GET READY FOR 2012 – AT 9:13 P.M. ET:  Once this midterm is wrapped up in three weeks, the 2012 election season begins.  It's never too early to agonize and worry.  It is our patriotic responsibility.

I hear a great deal of buzz from contacts, media friends and the like, but the most persistent buzz is about Mitch Daniels, the very successful Republican governor of Indiana.  Michael Barone has some comments about him: 

It's an ornate office in Indiana's beautifully maintained mid-19th century Capitol, but the 49th governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, is not dressed to match the setting. He's just returned from spending the night in Princeton, Ind., staying at a constituent's house -- as he often does around the state -- and he's dressed in a work shirt and jeans.

It's true.  Daniels stays with constituents to save the taxpayers the cost of a hotel.  You gotta like the guy already.

After four sometimes controversial years as governor -- he sold off the North Indiana Toll Road and persuaded the legislature to smooth out the state's time zone boundaries -- he was re-elected 58 percent to 40 percent in 2008 even as Barack Obama was carrying the state.

As much as any American politician of his generation, he's proved that cutting spending and gaining a reputation as a skinflint is good politics.

Image so far:  All-American guy, respectful of other people's money, successful governor.

...he says that, if he runs, he'll be a different kind of candidate. As for "the federal fiscal picture -- and why don't we have the philosophic debate tomorrow -- as for today, can we agree that the arithmetic doesn't work? We're going to have higher and higher levels of debt."

He goes on. "This is a survival-level issue for the country. We won't be a leader without major change in the federal fiscal picture. We're going to have to do fundamental things you say are impossible."

And...

He thinks voters may be ready to support such changes because they've had a searing experience with debt, and their lives are changing. Younger people may be ready to put up with lower Social Security benefits for high earners because they've seen that some companies' new hires aren't getting the pensions and benefits their elders got. "There's nothing radical about this. It's already happened all over the place."

Finally...

You can almost see the green eyeshade as he speaks. It's been noted that Daniels is short and balding (with a combover), that he speaks with just a bit of a Southern country twang (he moved to Indiana from Tennessee and Georgia at age 10) -- hardly a glamorous candidate.

"I'm not a long-range planner," Daniels says, when asked if he's running. "I play the ball where it is." But if he runs, he promises to be more of a long-range planner if he runs than any presidential candidate we have ever seen.

COMMENT:  Barone draws an accurate portrait.  However, a few things:  I was at a small gathering earlier this year where Daniels spoke.  He's personable, but a dull speaker.  At times he sounded like an accountant, at other times he drifted into semi-philosophy.  People like him and have confidence in him, but he'll have to sharpen his presentation a bit.  Beyond that, he's about as white bread as you can get, and I wonder about his appeal to minorities and ethnics.

However, he's been a fantastic governor, succeeding where other governors have failed.  And his plain spokenness might actually turn out to be an asset, a contrast to the windbaggery from the windy city that we're experiencing today.

Watch Mitch Daniels.  I think he's still a long shot, but if the economy is still the issue in 2012, the shot will get shorter.

By the way, Daniels bears a striking resemblance to another famous son of Indiana – Ernie Pyle, the great
World War II correspondent.

October 11, 2010