presidential candidacy. According to the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertberg:
On Tuesday, at the Gilded Age Upper East Side mansion that houses the nascent Bloomberg View, Daniels lunched with a baker’s dozen of journo-pundits ranging politics-wise from rightish (Peggy Noonan, Ramesh Ponnuru) and leftish (Michael Kinsley, Josh Marshall) to neitherish (Mark Halperin), and outlet-wise from mass market (George Stephanopoulos) to niche market (me).
Michael Kinsley, who the Liberals barely claim anymore, and Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, who shoveled shit for eight years about how George W. Bush stole the 2000 election, was to blame for 9/11 and should have been impeached for war crimes? Nice start, Mitch. Note to your campaign manager: You must win the Republican nomination first. Even Hertberg questions his strategy. "Daniels seems both temperamentally and, to a degree, ideologically unsuited for a Republican presidential primary, he writes. "He has to convince the hard core conservatives that he has the fire in the belly, that he will hew to the conservative line once elected and that he’s not interested in garnering the goodwill of the Georgetown cocktail set."
I don't quite get all the criticism over Daniels getting an award from the Arab American Institute. First, Daniels IS Arab-American. Second, the organization is not calling for the destruction of Israel, or any nonsense like that. Certainly, some peole in the organization have different political views than others may have, but Daniels isn't saying he endorses such views. People should be able to have legitimate political differences without stooping to ugly racist undertones, and let's be honest that is exactly the vicious criticism against Daniels about this issue has been.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I support Israel, and I don't believe in policies of appeasement to terrorist organizations, etc. However, I can also assure you that if anyone wants to win the Presidency, they are going to do it only with the vote of the center, and neither the far right, nor the far left will carry anyone into office. Individuals in the center don't cotton well to political agendas tainted with racist undertones.
These self-important reporters think toting party lines really matters anymore.
ReplyDeleteAn analysis of voter turnout at this week's primary in Indiana (heartland) might be an indicator that MOST people could care less about political parties other than they are fed up with the corruption within them.