The party leadership tapped Daniels to give the GOP response to the State of the Union Address — and his performance shows why he would be such a perfect choice for the Establishment and a disastrous choice for the party.

Daniels’ speech referred to himself and his followers as the “loyal opposition,” twice. “The status of ‘loyal opposition’ imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities,” he intoned. Not the least of these is “to show respect for the presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists. Republicans tonight salute our president, for instance, for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11.” [1]

Eschewing any ideological differences and downplaying the gulf separating the two parties, Daniels said, “The challenges aren’t matters of ideology, or party preference; the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers are purely practical.” This calls to mind another former governor turned presidential candidate: Michael Dukakis. In his 1988 convention speech, Dukakis said, “This election isn’t about ideology. It’s about competence.” A bland, technocratic governor was a loser then (thank God), and would be a loser again today.

Like Dukakis, Daniels looked stiff, dull, gray, ashen, and virtually lifeless. Worse, his address dredged up the worst compromising, middle-of-the-road tradition of the Republican Establishment’s ghosts of lost campaigns past.

What does Governor Daniels want to do? He said, “we must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century respectively, it’s not surprising that they need some repairs.”

That has been the GOP Establishment’s crie de coeur since Alf Landon promised to make the New Deal run better in 1936. (He lost the biggest Electoral College landslide in history.) His call was picked up by Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and John McCain – a team that, between them, won one presidential election.

Daniels went on to blame his own party. He siad, “to make such action happen, we also must work, in ways we Republicans have not always practiced, to bring Americans together.” He added, “We will speak the language of unity.”

“Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait,” he insisted.

Daniels is the same man who called for a social issues truce — which always means a conservative unilateral surrender, as the forces of social revolution stream forward.

His feckless address quickly made an unforced error. He condemned Obama’s “extremism,” because “unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb.” Of course, the incandescent light bulb ban was the act of a Republican, Michigan’s Rep. Fred Upton, who later changed his mind on the idea. It was signed by George W. Bush, Daniels’ former boss, whose allies are now promoting him for president and publicly goading him to enter the race. (Daniels was budget director under George W. Bush, when spending continued to surge.)

Despite these massive flaws — or rather because of them — Charles Krauthammer called Daniels’ address “one of the best speeches I’ve heard as a response to the State of the Union.” (Despite his stance as resident Solomon on Fox News, Krauthammer is a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual advocate who formerly wrote speeches for Walter Mondale.)

The unearned plaudits continued. On Wednesday, on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, pollster Frank Luntz tried to prove Daniels’ viability by showing how popular his comments on the “loyal opposition” were – with Democrats. (I’m certain they were.) He added that it was a presentation “without the aggressiveness” [sic.] often seen when other Republicans speak. (That it was.)

Daniels is The Great RINO Hope. Mitch Daniels and Haley Barbour were the GOP Establishment’s bush-league team, after Jeb Bush could not run and Tim Pawlenty floundered.

Barbour’s recent pardon scandal shows how RINOs govern: badly. Daniels’ speech shows how RINOs campaign: weakly. The natural will to survive within any conservative should tell him how the RINO Establishment deserves to be treated: brutally.

ENDNOTES:

1. Daniels also honored Obama’s “strong family commitment” – which I give him. In one year, he adopted a new dog, moved in with his mother-in-law, and stopped smoking. Even someone as opposed to his policies as I am can appreciate that. And Obama has certainly shown solicitous care for his big, illegal family members, like Aunt Zeituni and Uncle Omar.

NJ: At the end of 2012, a number of major tax provisions, including the Bush-era cuts, are set to expire. Do you have any predictions?

NORQUIST: We’re focused on the fact that there is this Damocles sword hanging over people’s head. What you don’t know is who will be in charge when all of this will happen. I think when we get through this election cycle, we’ll have a Republican majority, [though] not necessarily a strong majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House. The majority in the House will continue to be a Reagan majority, a conservative majority. Boehner never has to talk his delegation going further to the right.

If the Republicans have the House, Senate, and the presidency, I’m told that they could do an early budget vote—a reconciliation vote where you extend the Bush tax cuts out for a decade or five years. You take all of those issues off the table, and then say, “What do you want to do for tax reform?”

Then, the question is: “OK, what do we do about repatriation and all of the interesting stuff?” And, if you have a Republican president to go with a Republican House and Senate, then they pass the [Paul] Ryan plan [on Medicare].

NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?

NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress. (Emphasis added.)

