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Friday, 25 February 2011 15:33 |
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by Brian Howey
WASHINGTON - The Indiana governor is famous for writing his own speeches and TV ads, and building intricate strategies and timelines to achieve significant goals. But this past week, even the most ardent Mitch Daniels supporters weren’t sure what they were seeing.
It was Mitch in Wonderland.
As he wowed the elite Reagan Dinner crowd at CPAC and the rave reviews spilled in, many close to the governor weren’t sure whether they were witnessing a campaign for president, or perhaps vice president. Catch some of these people at a different time and they don’t think he’s running. Another day and another hour, they do.
Some see an audience of one - First Lady Cheri Daniels - as the governor orchestrates this strategy clear to only him and a few trusted aides and friends. Is Indiana’s First Couple prepared for the vetting process of the national media? The governor has been through it twice before with his White House appointments. The family has not.
There was a bizarre exchange with Indiana Statehouse reporters last Thursday. Asked if he would remain governor if he runs for president, Daniels responded, “There’s too many ‘ifs’ in that question for me to answer it.” Pressed again, he replied, “I haven’t even thought about it.” But it corresponded with rumors we heard last summer, but weren’t credible enough at the time to publish.
The exchange was fascinating on two levels: First that Daniels didn’t simply swat the question down and embarrass the reporter for even asking it, which used to happen when the presidential campaign questions came up a year ago. By answering the way he did, it keeps the prospect alive. Second, the cunning strategist in Mitch Daniels has certainly worked through the implications of running a national campaign while at the helm of a state with a 9.5 percent jobless rate.
Daniels was asked if he plans to run for president - “I’m not. No.” - this came just hours after he told Politico that his potential campaign letterhead would turn heads and produce a huge war chest from remnants of the Reagan and Bush dynasties.
U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, a mentor of Daniels going back to his Indianapolis mayoral days and when he headed the Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges what the governor will not: a campaign plan is in the works.
“In terms of substance, Mitch Daniels is an ideal candidate for these times,” Lugar said, citing Indiana’s fiscal health. “One chart after another I see, in terms of potential emergency stress on states, Indiana is almost always on top. He understands in order for his budget and administrative reforms to occur he needs public support.”
Lugar added, “I’ve discussed with him the problems I had as a candidate” in 1996. “My impression is he understands that. He’s thought through that in a methodical way. He has a very good opportunity.”
Are Republicans ready for MD’s castor oil candidacy? Particularly when it comes to the hard fiscal choices facing the nation?
“That’s the crucial question,” Lugar acknowledged. “This is really the critical question facing the Congress following this election. This is why he has an opportunity.”
Friday night’s CPAC speech was Daniels at his Churchillian best. “We face an enemy, lethal to liberty, and even more implacable than those America has defeated before,” Daniels said after Washington Post columnist George Will’s introduction. Will described Daniel’s physique by observing, “Never has there been a higher ratio between mind and mass.”
Daniels continued his warning: “I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence. It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink. We can debate its origins endlessly and search for villains on ideological grounds, but the reality is pure arithmetic.”
And there was tough love. Social Security and Medicare must change to offer “the next generation the dignity of making their own decisions, by delivering its dollars directly to the individual.”
As for criticism of his social issue truce by former senator and future presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Daniels explained, “Purity in martyrdom is for suicide bombers. Winston Churchill set aside his lifetime loathing of Communism in order to fight World War II. Challenged as a hypocrite, he said that when the safety of Britain was at stake, his ‘conscience became a good girl.’ We are at such a moment.”
By Saturday, the Drudge Report led with a photo of Daniels with his hand across his heart and the headline read: “Who? Mitch Daniels wows CPAC.”
“It was a fascinating speech positioning him as the GOP’s resident adult,” observed Politics Daily’s Walter Shapiro
Daniels was circumspect on Saturday about next steps. “Said what I wanted to say; what I thought needed saying,” Daniels said, reiterating another goal beyond a potential campaign and that is to set the agenda. “Obviously, I was gratified at the reaction. (It) took me a half-hour just to get off the stage.”
The questions surrounding the enigmatic governor are compelling and ample: Will he run? Will he finish out his term or make Becky Skillman Indiana’s first female governor? Will Republicans respond to his grown-up message and the lack of red meat?
The questions are as riveting as I’ve ever seen. Stay tuned.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey WASHINGTON - The Indiana governor is famous for writing his own speeches and TV ads, and building intricate strategies and timelines to achieve significant goals. But this past week, even the most ardent Mitch Daniels supporters weren’t sure what they were seeing.
