I watched the second head-to-head-to-head last night, and, stealing from Sports Illustrated's Peter King, here are the "things I think I think":
1. If Jill Long-Thompson mentions her M.B.A. and PhD again, I'm going to scream. I don't know what poll she looked at that says saying this line gains her votes, but I don't buy it. In a vacuum, if I'm looking for someone who can solve an economic or business management problem, I'll take someone with an M.B.A. over a guy who has a GED. BUT nobody believes Daniels is an imbecile, so JLT needs to show me how the degrees translate in a better economic solution for this to make sense. She has yet to do this.
2. Mitch Daniels sure seems like a hothead. He was visibly irritated every time criticism was made about him. Also, I think Mitch Daniels can sometimes be cowardly. When he had the chance to say that he would do away with township government, he said, "These (the bi-partisan government reform commission's recommendations) are not my recommendations." He did say he would "look at" the recommendations and "take them seriously." Why the hedge?
3. In contrast to Daniels, Andy Horning told a guy who works as a logger that government has no business being in the natural resources/park management business, even though he personally cares greatly about the environment. Frankly, Andy Horning wins every debate he's in. He's the only one who articulates a clear philosophy, he's amazingly folksy while also being wonkish, which is an astonishing feat, and he is the only who will tell you bad news right to your face. I never hear Horning give an answer where I say, "That's a political answer." I can't say the same for either Daniels or JLT.
If the Libertarian Party ever finds a George Soros-type donor to give ten million dollars to Andy Horning, Indiana will have its first third-party Governor.
4 comments:
It's easy to speak the truth bluntly when you have no chance of winning. I suspect he'd be significantly more circumspect in his answers if he were in legitimate contention.
He had the nomination for Congress as a republican and still could not beat Julia Carson. I, too, am sick of the MBA and PHD comments.....enough already!!!
Anon 7:31...that's the old P.J. O'Rourke quote I use all the time. In his GREAT book Parliament of Whores, he writes, "Jesse Jackson was the only Democrat who came to Atlanta
(1984 Democratic National Convention)with real ideas. That's because in the American political system, you're only allowed to have real ideas if it's absolutely guaranteed that you can't win an election."
But wouldn't you agree that it's sad that someone who is blunt can't be in contention?
As far as Horning running for Congress, nobody was going to win that race over Julia, so I'm not sure it's a fair comparison.
Yeah, MMM is on his way to victory. JLT attached her wagon to the Obama campaign, which may decide in a couple weeks that Ohio is a riper target and shift resources... what's Jill left with then? She certainly isn't making a mark in these "debates."
I actually agree with something Gary Welsh wrote yesterday in response to one of his Libertarian commenters, something along the lines of it being easy to be against something when you've never had to govern.
The Libertarian philosophy is very black and white, while governing is a very grey area. Sometimes I really think it would be great to replace what we have with a parliamentary system, then the parties can be as black and white as they want and simply form governing coalitions.
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