Mitch Daniels wants to run for president. (yawn)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to The Huffington Post:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels wants to run for president and is not in the process of convincing himself to do it, a close adviser said. The last hurdle remaining is ongoing discussions between him and his wife, Cheri Daniels, over whether she is ready to face questions about their past.

"I think he would like to do it," the Daniels adviser told The Huffington Post by phone. "I actually think he'd have a decent chance of getting the nomination."

Daniels is relatively sane by Republican standards and his emphasis on economic policy would certainly play well to voters' primary concerns these days, but there's no way he wins.

Whatever his conservative cred on the economy, he's an old-school sort of Republican, a moderate (of sorts, at least by current GOP standards) in the style of George H.W. Bush, or perhaps Jack Kemp and that ilk, the sort of Republican who used to run the party. As I wrote back in February:

In terms of the Republican nomination, this isn't 2008, when a moderate could win as the sitting vice president to continue the Reagan presidency (Jeb's dad), or 1996, when a long-time leading establishment figure could win to face a popular president at a time of economic health (Dole), or 2000, when a safe conservative could win after eight years of Clinton and things generally looking good both domestically and internationally (Jeb's brother), or 2008, when another long-time establishment figure, if also something of a former maverick, could win with the party bitterly divided after eight years of Bush II, defeating a fairly weak primary field (McCain).

This is, or will be, 2012, and, as we saw last year, and as we continue to see now, the Republican Party has changed. It has moved, and is moving, further and further to the right and the Tea Party has become a major player across the country, booting out even credible hardcore conservatives who haven't met their far-right agenda or conspiratorial predilections. The Tea Party has its members on Capitol Hill now, but it's bigger in the base -- and you have to win the base to win the nomination. And it's not just the Tea Party. While there is significant overlap, the Republican Party is also the party of the Birthers. And of course it's not just fiscally but socially conservative in the extreme.

And Daniels just doesn't cut it. He's raised taxes, after, even going so far as to propose a tiny tax increase on the wealthy (a one percent increase for one year) that was rejected by his own party. And while he's socially conservative, he's not an activist social conservative. 

So, yeah, good luck.

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