"Busy day at the CFPB. Digging into the details."

Busy day at the @CFPB. Digging into the details. pic.twitter.com/yfs0gmh28F

— Mick Mulvaney (@CFPBDirector) November 28, 2017

I'm glad Mick Mulvaney — who won a big lawsuit yesterday — has such an unprepossessing office.

That's the first time I've used the word "unprepossessing" in the entire 50,000+ posts on this blog. I did quote it once, in "A 'balding, blunt, unprepossessing, listed-at-5-foot-7 policy wonk would be a strong contender to take on President Barack Obama...." That was in 2010, and the unprepossessing guy — "the un-Obama" — was Mitch Daniels, whom I'd hope to see get the GOP nomination in 2012. I was interested in moving away from adulation of an icon and toward humility and modesty and workmanlike ordinariness. That didn't happen in 2012 and it sure didn't happen in 2016. I don't know why our politics has gotten so over-inflated and dramatic. I can't answer that. I'm just saying I like Mick Mulvaney's office. And by "office," I mean the physical place, not the abstraction of power.

Bruce Rauner, "denounced by union leaders, some of whom say they fear he will try to be the next Mitch Daniels... or a knockoff of Gov. Scott Walker..."

In the NYT: "Union Leaders Gird for Battle Against Republican Running for Governor of Illinois."

While struggles over the role of unions have boiled over in recent years in Republican-held Midwestern states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, a fight in Illinois, President Obama’s home state and a Democratically controlled union stronghold, marks new ground. His Democratic opponent in November, Gov. Pat Quinn, is seen as vulnerable....

“I’m not anti-union,” [Rauner] said last week. His complaint, he says, is with public sector union leaders who donate to political leaders. “When government union power can influence politicians in the contract negotiations for pensions, for pay scales, for health care, it’s a direct financial incentive — in effect as a bribe — with someone across the negotiating table.”

When Mitch Daniels took aim at Howard Zinn.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

In a message sent on February 9, 2010, [Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the governor of Indiana at the time, now president of Purdue University], asked top state education officials for assurance that the works of Howard Zinn, the longtime Boston University historian and political activist, were not "in use anywhere in Indiana."

Zinn had died less than 2 weeks earlier.

"This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away," Mr. Daniels wrote, referring to Mr. Zinn. "The obits and commentaries mentioned his book 'A People's History of the United States' is the 'textbook of choice in high schools and colleges around the country.' It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page. Can someone assure me that is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?"

It seems low to kick the man just when he dies, but Daniels admits to picking up the information about the "execrable" book from the obituaries, which makes the timing less mean and just ignorant.

"Here's a tale of two states that should make Hoosiers glad they live on the east bank of the Wabash..."

"-- at least when it comes to paying for state government."

Last week in Indiana, the Daniels administration announced that the state's budget reserves had topped $2 billion, enough to trigger $100 rebates for individual tax filers and $200 for couples who file jointly. In total, the state will give back about $300 million to taxpayers....

Meanwhile, in Illinois...

Last year, Illinois lawmakers scrambled to close a budget shortfall estimated at $11 billion. Despite substantial tax increases and deep cuts in services, the state ended the 2012 fiscal year, which closed June 30, with a shortfall of more than $8 billion. In fact, Illinois' auditor general recently released a report describing the state's deficit as the nation's worst based on the percentage of revenue.

I'm observing this from the next state over, Wisconsin, where we've been fighting over which of these 2 states we'd prefer to resemble.

Scott Walker's recall victory has given other states' governors "spines of steel" to confront unions.

Rush Limbaugh is delighted at the opportunity the "recall Walker" people here in Wisconsin created for beating back public employee unions all over the country:

After Scott Walker successfully turned back the recall, we have Chris Christie of New Jersey and Mitch Daniels of Indiana and a number of other governors saying, "Hey, look at this! We need to take some lessons here from Scott Walker....

I want to go back to me, on this program last Wednesday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: The unions going down the tubes yesterday, that's the lesson. Every Republican governor ought to now have a spine of steel, and Walker... Even TIME Magazine made this point: Walker did it by what? Not compromising! He didn't compromise one time with anybody on the left. He stood fast on everything he believed. Yeah, he got 38% of union households. He didn't compromise. The Republican establishment technique, the Republican establishment handbook to reach across the aisle and compromise to get the independents? Scott Walker said, "(Raspberry) to that," and he wins by seven points. ... Walker did not compromise one thing. Every Republican governor in this country now ought to have a spine of steel. The Republican establishment should have learned something major.

RUSH: Let's go to Sunday morning, Fox News Sunday. Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana.

"A double-vanilla ticket will be attacked as un-diverse by the media."

Double-vanilla! Michael Barone uses the term in discussing Mitt Romney's reasons for picking a white male VP. (His "vanilla" males are Paul Ryan, Rob Portman, Mitch Daniels, and Bob McDonnell.)