Grover is no fly-by-night gadfly. He is one of the most powerful figures on the right-flank of the Republican Party. As his profile on Wikipedia states:

Norquist was listed as one of the five primary leaders of the post-Goldwater conservative movement by Nina Easton in her 2000 book, “Gang of Five”. Working with eventual Speaker Newt Gingrich, Norquist was one of the co-authors of the 1994 Contract with America, and helped to rally grassroots efforts, which Norquist later chronicled in his book Rock the House. Norquist also served as a campaign staff member on the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Republican Platform Committees.

Simply put, when Grover speaks, D.C. Republicans listen.

Norquist is a single-issue conservative. Although he has been associated with other intellectual undercurrents and movements — for instance, his support for anti-Communists in the 1980s and his more recent service in the National Rifle Association — he eats, sleeps, and breathes tax policy. In this week’s comments, he has laid down a potent marker for the president: If Obama goes forward with his plan for “job-killing tax increases” in 2013, Norquist will see that he is consigned to an early retirement.

It’s enough to make me wish momentarily that Obama had already raised taxes.

The president, he went around the table with all the senior people including the Chiefs of Staff. He said, “I have to make this decision. What is your opinion?” He started with the National Security adviser, the Secretary of State, and he ended with me. Every single person in that room hedged their bet, except Leon Panetta. Leon said, “GO!” Everyone else said “49/51,” this…

It got to me. Joe what do you think? I said, “You know, I didn’t know we have so many economists around the table. We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there.”

He walked out and said, “I’ll give you my decision.” The next morning, he came down to the diplomatic entrance getting in the helicopter, I believe to get to Michigan, and he turned to Tom Donnel and said…”Go.”

Knowing that, as loyal as everyone is around that table, when pressed and when books are written later that would’ve said, “I didn’t tell him to do that.”

Why would a politically ambitious climber like Joe Biden say something so self-defeating? Because he realizes his only hope for being elected president is to serve two terms as vice president. The gaffe-prone veep of a failed president seldom gets elected: ask Walter Mondale. But the vice president of a two-term president enters the race with substantial advantages. (George H.W. Bush, Al Gore.) But Obama’s presidency has been a low-tide for the nation he “leads.” Incomes and employment rates are down; government dependence is up; and American morale is barreling toward hopelessness.

The only successes he has had, which he wants to campaign on, are in foreign policy, especially Osama bin Laden’s death. Since ordering the team to go forward is the most obvious call a president could make, he has to bolster his “gutsy” call by inventing voices of dissent that begged him not to take this bold, unprecedented step.

Enter the veep.

Biden told the crowd that Obama understood “literally the presidency” was at stake, so “he pulled the trigger.”

“This guy doesn’t lead from behind,” he said. “He just leads.”

In fact, Obama dithered for 16 hours while the military waited for him to make a decision. As they pushed him for an answer, Obama replied, “I’m not going to tell you what my decision is now – I’m going to go back and think about it some more. I’m going to make a decision soon.” Ever since SEAL Team 6 did its duty, he has presented himself as a combination of Rambo, Chuck Norris, and the Lone Ranger rolled into one.

Biden and Valerie Jarrett both urged him against the mission. One is a knave, the other is a fool, and their boss is mistaken if he believes the American people believe he is either a decisive leader or worthy of the office he holds.

I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not. He constantly says that our Constitution is passé, and he ignores it as you know and does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim and my question is, why isn’t something being done to get him out of government? He has no legal right to be calling himself president

Santorum responded that Obama’s “recess” appointments would cause him to “draw the line.” He said he may name that woman his first czar.

That’s much different than John McCain, who called Obama “a family man” on the campaign trail in 2008. For some reason, the compliment did not get McCain elected president.

More Job Training Programs on Top of All the Other Redundant and Ineffective Programs – David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D.

Tonight, President Obama called for the federal government to engage in new job training and employment initiatives, especially for the hard to employ.

Before Congress signs off on any new initiatives, we must recognize that President Obama wants to add several new programs on top of the 47 job-training programs already operated by the federal government. Further complicating the matter, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has concluded that there is little evidence that these programs are effective.

When federal job training programs have been evaluated using random assignment to job training and control groups, these scientifically rigorous evaluations overwhelmingly find that these programs are ineffective. For example, Job Corps, the federal government’s flagship program for hard-to-employ youth, has been found to be ineffective on several measures:

• Compared to non-participants, Job Corps participants were less likely to earn a high school diploma (7.5 percent versus 5.3 percent);
• Compared to non-participants, Job Corps participants were no more likely to attend or complete college;
• Four years after participating in the evaluation, the average weekly earnings of Job Corps participants was only $22 more than the average weekly earnings of the control group; and
• Employed Job Corps participants earned $0.22 more in hourly wages compared to employed control group members.

