A divide on social issues

Mitch Daniels has the kind of resume that is a dream to a conservative Republican activist.

He was chief of staff to Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar. Executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Political director in the Reagan White House. Chief executive of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Budget director for President George W. Bush (before that administration spent like there was no tomorrow).

Currently he is the tax-cutting, government-reducing, surplus-building governor of Indiana. And for good measure, he drives himself around the state on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

It doesn't get any better.

The facts of his success as a governor are eye-popping. When this Hoosier honcho was elected to lead his home state in 2004, Indiana was looking at a $200 million deficit and hadn't balanced its budget in seven years. After one term and four balanced budgets, all state debts were paid and Daniels was governing a surplus of more than $1.3 billion. In a state with 2 percent of the nation's population, 7 percent of new U.S. employment has originated in Indiana this year.

Mitch and I met when he was budget director for President Bush 43. I travel extensively across this great nation of ours, doing business and speaking to political groups.

Mitch Daniels is kind of a hot item right now.

But I also picked up a recent edition of The Weekly Standard and read an ambitious 11-page profile on the two-term governor, a man many are discussing as Republicans look for the answer to four years of President Obama and his policies that are spending this nation into submission.

And I've got to tell you -- the more I read about this guy, the more excited I got.

His ideas on education, social promotion and education spending are words that would get any education reformer salivating. Promoting a third-grader who still can't read into the fourth grade galls this governor. He calls it "unacceptable" to "shove that child along to fourth grade and into almost certain academic failure."

Amen, brother.

This man has even cut down the wait times at the Indiana Department of Motor Vehicles offices from more than 40 minutes to less than 10 minutes.

He even got Indiana on to a unified time system, so all counties are now in the same time zone, rather than the county option for daylight saving time that had made scheduling in Indiana such a challenge for years.

Sounds like my kind of guy.

Seriously, this article in the Standard was a real page-turner. I couldn't put it down. I was thinking I may have found my man for 2012.

Then, imagine my dismay when I got to the top of the 11th page of this 11-page manifesto, and read the following advice for the next president from the current Indiana governor:

The next president, he said, "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues."

Say what?

"We're going to have to agree to get along for a little while, until our nation's economic challenges are resolved." This is like saying, "Let's ignore killing babies and ignore how we define marriage until we resolve the economy."

Here we go again. This pro-life leader with solid social credentials who "walks the talk," according to the head of the Indiana Family Institute, is waving the white flag on life and family issues, or so it seems.

If I have a problem today with the political party I embraced 20 years ago, this is the root of my frustration. If the party of life doesn't stand for life and defend life, who will?

I said this two years ago, and it was purposely interpreted by some as a statement in support of then-candidate Barack Obama: For too long now, the Republican establishment has taken evangelicals and social conservatives for granted. They seem to be of the impression that their vote is there for the taking and no more effort is required.

The Democrats have treated the African-American community the same way for a couple of generations now. The difference is, the majority of African-Americans are still reliable votes, and they don't seem to mind being taken for granted.

Granted, given the hostility shown to life and family issues by Democrats for years now, establishment Republicans may have a rationale for pushing pro-lifers to the bottom of their priority list.

But, I would remind the establishment types in my party that when you ignore the essential truth -- that abortion takes away life -- for political correctness, you do so at your own peril.

J.C. Watts (JCWatts01@jcwatts.com) is chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group. He is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. He writes twice monthly for the Review-Journal.