Did Barone invent that term? He says "what opponents might call a double-vanilla ticket." Do opponents already say that or is that a Barone invention?

Is "double vanilla" an acceptable term?
	No, we should be color blind.
	No, race is a serious topic and that trivializes it.
	Yes, lighten up... I mean... appreciate a little levity.
	Yes, because it brings the lingering historical problem of white supremacy to the surface.
pollcode.com free polls

Why did Mitch Daniels in Indiana get away with doing something more drastic than what Scott Walker did that set off the huge protests in Wisconsin?

Leon Fink (in Salon) wonders:

In Wisconsin, the union presence seemed wedded to a deep sense of civic identity, including connection to a long-standing state tradition of “progressive” innovation and peaceful reconciliation of differences among competing social and economic interests.

In Indiana, despite the fact that Indianapolis had once hosted more union headquarters than any other city in America, legislated reduction of the union presence triggered no visible sign of larger public hurt. That the union leaders themselves viewed the issue as “mere politics” betrays their own skepticism that worker rights can truly appeal to the public conscience...

That is, love/support/respect for unions needs to be firmly embedded in the culture of the place or you don't get the Wisconsin Effect. Noted. That means you can't suddenly whip up a political frenzy in response to one political move on the other side, no matter how drastic the move is.

Fink drifts off into a reverie. Here's his last paragraph before the one-liner "I’m dreaming, of course. This is Indiana.":

I could only think of how different was the determination of the 1968 Olympic athletes who raised a black-power salute at their official Olympic awards ceremony. If a similar sense of solidarity had been on display in Indianapolis, players from each team might have unfurled a “union” banner — Norma Rae-like — at halftime and carried it aloft to their respective locker rooms. Better yet, they would have handed off the emblems to Madonna, a long-established member of both the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America.

It's actually pretty pathetic when your dreams of deep embeddedness in the culture consist of showy gestures by sports/music/movie celebrities. Madonna, the union member? Why would organizations that boost Madonna resonate with Hoosiers and seem wedded to a deep sense of civic identity?

Face it, Fink: There's a price to be paid for locating liberalism in pop culture. It's not going to be deep. It's inherently shallow. Deeply shallow.

"I’ve got to think Monday night’s debate further swelled the groundswell of support for Mitch Daniels."

It's Bill Kristol again:

The liveliest part of the debate was at the beginning, when Mitt went after Newt—and Republicans all over America watched with fascinated horror at the thought that these are the two GOP frontrunners. The only spectacle in American politics more off-putting than Newt Gingrich in self-righteous defense mode is Mitt Romney in self-righteous attack mode. I thought Mitt’s attacks were somewhat more dishonest than Newt’s defenses were disingenuous, but it was good to move on to the rest of the debate, where little further damage was done.

My conclusion: If Mitch Daniels’s effective tax rate is 30 percent rather than 15 percent, and if he was never paid $1.6 million by Freddie Mac, he can be the next president.

By the way, Mitch Daniels was my original, provisional choice for the GOP nomination, in part because I'm sentimental about Indiana.  Kristol's recent Mitchomania interests me!

I'm working on slogans playing off the similarity between the names Mitt and Mitch... but I keep including the word "bitch," so I'll spare you the examples.

William Kristol: "A Candidate to be Drafted Later?"

He floats the possibility and ends the post: "I notice a new online petition was launched Saturday night to try to produce one possible outcome. It’s at runmitchrun.com."

"When it comes to social issues like abortion, public prayer, and Church-state topics, are you politically conservative, moderate, or liberal?"

That's the wording of the "social issues" question on the Rasmussen poll (which we were discussing here).

Using that form for the question — highlighting those 3 issues — 40% of "likely voters" identified themselves as conservative, 31% said liberal, and 26% said moderate. I'm wondering how the results might have varied if 3 other issues had been used to create the impression of what "social issues" means. Obviously, the question over-emphasizes religion. It's also confusing about religion. What is "public prayer"? If you're in a church congregation, you are in public. The President says "God bless America." Saying "prayer in public schools" would have more clearly framed the issue that divides people. But that's a "Church-state topic," so why list it separately?

What if the 3 issues were: abortion, prayer in public schools, and gay rights? Or: abortion, prayer in public schools, and affirmative action? Do you think the percentages would come out different?

Sometimes people — e.g., Mitch Daniels — say that Republicans would do better if they downplayed or ignored the social issues. But "social issues" is an abstract and variable concept. The question should be which social issues to highlight in order to shape the voters' impression of what the social issues are in order to cause them to identify as conservative, moderate, or liberal.

