Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Mitch Daniels or Jack Daniels...Who Cares?

It seems that in the last week or so, the wishful thinking, "Anyone but Romney" crowd have been dominating the web.

Will he?........He is!.....I've got it on the best authority that Daniels is...BLAH...BLAH....BLAH!

I feel bad for these guys. It's getting to the point now, where there are no more potential candidates left to halt the inevitable (Romney nomination!).

If Daniels doesn't run, who will carry their torch? I heard a rumor that their ace-in-the whole was to Draft Bush 1. After all, he only served one term.

Which brings me to this article that I read that points out that Daniels might be a Fred Thompson clone.

Thompson, was a reluctant candidate. There was all kinds of buzz about him entering back in the 08. Things like, "If Thompson gets in, It's all over". He'll surely get the nomination. Of course we all know that things didn't quite turn out that way.

The article points out that both candidates seemed to lack fire in the belly and had a "Self-Depreciation" thing going:
When a stranger approaches after a speech here, eager to “shake the hand of a future president,” Daniels gamely obliges. Then he mutters under his breath: “Not much chance of that.”
This same attitude seemed to resonate from Fred Thompson as well. During a trip to New Hampshire back in 08:
Trying to encourage his studio to hurry up so an interview could start, Carl Cameron of Fox News said into his microphone: “The next president of the United States has a schedule to keep.” Standing beside him, a deadpan Mr Thompson interjected: “And so do I.”
Both of these men seem to lack the fire in the belly needed to run a successful campaign. As pointed out in the article.
If he didn’t think he (Thompson) would be president then how could he expect the voters to disagree with him?.........
...........If a candidate doesn’t want the job more than almost anything else in life and doesn’t believe to their very core that they should be commander-in-chief then they really have no business running – it becomes an affront to supporters, donors and staff . As Ed Rollins put it in the context of his former boss Mike Huckabee: “I can’t want it more than the candidate does.”

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've realized this too, Bosman. Daniels has a great record, but I fear the enthusiasm gap were he to face off against O. Even if Daniels gets pushed in, it's his race to run on his energy and his fire, and if the fire is not authentically his, he won't last.
MikeZ

Closer To Home said...

There is a lot of "window shopping" going on as we as a party look for that perfect candidate. But, so far, every time we actually tried the new challenger on, we found something wanting. With Trump, it took only weeks to know he wasn't right. Gingrich took 6 months to fall out of favor. Palin? It took a year for her numbers to cave in. Pawlenty has yet to catch any fire and the reports are that he is having a tougher time than expected attracting donations.

Only Romney and Huckabee were able to hold and slightly grow their support in the past 2 years, and Romney is the only one who has decided to go forward. He has been poked and prodded for more than 4 years and has weathered it all, including sustained criticism on Romneycare.

Now we are about to test the latest new faces, Huntsman and Daniels. On the surface, they may look attractive. Candidly, I find much to respect in Daniels. But in a world where people are looking for "perfect" if they are to decide this early in an open field, nearly everyone comes up short. (No pun intended with respect to the current governor of Indiana. And won't that be a "visual" if they position him beside the 6' 4" Romney in a debate?)

Call the electorate fickle this time. They had three "next in line" candidates to choose from, so there was no natural heir. Gingrich and Trump brought near universal name ID, and it still wasn't enough.

The marvel is not that Romney has ONLY 20%, but that he still has double digit support. Be patient. This electorate will eventually try out all new comers and if the past is prologue, will wear them out or spit them out.

Evelio Perez said...

The eventual G.O.P. presidential nominee is going to need to raise more money than ever to defeat President Obama and his projected billion dollars warchest and only Governor Romney can come close.
The many pretenders are falling like flies, all from a desire to avoid the media onslaught to a lack of much needed money's to dull and boring personalities.
Reggie Jackson quote, "The cream always rises to the top" and by all accounts Mitt Romney is the cream............

Doug NYC GOP said...

Daniels has a solid record as Governor, but these daily reports and statements "I'm close" "Not much longer" etc. are tiresome and worrisome.

Maybe in the sleepy halls of the Indiana Governor's mansion or State Legislature, one can take their time to make these big decisions. But aside from getting in the race, should he be elected, is this the kind of performance we'd see played out daily from the White House?

Daniels had all winter to decide on running, while waiting for the Indy Legislature to finish in April. To keep this silly going dance going further is tiresome. The only people clammoring for this guy are the pundits. Depsite all there exposure of the guy, he is gaining no traction.

Bill589 said...

Is this the Daniels that said we should call a truce on social issues? And he said he couldn’t debate Obama on foreign policy?

The press seems to treat some better than others. Some hopefuls couldn’t get away with saying either one of these things.

Anonymous said...

You nailed it Bos. Have you been over at Rave. Every other article is about Daniels.

zeke

Anonymous said...

19% of the people in Indian are walking around with NO health insurance. Contract to Massachusetts, where 98% are covered. Case closed, Mitt wins.

Anonymous said...

Mitch looks older than John McCain, shorter than Mike Dukakis, and said the Iraq war would cost lesss than $60 Billion. Yeah, slightly off by a trillion bucks.

ellie said...

Introducing the new Flavor flav of the week for the GOP! Rick Perry!

We in the Gop go from one end of the teeter totter to the other. Meanwhile, the guy who's standing in the middle of it all is still standing. Mitt Romney