Instead of adding new programs to an already bloated job training system, the President and Congress should stop wasting taxpayer dollars by terminating these programs.

You can read all the reactions of Heritage Foundation scholars to the 2012 State of the Union speech here.

Presidents often use State of the Union Addresses to articulate a more comprehensive ideology of government or society. In the 2012 SOTU, what did President Barack Obama hold up as his ideal? Military life.

Obama took the name of the armed forces in vain, twice, simultaneously claiming undeserved credit for killing Osama bin Laden and forecasting the way his opponents should fall in line, salute, sit down, shut up, and follow his commands. Soldiers, he said, trust each other. “They don’t obsess over their differences,” Obama enthused. “They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.”

“Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example,” he said.

At the end of his speech, he returned to his theme, making special mention of the way he degraded the U.S. armed forces for social engineering purposes:

Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one nation, leaving no one behind.

Exactly who is the commander-in-chief in Obama’s model? Whose orders are unquestioningly executed without regard for personal reservations about their wisdom or likelihood for success? Obama noted in the Situation Room where he quivered in fear after finally ordering the troops to take out Osama, he “sat next to Bob Gates, a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.”

America’s decision makers in this fantasy are Barack Obama, a radical anti-American socialist; Hillary Clinton, a European welfare state socialist; and a Republican willing to go along with their plans.

Do we want to live the military life? The dehumanizing basic training, designed to break the individual and mold him into an element of a larger collective and hierarchical force? The rigid regimental conformity imposed from above upon all? The rationing and lack of individual choice over one’s own fate? The harsh punishment meted out to those who disobey?

Obama has stoked the idea of a civilian defense corps and turned shoppers into snitches with his “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign. Collectivism made its greatest strides in the United States during the Great Depression and World War II. A military mindset reinforces Obama’s regal pretensions and siege mentality. Americans interested in maintaining constitutional liberties should want nothing to do with his plans or ideology.

As the late folk troubadour Phil Ochs once sang, “Before the end even treason might be worth a try. This country is too young to die.”

Addressing his million-strong job deficit and the need for energy, Obama promised to continue funding Green energy ventures in the full knowledge that many will turn out ot be failures. “Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.” The Solyndra debacle cost taxpayers half-a-billion dollars when the company went bankrupt, and an additional $14.3 million to provide special assistance for the 1,100 workers who lost their jobs. It was but one of at least 11 similar programs. Nonetheless, the firm is considering paying plush bonuses to those who took the firm under.

Paraphrased, last night Obama said, “I draw the line in the sand, and I say Solyndra now, Solyndra tomorrow, and Solyndra forever!”

He made a similarly unequivocal statement about executive force. After making a half-hearted plea for Congress to rubber-stamp his agenda in the style of Nancy Pelosi’s zombies, he vowed: “I intend to fight obstruction with action.” He went on to name-check Richard Cordray, the “recess” appointment Obama said would “look out for” American consumers. The president has made “We Can’t Wait!” his slogan as he rules by executive order and regulations. Apparently the royal treatment will continue in 2012.

He promised to grant his regal favor to “talented, hardworking students” who, it just so happens, “aren’t yet American citizens.”

“I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration,” he said truthfully. He pretended, “That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.” In fact, border crossings are down because the economy has precipitously declined under his watch, decimating Mexican hopes for advancement as much as Americans’.

Obama then pushed Congress to work on “comprehensive immigration reform,” one of the Open Borders Lobby’s euphemisms for providing amnesty to 13-20 million illegal immigrants. The plan has been hailed by Democrats and union socialists alike as a way to create a new “progressive” voting majority in the United States and assure the perpetual election of liberal Democrats.

Obama continued, “If election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country.” That is a call to pass the DREAM Act, which Congress has rejected for years and which most Americans oppose. It makes stunningly little sense to grant preferential treatment to millions of illegals at a time when so many of our fellow countrymen — who are traditionally the president’s constituency and prime concern — are out of work. Nonetheless, he promises to keep the amnesty moving forward.

Of course, two – and arguably three – of these are impeachable offenses. The Republicans’ lack of spine has encouraged the president, not only to persist in lawless behavior, but to boast that he will carry out another year of outrages in the most-watched political speech of the year.

Way to go, guys.

Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address joined his other public remarks as an exercise in virtual reality. In addition to its jaundiced view of the free market and overly rosy view of the present economic crisis, his speech contained a number of factual errors, misleading statements, and outright lies.

1. “The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.”

