Mitch Daniels

Over the last several weeks, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has been under attack from Religious Right activists for his statement that the nation needed to call a "truce" in the culture wars in order to focus on more important issues.

Obviously, social conservatives refuse to accept any such truce, as fighting the culture war is their entire reason for existing and have begun questioning Daniels' conservative bona fides.

But that is clearly unjustified because, as this interview with him from December demonstrates, he clearly shares their worldview:

Mellinger: Is there part of you that is bothered by the aggressive atheism of a [Sam] Harris, a [Christopher] Hitchens, a [Richard] Dawkins? And what I mean is... this atheism is a little different than atheism has been in the past because it does seek to convert people.

Daniels: I'm not sure it's all that new. People who reject the idea of a God -who think that we're just accidental protoplasm- have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications -which not all such folks have thought through- because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.

And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.

Everyone's certainly entitled in our country to equal treatment regardless of their opinion. But yes, I think that folks who believe they've come to that opinion ought to think very carefully, first of all, about how different it is from the American tradition; how it leads to a very different set of outcomes in the real world.

Conservative activists continue to pile on Gov. Mitch Daniels for suggesting a "truce" in the culture wars, with Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council citing this statement from Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values:

Unless he knows something we don’t, using the word “truce” when family values are under increasing attack can only mean surrender. Does he have knowledge that the other side is going to stop performing abortions during this “truce”? Are homosexual activists going to stop promoting same-sex marriage during this “truce”? Is what Governor Daniels really wants is for the pro-family movement to stop talking about his record so he can run for President?

For his part, McClusky suggests that Daniels ought to be trying to address fiscal issues by defunding groups that support reproductive choice:

If a President Daniels were to cut funding to these organizations as long as they performed and promoted abortions he could save taxpayers millions of dollars, while also possibly saving hundreds of thousands of lives every year. If he is serious about a “truce” on social issues he needs to make sure that he doesn’t continue taxpayer funding of one side during this so called “truce.” That is something nearly a decade of Republican rule in DC failed to do and would make him a hero of social and fiscal conservatives alike.

Meanwhile, Frank Cannon, who is the President of American Principles Project and Treasurer of the Susan B. Anthony List, calls Daniels' proposal a "profound insult to the public’s intelligence" and likens it to "asking the kid being pummeled by the schoolyard bully to stand down": 

The Hoosier governor’s truce talk is wrong on so many levels. It needlessly demeans one portion of the conservative coalition – the “ethnic, Catholic (and, more recently, evangelical) blue collar” vote that Ronald Reagan led into fealty with the GOP’s traditional hawks and economic conservatives. And social conservatives are not just a portion of that coalition – they hold views on issues like federal abortion funding and protecting the definition of marriage that represent a significant majority.

Second, calling for a truce on social issues is a little like asking the kid being pummeled by the schoolyard bully to stand down. All the kid is doing is holding his hands in front of his face to ward off the blows. Social conservatives did not launch campaigns to exploit the definition of marriage for their own gain, whatever that would mean. Instead, they have only fought to preserve the natural and perennial status of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. They have faced, and in most cases defeated, judicial elites who have sought to impose same-sex marriage on the populace.

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At the end of the day, Mitch Daniels’ truce talk is a profound insult to the public’s intelligence. Defenders of life in the womb and the marital bond cannot sit back while yet another administration tells them to take a pounding because “bigger issues” like excess government spending deserve all the attention.

Last week, when writing about the Religous Right's outrage over Gov. Mitch Daniels' suggestion that we needed to call a "truce" in the culture wars in order to focus on bigger problems, I predicted that Daniels would respond by claiming that he had been taken out of context or that he point was being misinterpreted.

That shows how much I know, because Mark Hemingway reports that yesterday Daniels called him to assure him that he is entirely serious: 

Daniels called me to say that he's dead serious about the need for the next president to declare a truce. "It wasn't something I just blurted out," he told me. "It's something I've been thinking about for a while."

He's emphasized the need to focus like a laser beam on the existential threats facing the country -- the two big issues he's previously identified being the war on terror and the country's precarious fiscal position. "We're going to need a lot more than 50.1 percent of the country to come together to keep from becoming Greece," he said.

He did, however, want to clarify that he's not just singling out controversial social issues. "I'm talking about all divisive issues," he said. Clear and unified priorities are the only way he sees the country rallying around common purposes.

When I pressed him, Daniels did seem to concede that perhaps he hadn't taken into account how the D.C. media would respond to his remarks by playing up the controversy. But Daniels repeatedly affirmed that this is a serious governing proposal, not an electoral strategy or a case where a politician tells people what he thinks they want to hear.

I think it is pretty obvious that this is not some sort of "electoral strategy or a case where a politician tells people what he thinks they want to hear" because this is exactly the opposite of what the Religious Right wants to hear, which would be an absolutely horrible electoral strategy.

On his radio program yesterday, the AFA 's Bryan Fischer weighed in on Gov. Mitch Daniels call for a "truce" in the culture war by quoting this passage from George Washington:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

Fischer then used that quote to call groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU both "unpatriotic" and "un-American":

Now what I want you to observe is that Washington had no hesitation in questioning the patriotism of anyone who would undermine either the indispensable support of religion or the indispensable support of morality for the simple reason, that he said in his words, you cannot experience "political prosperity" without them both.

And that's why I do question the patriotism of groups like Planned Parenthood - they are subverting morality. That's why I question the patriotism of groups like the ACLU, who are subverting the pillar of religion.

