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Mitch Daniels gave the CPAC conference its most powerful and intelligent speech. The speech has been praised by many people for many reasons. I want to single out just one sentence.
Upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American promise, and the stagnation of the middle class is in fact becoming a problem, on any fair reading of the facts.
Those are important and welcome words.
Welcome first, because they are words based on fact, not myth. Compare them for example to Marco Rubio’s words at CPAC last year. Rubio praised the United States as:
the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from …. the only economy in the world where poor people with a better idea and a strong work ethic can compete and succeed against rich people in the marketplace and competition.
Rubio’s words repeat a story we like to tell ourselves, but that happens not to be true. Daniels’ words call us to face things as they are.
Daniels’ words are welcome, second, because they imply an agenda fully as important as the deficit and the debt. If mobility is the crux of the American promise – and if that promise is not being fulfilled – then something must be done, right? We can puzzle together over what that something might be. But at least we’ll be engaging the most important problems of American society.
Daniels’ words are important, finally, because they take us inside the head of a man who is really thinking. A lot of the speeches at CPAC – at any political meeting, left or right – are attempts to reflect back to the audience what they believed when they entered the room. Daniels was not trying to guess what his audience wanted to hear. He was telling the audience what he believed it needed to hear. That’s leadership too, intellectual leadership. Conservatives have missed it too long. The governor of Indiana this weekend brought it back.
And I’d like to single out one sentence too….
This sentence comes from George W. Bush’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Daniels is one of the previous maladministration who was helping with “Upward mobility” by pouring sand in the pockets of those on the bottom and was damming up the middle class creating the stagnation.
“Oh, the Republicans had their shot not long ago to address the real needs and concerns of everyday Americans, and they blew it. I think that’s mitigated by the fact that we ( insert lame excuse here), but over the time that they were there and had the leadership opportunity, they blew it. We got fired for a reason.” – Tim Pawlenty (R-MN)
Oh, they got FIRED for a reason alright. That reason is Repuglicans SUCK at governing!
So he recognizes the problem, but seems clueless as to how the “venerate the rich” philosophy his party has hewn to for the last 30 years is a major REASON for the situation he decries.
And we’re supposed to get excited for him because of….?
You’re right, slide. There’s nothing about unfair elections. Yet, somehow, I believe there will be. General Henry Rangel Silva stated he would not tolerate any leader that was not for the people (in other words, anyone who is not Chavez). This is a soft takeover of democracy. It’s happening so slowly that few would be willing to recognize the threat Chavez is posing. He wants to bring about this Socialist dream so badly that he’s willing to do whatever it takes even if it means destroying democracy, brick by brick.
“…Rubio’s words repeat a story we like to tell ourselves, but that happens not to be true. Daniels’ words call us to face things as they are….”
I don’t care what they say about you, Frum: You’re alright.
Daniels is the only republican who looks to be running in 2012 who will address what needs to be addressed.
OK, I agree that recognizing reality is an important first step, but what does he propose to do about it? The only 2 things that ever raised wages in America were strong Unions and tight labor markets. We have neither. The Chamber of Commerce type Republicans like it this way (cheap illegal labor and no unions)
Another important reality to recognize is that Daniels does not stand a chance in hell of winning. A little bald man who looks like a nerdy accountant will not inspire anyone. He is Dukakis without the hair.
eh, needs more specifics.
but i’ll grant you that Daniels and Huntsman are the only 2 potential GOP contenders who aren’t abject embarrassments.
(of course neither will pass the rabid primary voter smell test, so this all moot)
Well he didn’t have much competition at CPAC did he? Mind you Daniels is someone who personally has made a major contribution to the stagnation of middle class incomes so he’s arrived at the party a bit late.
COProgressive:
Cutting analysis, CO Progressive, but I’m tempted to give more credence to David Frum and Mitch Daniels than an anonymous liberal who labels the other side “Repuglicans.”
lessadoabouteverything:
I thought Obama’s words were what inspired Democrats, not his height and physique.
Yes, Marco Rubio praising our national myth of upward mobility can be criticized as pandering (not myth meant in the sense of false, but of a common cultural narrative), but how can we praise Daniels as being a fearlessly intelligent, risk-taking teller of hard truths if Daniels implicitly promises that re-jiggering policy levers and dials will keep upward mobility going at past levels, ad infinitum?
Because it can’t. Since talent and merit vary, and a large portion of talent and merit are immutably genetic and inherited, it follows inevitably that upward mobility will wane over time in a meritocratic society, because more and more of the talented and hardworking will be able to work their way up from the bottom, leaving the untalented and lazy an increasingly large portion of the poor, permanently mired there.
“I thought Obama’s words were what inspired Democrats, not his height and physique.”
It ain’t just the words but how you say them. Put JFK’s words in Dukakis’s mouth and you still get beat. Of course charisma and leadership skills matter.
Look back over the last elections, the more charismatic figure won the General every time. GWB had his own “guy you want to have a beer with” over Kerry and Gore, neither were remotely charismatic.