I'm more likely to say I'm conservative if I think of "social issues" as...
	Abortion, public prayer, and church-state topics
	Abortion, gay rights, and affirmative action
	Abortion, gay rights, and church-state topics
	Abortion, prayer in school, and affirmative action
pollcode.com free polls

The Obama administration will challenge Indiana's attempt to defund on abortion.

Reports the NYT under the headline "U.S. Objects to New Law on Clinics in Indiana":

If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money...


Administration officials said the Indiana law imposed impermissible restrictions on the freedom of Medicaid recipients to choose health care providers.

Indiana is one of at least a half-dozen states that have taken aim at Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions, about one-fourth of those performed in the United States.

But we heard over and over, as the Democrats pushed health care reform, that federal law prohibits funding abortion. How then could Indiana's attempt to withdraw funding abortion violate federal law? How could federal law require states to fund abortion?

Asked for comment on the Indiana law, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provided this statement, cleared by the White House: “Federal law prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from being spent on abortion services. Medicaid does not allow states to stop beneficiaries from getting care they need — like cancer screenings and preventive care — because their provider offers certain other services. We are reviewing this particular situation and situations in other states.”

Medicaid is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, which must comply with federal law as a condition of getting federal money.

So a key point seems to be that Planned Parenthood offers plenty of services other than abortion, and Indiana's law isn't limited to withholding funds for abortion.

It seems unavoidable that abortion will be a central issue in the 2012 presidential campaign. Perhaps this is the real reason Mitch Daniels is avoiding running. He wanted "a truce the so-called social issues," but his signature is on that Indiana law, and he would have to defend it over and over again.

After getting slammed in the head, Mitch Daniels realizes he shouldn't run for President.

Attributes the condition of his head to his wife.

Not to reading the Althouse blog.

Or listening to Rush Limbaugh....

If you're trying to be of good cheer and nice and warm and sunny and all that simply to prove to people that you're not the other way, then all you've done is grant their premise, and you're forever on the defensive. And I'll tell you this, nobody ever persuades anybody else when they come at it from a defensive posture.

Speaking of defensive... the man lost a fight with a door.

How can Mitch Daniels announce that he's running for President when he's got 16 stitches in his big bulbous forehead?

"Indiana Republican governor Mitch Daniels was hit in the forehead by a swinging door after concluding a workout Friday afternoon, prompting an injury that required 16 stitches."

Prompting an injury. What the hell happened? Was another human being involved, did the inanimate object — the door — lose control, or did he do some crazy-ass slapstick with the door? Whatever... you can't run for President with a Frankenstein head.

"If Laura Bush has called Cheri Daniels, then Mitch is in and... Mitch Daniels is who the Bush people (the political team) hopes gets the nomination."

Says Rush Limbaugh, who is also leery of the way the press is pushing Daniels:

The Washington Post, everybody knows, is gonna vote for Obama; is gonna do everything it can to reelect Obama. Now, I'm sorry, folks, but I can't help it. I live in Realville....  and if I got Ruth Marcus here writing about how she wants Mitch Daniels to run for president and win the Republican nomination but wants Obama to win, then something tells me that she believes that Mitch Daniels would pose not that big a challenge.

Turn it around. Let's say we're all supporters of Ronald Reagan. He's coming up on his second term, and the Democrats tell us that they're going to nominate either Mario Cuomo or Walter Mondull, and we say, "Well, you know what? We really want a good campaign; we want to be entertained here. We think Mondale is good. Mondale, Mondale, that's the guy! Mondale, he'd give Reagan the best run for his money." Who would believe us? If we did something akin to this -- started trying to pick their nominee -- they would accuse us of trying to pick somebody's gonna lose. Here they are, at least the Washington Post, trying to pick our nominee on the basis that it would be boring to have anybody but Mitch be the nominee, and only Mitch stands a chance of winning.

Is Mitch Daniels reluctant to run because of the strange story of his marriage?

Here's what we know about it now:

In 1993, Cheri Daniels left her husband with their four daughters and married another man in California. She returned a few years later, reconciled with Daniels, and the two were remarried in 1997.

Obviously, we want more details, and if he runs he'll have to give them. But why not? He seems too drab right now, and that is un-drab. Figure out a good way to tell the story, and run with it.

What Rick Santorum said about the "truce" on moral issues make me think he could accept a truce on homosexuality.

I didn't watch the GOP debate the other night, but I did listen to the podcast of Rush Limbaugh's Friday show and heard the snippets he played. Rush's theme was: "GOP Debaters Rip Into the Regime... Every one of them took it to Obama." This snippet caught my attention:

RUSH: Sounds like Rick Santorum took it right to him. Sounding like me. This is what Mitch Daniels said that he's not ready to do yet. Santorum did it. 

Mitch Daniels was not one of the debaters. He wasn't there to not take it to Obama. But Santorum was, and Rush is into Santorum, because Santorum sounds like Rush Santorum took it to Obama.

