Should Mitch Daniels Run for President?

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Permalink Reply by Jim Pavlik on June 8, 2009 at 4:46pm

Daniels is a "middle of the road" Republican. And other than a few wackos knocked off in the primaries (Tancredo, Kucinich some others) I don't think we've ever seen "extreme" right and lefts in the General Election. Maybe McGovern would have qualified if he'd made it, but he didn't. Most people are, as you say "middle of the road" but almost everyone chooses which way they will lean on certain salient issues and that will determine if they are center-right (McCain, Daniels) or center-left (Clinton, Obama).

Political scales that call either McCain or Obama "extreme" are remarkably truncated in historical terms and even in today's political climate.

I do however agree with much of this post. If Obama does even a mediocre job he will easily regain the White House in 2012 so whoever runs against him is going to, more or less, be sacrificing themselves, which I think was the reason that this thread got started--not to ask if you think Daniels should be president, but whether he should run.

If Palin is the presidential candidate, I think it would be for very specific reasons: she ignites the base, and the GOP would probably be OK with her erasing herself in a ball of shame as long as they don't have to waste a lot of time and attention on her.

However, a guy like Daniels is going to offer a more substantive challenge to Obama, especially on fiscal issues. And while he won't charge the base, he can help realign the Republican Party back on firmer (economically conservative) principals and grow the base. However, to do that effectively he will have to have some support (read: money) from the RNC. So would or should the GOP sacrifice the additional money on what would still likely end up being a losing campaign in order to better position themselves for a POTUS run in 2016? Or do they go the easy route, concentrate on House and Senate seats and leave the White House race to whatever jackaninny wins in Iowa and New Hampshire?

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Permalink Reply by Shelly Arens on June 10, 2009 at 2:07pm

I believe President Obama is extreme Left due to his past voting record as a senator and his performance in office so far. His speaches are carefully crafted to address the middle-of-the-road general audience (hence, his widespread appeal), however, his actions and policies that he is trying to jam through are very left. Yesterday, it was reported Hugo Chavez made a comment that President Obama is nationalizing our country faster than he is nationalizing his own.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Pavlik on June 10, 2009 at 4:53pm

The thing about saying things like "Obama is extreme left" is that we don't have to appeal to our "beliefs" and our "opinions." There is a field of study called Political Science which, while not 100% accurate, is less fallible than our faulty memories and flawed schemata.

So, with that in mind, Is Obama "nationalizing our country faster than Chavez is nationalizing Venezuela?" Well I find it odd that somebody like Ms. Ahrens who wouldn't believe Chavez if he said (as he often does) that he is a democratic leader of a democratic nation, is so quick to believe him when he says something she already believes. The fact of the matter is that very little of our country is nationalized. As you can see, with the GM deal done .21% of economy is now nationalized.

And in regard to whether Obama could be considered "extreme left" by virtue of his Senatorial voting record we can appeal to his D-NOMINATE score. As you can clearly see Obama is squarely in the center of the rest of the Democrats, very slightly to the left of Clinton (who is also in the middle) and much to the right of Pelosi and extremely farther right that Feingold.

And yes, I agree that his rhetoric is aimed at the middle-of-the-road but I would also claim with the evidence I have already provided plus a few additional facts, that his policies are also very middle of the road.

Those additional things are as follows: although Obama supports a compromised progressive policy in regard to free market cap-and-trade policy, and although he is a firm backer of a public health care plan, he has also largely continued Bush's foreign policy agenda especially in regard to Iraq, but also in regard to "state secrets." And keep in mind that much of his current deficit problem are rooted in a continuation of Bush's policies and TARP. Even the dreaded nationalization of GM was a process that was planned and initiated under Bush. Somethings are on the left. Somethings are on the right. But generally and overall, Obama is a centrist politician.

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Permalink Reply by Shelly Arens on June 11, 2009 at 8:00am

Your responses are carefully thought out and not "off the cuff" reactions as mine have been. I don't believe Chavez is democratic or believable - I was just reacting to what was reported. Admittedly, my responses stem from my fear of greater governmental control at the federal level and loss of control at the state and local level. Combined with out of control spending and impending tax increases - I'm almost at a total loss for words. I respect your view point and arguments well made. :)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Stuck on June 11, 2009 at 8:57am

Cap-n-Trade being free market is very laughable statement. You are either being politically naive or just flat out lieing since you know government will force business's to participate in this.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Pavlik on June 11, 2009 at 10:27am

It is neither lying nor naivete. The purpose of cap and trade legislation is not that companies would get to choose to be in it or not. It's that it creates a new market in carbon. A very similar plan was put in effect to control acid rain-producing sulphur residue in the late 80s. Not only did it not shut down capitalism and the free market, it also stopped acid rain--which was, of course, the plan. Cap and trade legislation turns carbon--currently a waste product--into a commodity and if you can't figure out how that works and how it fits into a larger capitalist economic structure, it's not me that's being naive but rather you that has a knee-jerk and irrational aversion to the idea of legislation.

The new carbon market is going to create new businesses and new business opportunities and moreover it is going to create a new source of profits while incentivizing technological innovation and competition and at the same time discouraging a type of activity we know is undesirable. So however you parse the semantics in regard to the law that's passed to get it started, it is free trade.

