Tag: Mitch Daniels

The Curse of the SOTU Response

Buck Banks

The Bobby Jindal slow-motion train wreck.
The Bobby Jindal slow-motion train wreck.
First Read suggests having pity on Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) for being picked to give the GOP response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. Why? Because of the curse of the State of the Union responders. Here are the last eight:

2007: Jim Webb (out of politics, although he’s making a quixotic presidential bid)

2008: Kathleen Sebelius (Obamacare rollout!)

2009: Bobby Jindal (uncomfortably awkward intro, his star has fallen)

2010: Bob McDonnell (felony conviction)

2011: Paul Ryan (losing VP nominee, though he’s still a top GOP voice)

2012: Mitch Daniels (out of politics)

2013: Marco Rubio (the great water incident, incident, maybe running for the White House)

2014: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (safe – so far)

Republicans Chose Bush’s Budget Czar for SOTU Rebuttal – Mitch Daniels’ Message: Doom, Gloom and Mourning in America

Jon Ponder

What were Republicans thinking when they gave Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who served as George W. Bush’s first budget czar, the job of rebutting Pres. Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday? During Daniels’ tenure as head of the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. annual surplus of $236 billion was turned into a deficit of $400 billion.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is to make Mitt Romney the next president of the United States.”
– GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, October 2010 (amended)

This man has no credibility on any topic. If there ever were accountability on the right, he would be working in the mail room at a conservative “thimk” tank, not running one of the 50 states.

The paradox is that, as recently as last week, Bill Kristol, formerly Dan Quayle’s brain and now the editor of the neocon propaganda sheet, The Weekly Standard, was beseeching Daniels to make a late entry into the presidential race. This provides yet more evidence, though none is needed, that Bill Kristol is seriously delusional.

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