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Wednesday, 16 February 2011 23:45 |
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by Brian Howey
WASHINGTON - Scanning through the Indiana Tea Party websites, there is a lot of rhetoric about limited government. The Kosciusko Silent No More group's mission statement begins by saying, "To bring about less government, more responsibility, and - with God’s help - a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles."
There's the Indianapolis group - Hoosiers for Smaller Government - that says, "We believe less government, less taxes, a strong defense, a secure border and in the Constitution."
These are political activists who believe they are Taxed Enough Already. These are noble goals, but with the Tea Party movement, there's a disconnect with reality.
The first time I saw it was on April 15, 2009, when 2,500 Tea Party activists gathered on the south lawn of the Indiana Statehouse protesting President Obama's stimulus law and his proposed health reforms. But simultaneously, just inside the Statehouse - in the Indiana Senate - the Republican-dominated chamber voted 33-17 to bailout the Indianapolis Capital Improvement Board to the tune of $47 million. That same Senate voted 32-18 on a biennial budget that was infused with hundreds of millions of dollars of Obama stimulus money.
It was interesting that in 2010 when the Tea Party sought to throw such bums out, not a single Republican Indiana state senator was targeted. Not a single Republican senator lost.
It is still interesting that the Indiana Tea Party barely lifted a finger when it came to the property tax caps that Hoosier voters put into the Indiana Constitution last November.
Cruising through more than two dozen Tea Party websites, I didn't see a single reference to any of the Kernan-Shepard reforms on local government, some of which seek to eliminate townships, which has seen the reserves of more than 1,000 townships increase from $207 million in 2007 to $294 million in 2009. The Indianapolis Star reported that the number of people receiving poor relief during the same period declined by almost 92,000 despite the surge in unemployment and home foreclosures.
Disconnect.
Gov. Mitch Daniels is now proposing an automatic rebate of income taxes once the state's reserves reach the 10 percent threshold. I haven't seen much Tea Party support for that.
Why is there such an array of disconnects? Are we Taxed Enough Already?
The Associated Press reported this week that federal taxes are at the lowest intake since 1950. Income tax payments are down 13 percent and corporate taxes are down 33 percent.
Part of this comes when the lame duck Congress extended all of the Bush tax cuts last December. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the extension of the cuts will result in a $200 billion to $300 billion cost to the US Treasury compared to what had been expected. Extending the cuts to households making over $250,000 a year accounts for $32 billion of that.
But that is old news. Republicans spent the first half of 2010 complaining about the $1.3 trillion deficit, and the last half pushing for the Bush tax cuts that only exacerbates it. U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., noted, "The current state of the tax code is simply indefensible. It is hemorrhaging revenue."
But, hey, what the hell. Our children and grandchildren can pay for that.
There had been talk of President Obama reforming the entire tax code prior to his State of the Union speech, but he ducked that opportunity. Haven’t heard much Tea Party talk about that.
When I ask Indiana political figures why the Tea Party is so elusive when it comes to Indiana tax issues, I get furrowed foreheads and arched eyebrows. The sympathetic politicians say things like, "They concentrate on federal issues" or they smile and say, "I don't know."
Why do we need 5,000 township advisory board members that most of us have no clue who they are in the voting booth when a seven-member county council can act as a check and balance and do a better job? The Tea Party hasn't weighed in.
Nepotism?
A 2009 investigation by The Indianapolis Star found that two out of three trustees had a relative on the township payroll. A January investigation published by the Bloomington Herald Times discovered that 75 percent of the 875 townships that filed financial reports for 2009 paid public dollars to at least one person with the same last name as the trustee. And why is it that the Tea Party doesn't give a dang whether 131 townships didn't even bother to file a financial report required by state law?
Disconnect.
It would be so much more compelling to take the Tea Party seriously if they weighed in on the true tax issues that face Hoosier taxpayers, policy makers and lawmakers. But they don't.
Instead, the Tea Party appears to be an amalgamation of angst and frustration about things that they cannot change - like the last two Supreme Court justices - while ignoring the very things they can.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitic.com) by Brian Howey WASHINGTON - Scanning through the Indiana Tea Party websites, there is a lot of rhetoric about limited government. The Kosciusko Silent No More group's mission statement begins by saying, "To bring about less government, more responsibility, and - with God’s help - a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles."
