Jim Antle pours cold water on the Kristol-orchestrated speculation surrounding a last-minute Daniels bid:
[T]he first time a Daniels candidacy was floated, he didn't exactly catch fire with the base. He offended social conservatives by calling for a truce on their issues, he annoyed national security conservatives by putting military spending on the table for cuts and suggesting some of our overseas commitments needed to be reevaluated, and economic conservatives disliked his flirtation with a VAT. Daniels was polling about 1 percent. Obviously, that will all need to be dealt with — assuming Daniels even wants to run, which is doubtful — if Daniels is to avoid the fate of Jon Huntsman. A late entrant would have to be able to win primaries and amass delegates fairly quickly. A candidate who nobody voted on who was simply imposed by the establishment at the convention would have no legitimacy.
Larison has been on the case for quite some time:
Daniels was talking about cutting the military budget in the name of fiscal responsibility. When Huntsman proposed something similar, he was demonized for running to "the left" of Obama on the issue. To the extent that anyone took Daniels seriously as a possible presidential contender last year, hawks attacked him for these comments at the time. Daniels was also more willing than Huntsman to consider raising taxes to increase revenues. One important difference between the two was that Daniels didn't make the mistake of running, and Huntsman did. We can get some idea of how Daniels would have fared in the nominating contest by looking at Huntsman's results.
And then, of course, there are Daniels' connections to the Bush administration. Thoughts on his SOTU response here and here.
(Image via runmitchrun.com)
The Dish 
