“Hey, I’ve got another idea that I’m kind of fond of, ” Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels began as he sat across from me on Thursday at the Republican Governor’s Association.
A half-hour earlier, Ohio’s Gov.-elect John Kasich had diagnosed President Obama’s many failures as a consequence of his complete inexperience, and counseled that the president should “go get the oldest, crustiest Democrat who knew who George Meany was, and start listening to somebody other than these ideologues.”
Just before Kasich sat down, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had blasted Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try terrorist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani in federal court in New York, and called on Holder to resign.
The text of the interviews is available on the “transcripts” page at HughHewitt.com.
Pawlenty is concluding eight successful years as governor, preceded by a decade as a state legislator. Daniels has begun a second term after a very successful four years which built on his experience as George W. Bush’s budget director and as a senior aide in Ronald Reagan’s White House. Kasich is taking on the Buckeyes’ very difficult problems after 18 years in the House, a presidential run based on fiscal responsibility and a broadcast and writing career that included this year’s New York Times best-seller, “Every Other Monday” — an account of his decades-old Bible study group.
Two conclusions emerged from my stretch of chief executive interviews, which included GOP rising stars Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
First, President Obama’s two years in the Oval Office were preceded by four lackluster years in the U.S. Senate (the last two spent campaigning) and a long stretch of voting “present” in the Illinois legislature. His presidency is collapsing under the awful weight of incompetence and ideology, but also inexperience. Now he’s in an Alinskyite crouch, jetting the globe trying to avoid the obvious, overwhelming messages of the vote on Nov. 2: Keep the tax rates where they are, and cut spending.
The calm, mature, good-humored and manifestly competent trio of Daniels, Kasich and Pawlenty are, by contrast, comfortable in a wide-ranging interview and kicking around ideas because they have been in the fray a long time and are not at all threatened by the prospect of a misspoken word or an idea that doesn’t bear fruit.
Second, in this space last week, I slammed the announcement-diktat by Politico and NBC that they would be conducting the first GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library in the spring. Caviling from some of the usual suspects followed, but also much agreement that while the Reagan Library is a fitting venue for a first debate — in the late summer or fall — the “debate” model manipulated by these usual suspects is broken.
Pastor Rick Warren’s was by far the best forum of 2008, largely because it allowed — and obliged — the candidates to answer interesting questions at length and not just machine-gun 90-second responses to cue card queries read by the last semi-tall trees in the devastated forests of mainstream media. The GOP has a deep field, and as shown by my conversations with two of the likely presidential candidates (and a short-list VP certainty), the key to a productive primary season will be extended opportunities for the serious candidates to talk about the biggest problems we face and their possible solutions.
Daniels’ idea? Go and read it. He credits the young people of Indiana with giving it to him, but it is one of those intriguing but obvious innovations that spring from minds experienced in problem solving, and which are introduced to the public when the MSM gets out of the way.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
