Mitch Daniels is no Sarah Palin

Not a good start for the Daniels campaign
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We don't always see eye to eye with Rick Moran, but we're in full agreement with his latest post on the American Thinker Blog:

Governor Mitch Daniels is a great wonk, a good governor, but it appears that he isn't much of a politician.

Earth to Mitch: You don't start out a presidential campaign by alienating 1/3 of your base:

The other day on Laura Ingraham's radio show, Daniels re-iterated his call for a "truce" on social issues while America gets its economic house in order. He now says he'd like to "mute" those issues for a little while.

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If Daniels gets in the race you can be sure that some other candidate is going to call him out on this. Whoever does it first will immediately endear himself or herself to social conservatives nationwide. Who's going to do it?

OK - we get it. Fixing the deficit is titanically important. But you don't ask voters - especially when it comes to issues that touch their conscience in very personal ways - to turn off their emotions and engagement just to achieve some nebulous "peace" on social issues. First of all, it takes two to make peace and it is doubtful that the other side would be quite so accommodating. Secondly, it would be like ripping the heart out of the Republican party.

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Moran points out that despite his lackluster campaign, John McCain would have made the 2008 presidential race a much closer contest had he only sharply defined the difference between himself and Barack Obama on social right issues. And despite naming Sarah Palin on his ticket, millions of conservatives still stayed away from the polls on election day -- far fewer than those who turned out to vote for Bush.

There has been a pro-life plank in every Republican Party platform since at least Ronald Reagan, but prior to 2009, there was not a pro-life majority to support it. But all that changed in May of 2009, when Gallup polling began to reflect a shift in the attitudes of Americans in favor of the protection of innocent life. Why should Republicans abandon this principle when they finally have the majority of their countrymen on their side on the issue? But Daniels wants to turn his back on that majority and on the conservative base.

Sarah Palin would never even consider abandoning social conservatives on the issue of life. It is part and parcel of the Declaration of Independence, which defines life as the first of three "unalienable Rights" with which the Creator has endowed us. Without life, there is no liberty nor the pursuit of happiness. Gov. Palin has been a consistent and tireless defender of the innocent unborn. And she has lived by what she advocates, giving birth to child which she knew before his birth would be a Down Syndrome baby.

Mitch Daniels is no Sarah Palin, and by giving short shrift to what has been one of the most important planks in the GOP platform for decades, not much of a conservative nor a Republican.

- JP