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Thursday, 10 February 2011 16:28 |
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by Brian Howey
PENDLETON, Ind. - Things are beginning to sort out at the executive level of Indiana Republican politics. I predict that Mike Pence is coming home to run for governor. Becky Skillman is going home to Bedford after her term ends in 2012. Mitch Daniels might run for president.
The principal subjects aren't talking much, so I'm left to piece together a narrative, so here goes.
Gov. Daniels had gone from chastising Hoosier reporters ("No, no, no, no, nooooo") about a potential White House bid, to an explosion of opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal and stories and interviews in the Weekly Standard and the New York Times (which his staff made sure Indiana media received copies). Part of the Daniels’ strategy is a nationalized version of the "Draft Mitch" movement that took place as a prelude to his 2004 victory.
This was progressing nicely through the last half of 2010. He raised more than a million bucks to forge an Indiana House majority and is now pushing an education/local government reform agenda in the General Assembly. Legislative success could then sling-shot him into a national orbit next May.
Congressman Pence was seen as his logical heir apparent. He barnstormed across the state on behalf of legislative and Congressional candidates last fall, resigned the No. 3 position among U.S. House Republicans the day after they retook the majority, and talked about how his heart was more at home along the Flatrock River, as opposed to the Potomac.
During this period we saw Skillman's chief of staff Chris Crabtree migrate to Pence. Essentially, the path to a mostly uncontested GOP gubernatorial nomination was cleared.
In December, Skillman announced she was not going to run for governor, citing "minor health reasons." A number of Republican sources tell me that Skillman tried to put together a gubernatorial campaign - including a December fundraising spurt that did not find much traction - but was denied access to governor's donor list. Unlike other modern lieutenant governors, Skillman did not have the Commerce portfolio, which Robert Orr and Frank O'Bannon used to play in economic development circles and make job announcements on their way to succeeding Govs. Doc Bowen and Evan Bayh. It appears as if the message was delivered to Skillman: you won't have Mitch Daniels' endorsement in the 2012 gubernatorial race.
That Pence's attention was diverted into the very presidential arena that Daniels was eyeing had to bring great consternation to the governor. We saw Daniels install his deputy chief of staff - Eric Holcomb - as GOP state chair to keep that store in order not only on the gubernatorial front, but also the pending challenge to his patron, Sen. Lugar, who is facing a Tea Party assault. Holcomb had run Daniels' 2008 reelection campaign and many figured he'd be a key figure in a presidential race, but a manager was needed on the home front.
By early January, the congressman caught the presidential bug and for about a month, there was a heavy flirtation between social conservatives who realized that Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee were extremely flawed and would be mauled by President Obama in the general, and Pence, the former radio talk show host who had become the clarion voice of the Obama loyal opposition.
I would have loved to have heard the back channel conversations between the Pence and Daniels’ teams during this period. The two met face-to-face on Jan. 18 in Daniels' office before Pence addressed both the Indiana House and Senate. Pence probably had to gulp hard to turn down Dick Armey, Jim Ryun and the Club for Growth guys on the presidential run, which he viewed as a historic calling. But to make that race would have eclipsed the most powerful modern Indiana governor who had paved the way for his ascension to the Statehouse.
Pence probably could have won the GOP nod without Daniels, and he knew it. He ultimately decided to stay home. Why would Pence do that when voices across America were begging him to run?
Several theories. Pence could have had a U.S. Senate seat had he decided to take on Sen. Evan Bayh a year ago. He declined, then watched Bayh retire and Dan Coats step back into the arena. So now he was faced with a sure thing after a big missed opportunity.
Pence has no executive experience and key supporters are most likely telling him that a stint as Indiana governor will fill in that hole nicely. But he’s giving up not only the presidency, but the veepstakes as well.
He can bow to Daniels, knowing that defeating a sitting president is a long shot - only Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush have lost reelections since World War II. Now Pence can burnish his executive cred and wait for 2016 or 2020.
As for Daniels, watch his speech this coming Friday evening before the CPAC Ronald Reagan banquet. The governor told the Times of Northwest Indiana, "I think I have got to make up my mind fairly soon. I don't think that I've waited too long, but I believe I should come to some decision."
Daniels, not Pence, now has the shot for the two White House slots.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com.) by Brian Howey PENDLETON, Ind. - Things are beginning to sort out at the executive level of Indiana Republican politics. I predict that Mike Pence is coming home to run for governor. Becky Skillman is going home to Bedford after her term ends in 2012. Mitch Daniels might run for president.