Here's more Santorum. Shannon Bream later: "Senator Santorum, you're often characterized as the most socially conservative in the GOP field, a man who may join you at some point in the primary, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, says Republican candidates should, quote, 'Declare a truce, close quote on social issues in the next election.' Is he right? Are you willing to tone down your positions on abortion and homosexuality in an effort to reach more voters and to help the GOP coalesce behind a more fiscally focused platform?"

SANTORUM: Anybody that would suggest that we "call a truce on the moral issues" doesn't understand what America is all about. America... America is a country that is based on this concept and the Declaration of Independence that we are "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Rights come from God and the first of which is "life," the second of which is "liberty." 

And the third of which is "the pursuit of happiness." Why leave that out?

Those two concepts really transformed the world...

And so did the third one!

... because it said that government was gonna be limited, allow people to be free and to pursue their own dreams....

Happiness!

.... to serve...

The dream is service?

... their God to serve their family and community -- and if we have a respect for human life, because we're all created equal... 

All right. I see where you're going trying to go there. The right to life. The unborn are also human beings and they have rights too. (If that's supposed to connect to limited government, it's incoherent, because the argument for protecting the unborn demands more government, in the form of regulating abortion. But my point here is not about Santorum sticking to his long-held anti-abortion position. It's about what he doesn't say.)

And so those founding concepts, what transformed the world in this United States of America was a belief in family, a belief in life and the belief of dignity of every person. If we abandon that, we have given up on Americ [sic]

RUSH: So Santorum is not for a "truce on the social issues." 

Ah, but Santorum only said why he had to keep fighting abortion. The question asked about a "truce" on abortion and homosexuality. Not only did Santorum fail to address homosexuality (unless Rush elided that), but he left out the "happiness" part of the unalienable rights. Santorum knows from past experience that those who reject his antagonism to homosexuality will jump on that phrase — "the pursuit of happiness" — and say that for gay people that includes gay sex.

So, a truce on homosexuality, right, Mr. Santorum?

A Drudge photo juxtaposition, presented for your intepretation.

You've got Obama, turning to his right, gleefully chomping a chocolate-dipped strawberry, with the heading "Obama Ready to Eat the Press." (The linked article is about the White House Correspondents' Dinner tonight.) The photo underneath Obama is his father, turning in the opposite direction, a pipe clenched in his teeth. (The heading beneath that pic is "Obama's father forced out at Harvard...," linking to an article referring to Harvard's "difficulty... figur[ing] out how many wives he had.") The third picture freezes Mitch Daniels in a gesture that gives the impression — to my eye — of being quite rude.



Come on, Matt. What's this supposed to mean? A wider view may flesh out the meaning:

"If Mitch Daniels is going to run, he is the greatest beneficiary of Haley not running."

"If Mitch Daniels doesn’t run, it will get sprinkled across the entire campaign field."

Krauthammer says Palin and Huckabee will probably not run for President in 2012.

And it's too early for Paul Ryan. And Trump is "a clown." Bachmann's a long shot. The serious candidates are: Romney, Gingrich, Barbour, Pawlenty, and Daniels. According to Krauthammer.

Mitch Daniels in the WSJ: "Unless you're in favor of a fully nationalized health-care system, the president's health-care reform law is a massive mistake.."

The Indiana Governor (and potential GOP presidential candidate) ponders what the states can do if the law is not repealed or judicially voided. The states cannot be commandeered to run the program, so there is leverage to bargain. These are the conditions that 21 governors have proposed to the Secretary of Health and Services:

• We are given the flexibility to decide which insurers are permitted to offer their products.

• All the law's expensive benefit mandates are waived, so that our citizens aren't forced to buy benefits they don't need and have a range of choice that includes more affordable plans.

• The law's provisions discriminating against consumer-driven plans, such as health savings accounts, are waived.

• We are given the freedom to move Medicaid beneficiaries into the exchange, or to utilize new approaches to the traditional program, instead of herding hundreds of thousands more people into today's broken Medicaid system.

• Our state is reimbursed the true, full cost of the administrative burden to be imposed upon us, based on the estimate of an auditor independent of HHS.

• A trustworthy projection is commissioned, by a research organization independent of the department, of how many people are likely to wind up in the exchange, given the large incentives for employers to save money by off-loading their workers.

Obviously, this is a very different system than the one the legislation intends....

That's a GOP proposal on how to tweak health care reform, which is what Obama and others have said they need. With the prospect of 21 states dropping out of the enforcement regime, there should be real pressure to work with them and try to draw them back in.

On the other hand, you really are in favor of a fully nationalized health-care system, then you might celebrate the states failure to go along with the attempt to include them. And if what happens is, as Daniels predicts, "first-rate operational catastrophe," then that sets up the collapse into the only workable fix a fully nationalized health-care system.