Michael Kazin attempts a Mitch Daniels hit piece. The substance of Kazin's disdain for Daniels:
Elected with the help of donations from the Koch brothers, he signed bills that abolished the right of teachers to bargain for anything other than wages and wage-related benefits and initiated the largest private-school voucher program in the country. He’s said he will sign a bill that will end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood in his state and ban all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. For good measure, he’s also privatized a state highway. Before Daniels ran for governor, he held an important fiscal post in George W. Bush’s White House, and now, he supports Paul Ryan’s plan to cut taxes for the rich while starving Medicare. What’s more, before getting into politics, he was president of Eli Lilly, one of the largest drug companies in the world. So far, the governor has been silent about the fact that, under his watch, Lilly had to pay out almost $3 billion in fines and damages for illegally marketing two of its best-selling products.
He privatized a state highway! The horror. Kazin says that Daniels supports the Ryan plan, but if you read the post Kazin links to, all Daniels said was that Ryan's plan "is the first serious proposal produced by either party to deal with the overriding issue of our time." That doesn't mean Daniels supports every aspect of the plan. It does mean he is more serious about debt reduction than Obama seems to be.
The Dish 