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Thursday, 03 February 2011 16:00 |
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by Brian Howey
INDIANAPOLIS - The civil war bubbling up within the Indiana Republican Party pits the upstart Tea Party movement against one of the most dynamic political operations in Hoosier history - the political campaign of Richard Green Lugar.
Last Saturday, 180 Hoosier Tea Party members representing 70 tribes gathered at a church near Sharpsville to forge an anti-Lugar confederation. They sent a letter - one of 899 Sen. Lugar received on Monday - asking him to step aside. Monica Boyer, a Kosciusko County "Silent No More" Tea Party activist saw strength in her movement. “We're excited today," Boyer said, adding, that in order to defeat Lugar, "All we need is 700,000 votes.”
Greg Fettig of Noblesville, said the Tea Party movement has 35,000 people, and "Each of them have 10 people in their sphere of influence. That's 350,000 people. They will vote as we will vote. If we don't unify, we might as well go home."
Saturday the blueprint to challenger Lugar was forged and by June, they will invite Lugar and potential challengers - State Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, former State Rep. Jackie Walorski - to make their pitch, then unify behind one challenger.
On Friday night, 420 Lugar supporters gathered in Carmel where they donated nearly $400,000 to the Lugar campaign. It followed a Lugar mailing to 500,000 registered Republican voters, appealing for their financial support and the ballot petition drive, which brought in 8,867 signatures by Wednesday.
“I am determined to see that everyone faces this reality and that none leave here tonight complacent,” said Mark Lubbers, who managed Lugar’s 1996 presidential campaign. “Our hearts must be in this.”
In the Lugar world view, the Tea Party movement is the result of a bad economy and what Lubbers called the "giant, absurd overreach of Obamacare" that jolted citizens into a Howard Beale “Network” ("I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore") reflex.
"It feels good to get to the end of your rope, to throw off the silence and literally be empowered to fight back," Lubbers said. "We welcomed these fellow citizens into the fray. It seemed that what they believed was the essence of what we believe as Republicans. And, here in Indiana, a handful of people are intent on organizing that anger and frustration into a campaign. To do what? To take Dick Lugar out."
The Tea Party - which originally stood for "Taxed Enough Already" - has diverged into a right wing list of complaints. They are against the Dream Act, the START treaty, and Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who radio talk show host Greg Garrison described as a “communist.”
“With the votes we follow, we believe it shows he is not a conservative," Fettig said. "It is the Dream Act, START, the last two justices.”
The Dream Act, which failed to pass the lame duck session in December, is instructive. It would give a path to citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who had no choice but to follow their parents. They could attain citizenship through military service or attaining a college degree.
To the Tea Party, this is “amnesty.”
“Since when is it amnesty to bestow citizenship in return for joining the Marines and getting shot at in Kandahar defending the American flag?" Lubbers asked.
Lubbers asked Republicans to "show me a way for our presidential nominee in 2012 to get 270 Electoral College votes without winning a lot of Hispanic votes? It cannot be done. You want four more years of Barack Obama? Be against the Dream Act."
In 2000 and 2004, it was the Latino vote that helped George W. Bush win two very close elections. It is the fastest growing voting block in America. In 2006, Republicans like U.S. Reps. John Hostettler, Mike Sodrel and Chris Chocola of Indiana advocated strict immigration laws. All three lost that year. In 2008, President Obama won 67 percent of the Latino vote, a 36 percent increase over their support for John Kerry in 2004. Obama won 77 percent of the Indiana Latino vote as this voting block went from three to four percent of the Indiana electorate between 2004 and 2008. It will be even bigger in 2012.
Obama increased his support among Catholics from 16 to 32 percent. Four in 10 Catholics are Latino. Said Notre Dame Associate Prof. David Campbell, “Latinos are the face of the Catholic population going forward. Latinos swung to Obama.”
Mark Halperin of Time Magazine told the Bulen Symposium in November 2008 that Republicans “have to be spooked” about their Latino losses.
Thus, there lies the vulnerability of the Tea Party movement. The nominations of Joe Miller in Alaska, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware essentially snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and kept the U.S. Senate Democratic majority. They lost independent voters. Angle actually raised $14 million last October, but lost to the wildly unpopular Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Now the Tea Party takes aim at Lugar, the most successful Republican vote getter in Hoosier history.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey INDIANAPOLIS - The civil war bubbling up within the Indiana Republican Party pits the upstart Tea Party movement against one of the most dynamic political operations in Hoosier history - the political campaign of Richard Green Lugar.