They are not patriots, ladies and gentlemen. They are unpatriotic and they are un-American ... Don't listen to me; that's according to George Washington.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has now responded to the outrage from the Religious Right to his statement that we need to call a "truce" in the culture wars in order to focus on economic issues.

And while Daniels is neither backing down or defending it, he does seem to think that the Religious Right ought to be able to discuss the suggestion like rational adults ... good luck with that approach:

Daniels, talking to reporters in Indiana, said his remarks were “just a suggestion,” and a reflection of the fact that he believes the nation has to focus on the soaring debt and national security threats.

“It’s an expression of the urgency I think all Americans should feel about certain other questions. The debt burden, which I think literally threatens not just our economy but America’s role in the world, and the threat of nuclear terror -- or weapons of mass destruction, I should say, in the hands of people who are perfectly willing to use them,” he said.

“I really believe that for the first time the future of the American experiment is at risk. It’s a thought that maybe we could agree to disagree. I picked the word truce because no one has to change their point of view, no one has to surrender. Just that we might simply try to come together, I think it will take that if we’re going to address what I believe are the most urgent problems of the country.”

Following up on my last post about Concerned Women for America responding "Never!" to Gov. Mitch Daniels statement that there needs to be a truce in the culture war so that the nation can focus on more important economic issues, now comes the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins voicing his own outrage at the suggestion:

In most parts of the country, sitting politicians aren't enjoying much popularity these days. Hoosier Governor Mitch Daniels (R) has been one exception. Some 590 miles away from the eye of Washington's storm, the Indiana leader is about as beloved as an elected official can be in this climate. His approval rating is consistently above 60%, prompting whispers that he might be "the man" for Republicans in 2012. Unfortunately, comments he made this week raise serious questions about his level of commitment to fundamental issues like life-leading many of us to wonder if he has the ability to lead a unified conservative movement.

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That's astonishing. Not only is he noncommittal about his role as a pro-life leader, but the Governor wouldn't even agree to a modest step like banning taxpayer-funded promotion of abortion overseas-which President Bush did on his first day in office with 65% of the country's support. Let's face it. These aren't fringe issues that stretch moderate America. They're mainstream ideals that an overwhelming majority of the nation espouses. I support the Governor 100% on the call for fiscal responsibility, but nothing is more fiscally responsible than ending the taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion promotion. More than 70% of our nation agrees that killing innocent unborn children with federal dollars is wrong. Yet stopping government-funded murder isn't a "genuine national emergency?" We cannot "save the republic," in Gov. Daniels' words, by killing the next generation. Regardless of what the Establishment believes, fiscal and social conservatism have never been mutually exclusive. Without life, there is no pursuit of happiness. Thank goodness the Founding Fathers were not timid in their leadership; they understood that "truce" was nothing more than surrender.

Anyone want to place a bet on how long it'll be before Daniels issues a "clarification," claiming that his statement was either taken out of context or is being misinterpreted?  I give it a day.

The Weekly Standard has a long profile of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and the question of whether he plans to make a run for the White House in 2012.

If Daniels does plan on running, there are a few issues the might temper support from the Religious Right, like his 1970 arrest for pot possession or his three year divorce and eventual remarriage to his wife Cheri ... but those sorts of things would probably pale in comparison to Daniels' view that a "truce" needs to be called in the culture wars so that our nation can focus on economic issues: 

“There are things that I would advance as a candidate that the playbook says are folly—suicidal,” he said. “We’d have to fundamentally change all the welfare and entitlement programs. What Bush tried to do [in proposing private accounts for Social Security] was mild compared to what needs to be done. You have to have a completely new compact for people under a certain age, for Medicare and Social Security. You’re gonna have to dramatically cut spending across the whole government, including, by the way, national defense. When Bush arrived, we were spending $300 billion on national defense, and he thought that was plenty. Now it’s, what, $800 billion?”

Beyond the debt and the deficit, in Daniels’s telling, all other issues fade to comparative insignificance. He’s an agnostic on the science of global warming but says his views don’t matter. “I don’t know if the CO2 zealots are right,” he said. “But I don’t care, because we can’t afford to do what they want to do. Unless you want to go broke, in which case the world isn’t going to be any greener. Poor nations are never green.”

And then, he says, the next president, whoever he is, “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until the economic issues are resolved. Daniels is pro-life himself, and he gets high marks from conservative religious groups in his state.

If there is one thing that drives social conservatives crazy, it is the insistance from Republican and conservative leaders that their agenda has to perpetually take a back seat to the party's economic platform ... so the idea of Religious Right leaders supporting a candidate who is calling for that agenda to be set aside in favor of focusing on economic issues seems rather unlikely: 

This morning, at the Heritage Foundation, I asked Daniels if that meant the next president shouldn't push issues like stopping taxpayer funding of abortion in Obamacare or reinstating the Mexico City Policy banning federal funds to overseas groups that perform abortions. Daniels replied that we face a "genuine national emergency" regarding the budget and that "maybe these things could be set aside for a while. But this doesn't mean anybody abandons their position at all. Everybody just stands down for a little while, while we try to save the republic."

To clarify whether Daniels simply wants to de-emphasize these issues or actually not act on them, I asked if, as president, he would issue an executive order to reinstate Reagan's "Mexico City Policy" his first week in office. (Obama revoked the policy during his first week in office.) Daniels replied, "I don't know."