And Shelly, I totally understand where you're coming from. I'm not thrilled about the idea of loss of control at the individual, municipal, and state levels either, but it's also true that not every problem is capable of being solved at those levels. That is not to say that federal government is the default "best solution" either. There is no single best approach to all problems. Neither the real world or politics works if we dogmatically limit our choices free of reason.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Pavlik on June 11, 2009 at 10:31am

Actually, you know what. If the semantics of "free trade" is the problem...and I can see how it might be...I'll admit I was being a little loose with the phrase. Since we have never lived in a world of pure "free trade" it's very easy to misuse it. Let's say that Obama's cap and trade plan fits snuggly into the capitalist system that we have known since the late 18th century which has always used regulation as inspiration to innovation. So I'll retract "free trade" from my description of the cap and trade plan since I would have to defend the oxymoron "free trade regulation."

But it is capitalism as we have always known it--nothing socialist about it.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Stuck on June 11, 2009 at 10:41am

If it is free trade, then you would only need to set up the carbon market and let people/companies decide if they want to be in it. You wouldn't need 1,000 pages of legislation of making companies buy into the market.

Creating jobs you say....well the Cap-N-Trade legislation has already addressed the job losses from this legislation. The writers of the cap and trade bill are very clearly aware that this bill will cost thousands of jobs. So much so that unemployment benefits for those losing their jobs because of it will go for THREE YEARS, 156 weeks. The section you can find this in is on page 781 of the 946 page bill. “Title IV, Subtitle B, Part2, Section 426 of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009”

The Washington examiner reports that these victims of Washington DC legislation and Congress will get 80% of their insurance premiums paid, a 1500$ relocation allowance, and job search expenses of up to 1500$.

Carbon itself is not a commodity. It has to be something that can be traded across any market spectrum i.e. Copper, Oil, Gold, etc. We are going into Cap-n-Trade while many other countries are backing out because of the costs to economies. China even directly told our American congressmen that they would just take our industrial job base that will move to more tax/regulation friendly countries.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Pavlik on June 11, 2009 at 11:25am

I really appreciate your thoughtful responses. I don't think either of us are going to get the other to agree, but I thrive on the back-and-forth so here are my three additional cents on this (note to moderators--Steve and I have clearly gone off topic here. So feel free to move us to another thread or at the least, I won't be offended if we''re forced to stop).

My Three Cents:

1. "All I have to do is set up the carbon market": If we ignore the negative externalities of carbon output, and if we simultaneously recognize that carbon is a natural output of our current industrial processes then carbon is "free" and not a commodity. The way we "set up the carbon market" is through the legislation that puts a limit on carbon output, fine that which exceeds that limit, and provides a legal means for companies to avoid those fines through the buying and selling of carbon.

2. "Job losses" --Whenever new forces enter the market job losses are a necessary short term phenomenon. This is just one example of the various phenomena that have led economists to say that capitalism works off a process of "creative destruction." The part of the bill you cite is set up to recognize this short term labor deficit and sets out to ameliorate that harm until the mid- and long-term market forces catch up. Cars put horse traders out of business, telephones killed the telegraph operators etc. But the creation of new markets has always led to the creation of new jobs. Since there's nothing inherently altered in the fundamental laws of supply and demand as a result of this legislation there is zero rational reason to believe that job losses will be permanent, except as you say, through possible outsourcing.

3. "Outsourcing" Outsourcing to China is an inevitable result of the disequilibrium of labor between the US and China. Labor-intensive industries will always gravitate toward areas of greater population and specifically greater population density. With or without cap and trade, China is able to outcompete. It's true that cap and trade--at least intuitively--may exacerbate this phenomenon but this isn't zero sum. Some jobs cannot actually be outsourced. Some jobs that can be outsourced won't be for logistical reasons. Moreover, jobs will be created directly from the new market. Some of these are jobs in engineering and operation, some of these will be in accounting, finance or similar. These jobs will be jobs here in the US. These are all offsets that remain unmentioned in your argument.

Moreover, you act as if cap and trade is a piece of legislation that might be enacted in a vacuum. There is already a lot of government, NGO, and free market pressure on China to raise their own environmental standards and there's some evidence that they are slowly responding to it. So, yes, the fact that we now exist in a global market does limit the amount of success we can achieve with cap and trade; and as with all market changes the negatives are localized while the benefits are spread out, but neither of these things should be used as excuses to not respond to this clear and present danger. While it's true that a lot of countries aren't signing on, a lot of them are. A lot of countries that have backed out of clean air agreements did so because the US wouldn't sign on. What we're looking for here is a critical mass of signers on. That kind of clout is going to be hard for China to resist.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Grice on July 2, 2009 at 6:30pm

I've always been curious about this, so now I'll finally ask: What defines a "middle of the road" Republican? I always thought McCain was in the middle, but I must be wrong.

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Permalink Reply by Diane Stothard on June 8, 2009 at 4:37pm

Gosh, I hope not! He is doing such a great job for Indiana, I'd hate to see him leave.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Larkin on June 10, 2009 at 11:26am

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

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