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Thursday, 27 January 2011 16:40 |
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by Brian Howey
INDIANAPOLIS - Driving west on U.S. 12 near Niles last summer, one of those highway beautification signs caught my eye. This particular mile of highway was sponsored by the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association.
Attitudes are changing about marijuana. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have either decriminalized its use, allow grow operations for personal use, or allow for medical use. It's been decriminalized in Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, and Canada.
Lately, the once almost taboo topic has entered the political mainstream here in the United States. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul told “Fox News” that enforcing marijuana restrictions is a "useless battle." Half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called it a "minimal problem" adding, "If somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at."
On the Dec. 16 edition of his "700 Club" show on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Rev. Pat Robertson said, "We're locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing they know they've got 10 years. I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot and that kind of thing, it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining (the future of) young people."
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan recently wrote, "There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential. We spent $68 billion in 2010 on corrections - 300 percent more than 25 years ago. The prison population is growing 13 times faster than the general population. We can no longer afford business as usual with prisons. The criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it."
Gov. Mitch Daniels - who once faced marijuana charges as a college student in New Jersey - called for the incarceration of lawbreakers "in a smarter way, one that matches their place of punishment to their true danger to society. We can be tougher on the worst offenders, and protect Hoosiers more securely, while saving a billion dollars the next few years." And Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall T. Shepard added, "The package of sentencing reforms before you is based on reliable evidence. I think it’s good for Indiana and I join Gov. Daniels in endorsing it."
They were talking about a Pew Center on the States report ordered after it was reported that Indiana's incarceration rate grew 41 percent over the past decade. With 29,000 people behind bars - up from 7,600 in 1976, according to the Times of Northwest Indiana - the state prison system is at capacity. DOC is requesting $667.4 million in fiscal year 2012 and $675.2 million in fiscal year 2013 - or $1.34 billion in what will likely be a $28 billion biennial budget.
What are the Indiana statistics available on marijuana laws impact on Indiana?
In an Oct. 19, 2010 report by Jon Gettman , Ph.D. for The Bulletin of Cannabis Reform, there were 16,397 arrests for marijuana offenses in Indiana in 2007 (88 percent for possession) and 15,597 in 2003. Pot busts accounted for 6.22 percent of arrests, costing Indiana’s legal system $148.81 million in 2006. Marijuana usage in Indiana is down from 521,000 in 2003 to 512,000 in 2007.
The criminal justice system in Indiana cost $2.39 billion for 2006, according to Dr. Gettman. This includes state, county, and local costs. Here is the breakdown for those costs: police protection $1.04 billion; judicial and legal services $419.53 million; and corrections $934.10 million. Harvard senior lecturer Jeffrey A. Miron estimated that decriminalized marijuana possession in Massachusetts (similar to Indiana in population) would save $29.5 million annually.
According to DrugRehabs.Org, national mortality figures for 2009 were: tobacco 435,000; poor diet and physical inactivity 365,000; alcohol 85,000; microbial agents 75,000; toxic agents 55,000; motor vehicle crashes 26,347; adverse reactions to prescription drugs 32,000; suicide 30,622; incidents involving firearms 29,000; homicide 20,308; sexual behaviors 20,000; all illicit drug use, direct and indirect 17,000; and marijuana 0. According to the Center for Effective Drug Abuse Research and Statistics, there were 157 marijuana-connected deaths reported in 31 U.S. metropolitan areas (including Chicago and Louisville but not Indianapolis) in 2002 in a voluntary report from coroners and medical examiners.
Gettman ranks Indiana as the seventh largest indoor marijuana producing state producing 66,577 pounds valued at $106.3 million and 17th in total production at $205 million. The top four states are Hawaii, Tennessee, Kentucky and California.
Of the top cash crops in the U.S. in 2006, marijuana led at $35 billion, followed by corn at $23 billion, soybeans at $17 billion, hay at $12 billion, vegetables at $11 billion and wheat at $7.45 billion. In Indiana, marijuana is the third ranked cash crop at $312 million in revenue, following corn at $1.8 billion and soybeans at $1.5 billion. It is the top ranking cash crop in Kentucky, third in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.
Essentially, these numbers are off the books and represent a black market.
The human and economic toll – with 16,000 people a year possessing criminal records – is, perhaps, incalculable.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey INDIANAPOLIS - Driving west on U.S. 12 near Niles last summer, one of those highway beautification signs caught my eye. This particular mile of highway was sponsored by the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association.
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