Barack Obama took pains to present himself as a foreign policy success, the president who “got” bin Laden, ended the war in Iraq, and is winding down the conflict in Afghanistan. Far from gaining momentum, though, the Obama administration is negotiating with elements of the Taliban now – the moderate, “secular” Taliban, no doubt – even offering to release Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay, to extricate ourselves from eleven years of nation-building in the Muslim world, the fruits of which will crumble into dust the moment we are no longer present to enforce compliance. A recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states, after the U.S. pullout, the Taliban will control large areas of the Afghan countryside, where the U.S.-sponsored government has never made headway.

2. In his brief reference to ObamaCare, he said: “our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program.”

ObamaCare requires all Americans to be covered by health insurance by August 2014, whether through private insurers or the government. (The individual mandate fines those who opt not to pursue either option.) Half of the 34 million uninsured to be added to the rolls will be enrolled in Medicaid, at taxpayer expense and under government control.

3. “Women should earn equal pay for equal work.”

A 2010 survey of 2,000 communities found young, unmarried women earn an average of eight percent more than young men – in some cities 20 percent more than their male counterparts. The remaining “disparities” largely derive from comparing apples to oranges. Women, who often take maternity leave and otherwise tend to the home, regularly put in fewer hours and hence receive less pay and fewer promotions than more dedicated employees. Even these disparities will likely disappear as women continue to outpace men in higher education.

4. “Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion.”

Obama’s policies have increased the national deficit more than nearly all his predecessors combined, and there is no indication his spending habits will change. Earlier this month, he asked Congress to raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion; the House shot him down. Increasing the deficit differs substantially from increasing the deficit.

5. “We lost four million jobs before I came into office, and four million more before our policies took full effect.”

In fact, the nation shed four million jobs — actually, more than four million — over the first nine months of the Obama administration, long after the official “end” of the recession. That is eight months after his $1 trillion stimulus bill passed. Obama later claimed job losses proved his stimulus plan worked.

That’s four million jobs lost on Obama’s watch and three million created.

6. “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen….Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories.”

Ford has indeed produced a success story. It also refused to receive any bailout money. Thanks to the government-arranged restructuring of which Obama boasts, Fiat, an Italian company, will own a majority share of General Motors. Ford’s American success story has nothing to do with Obama’s policies, while his plans for GM assure it is no longer an American auto manufacturer.

7. “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs.”

Former New Mexico governor and jilted Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson wrote, “Only in the twilight zone that is Washington could a president who has bailed out and stimulated our economy to death stand in the Capitol and declare there should be ‘no bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs’. Can anyone spell GM or TARP or Solyndra?”

8. Obama said politicians need to “lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction.”

So said the man who promised “hand-to-hand combat” against Republicans.

9. “A world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.”

This would come as news to China and, in some respects, Russia. Instead of a tight embargo, the United States and Israel are apparently engaged in a low-level war with Iran, arranging or tacitly approving the assassination of its nuclear scientists.

Given the numerous factual inaccuracies, members of Congress showed remarkable restraint. None shouted, “You lie!” this year. Out loud.

It seems the smartest person was Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-CO, who chose not to attend.

GOP officials have reported that Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses by 34 votes. However, votes in eight precincts will not be counted — and Mitt Romney lost seven of the eight precincts in 2008.

Officials say these eight districts did not report their results on the official “Form E” receipt. Several of the precincts overwhelmingly favored Mike Huckabee four years ago, with three of them awarding Mitt Romney zero votes. An analysis of their 2008 Iowa caucuses results shows:

• Cerro Gordo County’s Mason City Ward 2, Precinct 3. In 2008, Mike Huckabee won with 11 votes; Ron Paul, 10; Mitt Romney, zero (Fred Thompson, 4; John McCain, 5)
• Emmet County’s Estherville Ward 2. Huckabee had 5 votes; Paul, 1; Romney 6 (Thompson, 5; McCain, 4)
• Franklin County’s Geneva-Reeve. Huckabee won 7 votes; Paul, 6; Romney, zero (Thompson, 4)
• Lee County’s Fort Madison 4A. Huckabee won 17 votes; Paul, zero; Romney, 4 (Thompson, 7)
• Lee County’s Fort Madison 4B. Huckabee won 6 votes; Paul, 1; Romney, zero (Thompson, 1)
• Lee County’s Franklin-Cedar-Marion. Huckabee won 26 votes; Paul, 5; Romney, 21 (Thompson, 9; McCain, 9)
• Lee County’s Washington-Green Bay-Denmark. Huckabee won 32 votes; Paul, 12; Romney, 13 (Thompson, 19; McCain, 11)
• Pocahontas County’s Center-South Roosevelt-North Lincoln. Huckabee won 9 votes; Paul, 6; Romney, 2 (Thompson, 2; McCain, 2)

Total: Huckabee, 113 votes; Paul, 41 votes; Romney, 46 votes.