Clinton beat Dole and Bush, Papa Bush beat Dukakis…and compared to Daniels Dukakis looks charismatic. Reagan had more charisma then either Carter or Mondale, and Carter had more than fumbling Ford.
I am not saying Obama will win because he has more charisma, but damn is it a good weapon to have, and Daniels has no charisma whatsoever. This is a simple fact. Why pretend otherwise.
This is at least the third thread in as many days that appears to have been censored.
On this particular thread, Wismer at 8:35 starts off his comment with, “You’re right, slide …”
Anyone see a comment by Slide? On the other suspect threads, a few commenters noted missing posts.
What’s going on here, Mr. Mali?
That red-menace menace posts his conspiracy melarchy all over the damn blog, but Slide(!) gets censored?
Well, CO Progressive, no one should excuse Mitch Daniels for his involvement in the fiscal recklessness of the Bush Administration; the George W. Bush budgets were the very reverse of fiscal responsibility, and surely Daniels’s opponents and the press will (deservedly) call him out for his role in drafting them.
And yet: the Medicare Part D expansion and the two wars kept off the balance sheets are problematic for Daniels, but not damning. By all means, hold your breath, because Daniels’s renunciation of much of the Bush 43 fiscal programme is not far off.
Genuine conservatism is about (among other things) honest self-criticism and skepticism, the intellecutal honesty to concede when you are, or have been, in error. Competent governance cannot happen if those who would govern cannot admit they’ve made mistakes: how else can they correct them?
Case in point: just look at Daniels’s governance of Indiana: it’s nearly the antithesis of the fiscal governance under George W. Bush. Mitch Daniels is a man who is obviously capable of learning from his mistakes, a quality that is desperately needed in the Federal Executive right now.
Lessado, as for your assertion that Daniels is a nerdy little bore: undoubtedly. But perhaps a button-downed and pedestrian– but highly competent– midwesterner is what this country needs after four years of cosmopolitan– but ineffective– elegance.
Mitch Daniels gave the CPAC conference its most powerful and intelligent speech. The speech has been praised by many people for many reasons.
Yep, that’s the scuttlebutt.
Curious that the conference’s “best” gets last coverage here at FF. Like an afterthought.
Sure, as a GWB appointee Daniels earns an immediate black mark. A GOP POTUS called him to service and, as would be expected, he served. But he was OMB Director, not a policy maker. No wonder the dude’s bald– nothing like trying to balance the books for GWB’s admin policies to make you want to tear your hair out.
Here’s what interests me about Daniels.
He’s sane. And clearly, he’s not a pandering fool. Both of these qualities are in remarkably short supply within the GOP. For lack of a better metaphor, I see Daniels as a torch lighting the way out of the wilderness for the GOP.
All that said, there’s zero hope for Daniels to best Obama.
1. C’mon. Like he’d make it out of the GOP primary.
Hell, I’m not even sure he could raise enough money to make it into the primary: he’s neither rabid nor charismatic– two enormous strikes against him. Plus, he’s irreversibly alienated the SoCon GOP base. Strike three.
2. Anyone in the GE who might otherwise entertain the notion of voting for Daniels would simply re-elect Obama. There’s not as much air between them as one might think, but Obama has the home field advantage plus charisma.
Nevertheless, I like Daniels.
I wouldn’t vote for him, because I don’t remotely trust the GOP at present. But I like that he seems to be the GOP’s best hope. In the end, I’m an Indie. I want to see two viable parties again. In my lifetime.
Good grief Carney, reading the second paragraph of your post above at 3:56, one would with reason assume you’re something of a Social Darwinist. Nietszche couldn’t have made your point any more straightforwardly or with more clarity.
Forgive me, but I just cannot reconcile (as you do) the existence of a meritocratic class with the existence of a large underclass. A society with such an underclass– like, for instance, OURS– is by definition NOT meritocratic.
WaStateUrbanGOPer, your post is hilarious, but sadly typical of the muddled thinking that is pervasive today.
You cannot seriously believe we are all equal in capability and drive, can you?
And if we are all equal in capability and drive, what need for meritocracy? Just mandate equal outcomes, because we all equally deserve them.
If we are NOT equal in capability and drive, then that means there are some of us who are less capable and hardworking than others. In a meritocracy, they will, by definition, not rise as high or do as well as the rest of us. Relatively speaking, then, they will be an underclass.
Meritocracy and the existence of an underclass are inextricably linked.
And it does no good to say that yes you accept that some will be less prosperous and successful, but you simply don’t want them to live in poverty. Deprivation is relative. It’s a bit old now, but see this study from 1990: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1990/09/how-poor-are-americas-poor showing that the “poor” in America live better than the average in Europe and Japan, eating more meat, being more likely to own cars and dishwashers, even being more likely to have indoor toilets. In other words, you can throw as much money at the underclass as you like; they’ll still be an underclass relative to the rest of us.
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