Requiem For A Candidate

I have been waxing rhapsodic about Mitch Daniels for two years. I was really hoping he would run for president, and after his good friend Haley Barbour took himself out of the race, I was sure Mitch would run. On Sunday, as I stood in front of my TV with my latte in one hand and my New York Times in the other, someone on one of the morning shows announced that Mitch Daniels would not be seeking the nomination in 2012.  My knees buckled and my heart sank.

Mr. Daniels, the current governor of Indiana, has been very successful in keeping Indiana’s finances in the black at a time when so many states are drowning in a sea of red.  He worked his magic with good policy decisions: he privatized a toll road and implemented a health-care system where people had “skin in the game” that has saved money and been very popular.  He has managed to bring the people of Indiana together with his soft-spoken, yet wicked-smart ways.

Mr. Daniels has none of the fierce partisan rhetoric that you expect from a potential presidential candidate.  In fact, he deigned to upset the republican base by suggesting that we “call a truce” on social issues. I agree with Mr. Daniels: government’s focus should be on economics and foreign policy, not morality. Leaders should exemplify morality, not preach or legislate it.

Interestingly, the far right is littered with candidates that espouse family values while carrying on with their mistresses.  While Mr. Daniels wants to focus on economic issues and not moral ones, his personal life would make any girl’s heart flutter. He raised his four daughters after he and his wife divorced and she married another man and moved to California.  Four years later he remarried his wife. When the press speculated that Daniels wouldn’t run because his wife’s four-year hiatus from their marriage would be under scrutiny, Mr. Daniels chivalrously declared that she had kept a house in Indiana to be close to her daughters and was the “best mother any daughter could ever hope to have.”

There are other good candidates in the 2012 race: Mitt Romney has a spotless reputation as a family man and is erudite. Tim Pawlenty is from a humble blue-collar background and should be able to relate to middle-America, and Jon Huntsman is a solid family man with good foreign policy experience — all good men, but I’m sure that Mr. Daniels would have raised the level of the debate. At a time when our country, in fact the world, faces so many challenges, more intelligent and measured voices are needed.

Daniels announced he would not run saying, “I love my country, but I love my family more.” Anyone running for public office should be scrutinized to the max, but their families should be left alone; whether they’ve made mistakes or just don’t want to live under a microscope, if they aren’t running they should not be part of the debate.

Character counts — we need more leaders that exemplify good moral and ethical behavior. However, we are losing good would-be public servants because we have a 24-hour news cycle with a voracious appetite. We have to stop feeding this monster by ignoring irrelevant salacious tidbits and start demanding relevant facts presented in a civil fashion.

Pundits are saying that Tim Pawlenty is the big winner with Mitch Daniels getting out of the race. I disagree. Barack Obama is the big winner. But more importantly, America is the loser when we focus on the wrong things, or the wrong people.