In 2008, Fred Thompson garnered 51 votes in these precincts. John McCain, who did not seriously contest the states, got 72. Three voters preferred California Congressman Duncan Hunter, and there was one vote for Rudy Giuliani.

That means there were 167 evangelical/conservative votes; 41 Constitutionalist votes; 119 “moderate” votes.

Even correcting for Romney’s superior 2008 showing, it seems likely these counties would further skew the 2012 election for Rick Santorum.

The original results showed Mitt Romney had won in Iowa by a margin of eight votes. But yesterday, Iowa GOP officials announced a “final” vote total shows Santorum won at least 34 votes more votes than Mitt. The new results will record 29,839 votes for Santorum and 29,805 for Romney.

“Many people were skeptical” on election night, said Gretchen Carlson on “Fox and Friends” Thursday morning. But as I noted, absolutely nobody was skeptical about the election night shenanigans. No anchor expressed concern about the series of dubious-sounding voting snafus — including a story about someone absconding with ballots and driving the results around Iowa’s backroads in his pickup truck. Instead, slap-happy Fox News’ analysts played the stories off as a joke and eagerly reported Karl Rove’s scoop that Mitt Romney’s vote had been “undercounted.”

A few days later, a Ron Paul supporter came forward with information that his private record of his precinct’s vote totals did not match the numbers party officials reported. These alone, Edward True said, would have shifted the race from Romney to Santorum.

Even now, eight precincts cannot certify their vote — precincts, as I note, that did not support Romney in 2008. Matt Strawn, chairman of the Iowa GOP, said he had no idea how these votes were lost.

But the problem is worse than that. The Washington Post points out, deep in an piece in yesterday’s issue, that the numbers reported to the party on each voting precinct’s “Form E” did not match the actual vote totals in 131 precincts. That’s seven percent of Iowa’s 1,774 precincts. What’s more, 100 precincts’ Form E returns did not comply with state instructions:

The precinct chair and precinct secretary were both to sign the results verified by witnesses on caucus night. But results for some precincts came in on pieces of paper other than the official forms. Many more had only one signature, or the wrong signature (say, from a county chair). Another 18 documents had no signatures at all.

All were accepted, party officials said.

This article details the caucuses’ problems on a county-by-county basis this year, and at a marco level going back to 1976.

“Does anyone have a problem with that this morning?” Carlson asked. “Maybe we should look into the process.”

Maybe, indeed. Romney’s loss to Mike Huckabee in 2008 derailed his campaign. The news that Romney prevailed, even by eight votes, gave Mitt an aura of inevitability, a sense buoyed by Romney’s long-expected victory in the New Hampshire primaries. Santorum’s “tie,” though endearing in an underdog sense, left him looking like an unsuccessful flavor-of-the-week, Michele Bachmann in a sweater vest.

By the time the news broke, Santorum was mired in fourth place in South Carolina.

Yesterday’s announcement should have breathed life into his campaign. Instead, Rick Perry’s abrupt exit and endorsement of Newt Gingrich kept Santorum out of the spotlight. (Perry, who made a compelling candidate on paper, stepped on viable conservative challengers twice. His announcement deflated Michele Bachmann’s victory in the Iowa Straw Poll, and now his exit buries Santorum’s victory in the caucuses.)

John Stineman, an Iowa Republican operative, said the results reversal “will be a story and Santorum will seize upon it, but it won’t change the current political narrative.”

Gretchen Carlson agreed, “Does it make any difference to the race going forward? Probably not.”

The momentum of a second socially conservative candidate defeating Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses and the mass endorsement of evangelical leaders in South Carolina would have solidified Rick Santorum as the Christian Right’s anti-Romney, especially in South Carolina. Instead, the brilliant but less reliably conservative Newt Gingrich is surging based on outstanding debate performances, and Santorum is hanging on for dear life.

More importantly, a second rejection of Romney in Iowa would have raised questions about his appeal to the GOP base and spelled a much different narrative for the former governor. Conservatives would have rallied earlier. Santorum may not have gained enough support to win, but Romney have been placed on the defensive — where, as his debate performances stretching back to 2008 prove, ul ar particularly ineffective.

The Republican Party’s conservative base has been betrayed twice — once by the media, and once by indefensible behavior from within.