The Washington Times ran a fantastic article about Our Man Mitch today, and it was one of those articles which made me genuinely feel sorry for people who don’t live in our state. It also made me feel really super smart, because it said that “Except among the conservative movement’s cognoscenti, Mr. Daniels is not on the list of usual suspects in barroom and living-room speculation about likely 2012 Republican presidential candidates.” Did you guys see that??? Daisy and I are officially COGNOSCENTI. That means that we’re super smart (although admittedly, I had to look that word up). 
The quotes of Mitch’s, scattered throughout the article, are gems as usual. About taxing people, Mitch said this: “The essence of our nation is the protection of individual liberties. That means, for example, never take a dollar from a free citizen through the coercion of taxation without a very legitimate purpose. And then we have a solemn duty to spend that dollar as carefully as possible, because when we took it we diminished that person’s freedom. Otherwise, that citizen could spend that dollar on something he or she chose. This is an obligation of everybody who serves in government.”
It’s simple yet firmly-held convictions like that which make Mitch such an effective leader. And while he still insists he isn’t running in 2012, he is encouraging others to do so who share his top priorities:
1. Tackling a “colossally unsustainable [national] debt load — an unfair, even immoral burden we’ve deposited on our young people.”
2. “The threat of Islamic fundamentalism coupled with its ability to take advantage of modern technology.”
3. ”Our reliance on energy purchased from people who use the money in ways contrary to American interests.”
Just compare and contrast that with the Democratic agenda of socialized medicine, penalties on energy producing companies, and spending like there’s no tomorrow.
And despite his many accomplishments in office, Mitch refuses to toot his own horn. His answer to how he turned the state of Indiana around and reduced spending to the degree that he did is simply, “We didn’t have a choice.”
HOW MUCH do you wish that national politicians worked like this?
You’re probably wondering about the blonde moment I referenced in my post title. Yeah. I was at the state capitol today with my Tea Party connection and our photographer getting some pictures done for the calendar we told you about a couple of weeks ago. And totally unexpectedly, Our Man Mitch was on his way to go work out, and stopped by for a quick chat. And as I got him up to speed on the calendar situation, I told him that we were hoping to use a couple of photos we’d seen of him on his motorcycle taken by the House photographer. And he said that’d be great, and that I could get access to bunches more if we needed them. And so you know what I said? I said, “YAY! So, how do we go about getting permission from the photographer to use the pictures?”
This is when Mitch looked at me, with his cute little raised eyebrows and shrugged up shoulders – the kind of look that you might give someone who just said the dumbest thing ever – and said, “It’s ok to use the pictures.” And I was all embarassed and stuff, and muttered something about how OF COURSE it’s ok because he’s the Governor and probably has some pull in this particular area.
GAWD.
Anyway, my point is that you should really read that article about Mitch that I linked at the top of this post, because it’s awesome.
