Mitch Daniels in Jeffersonville: The First MMM Stump Speech of the 2008 Campaign

Your humble correspondent attended the Clark County Lincoln Day banquet on Wednesday night.

The Courier-Journal has a story about it here.

They had a turnout of upward of 170 people; not bad for a county GOP that didn't fair so well in the 2006 or 2007 elections, and also had to weather the Glenn Murphy affair in late summer (and yes, I know the Clark people will be mad at me for mentioning it, but better to get it out of the way early).

Congressman Mike Sodrel and Governor Mitch Daniels were the speakers, and a wide variety of notables were present including, interestingly, new Howey columnist Kevin Kellems (and no, he was not spit-licking anyone's hair).

Mike Sodrel spoke first, with an interesting speech focusing on liberty, history, and the Fair Tax.

In particular, southern Indiana's former (and future?) Congressman emphasized he believed that the coming race is about God, country, and liberty, nothing else.

The nothing else is a reference to some saying that the race being personal between him and Hill; this is a useful point to make, but one that Sodrel seems to be making a lot lately in his speeches, and one that has the potential to gain a dangerous and uncontrolled life of its own once the reporters get sick of it as a talking point.

He spoke of the repetitive use of the word change, and emphasized things like less government, a more free citizenry, and initiatives such as the Fair Tax as "real change."

Firing the IRS, Sodrel said to considerable applause, "would be real change."

Governor Daniels, interestingly, did not join in the Fair Tax applause.

Sodrel spoke passionately (and having seen him speak many times, I will say that he was more passionate than I have seen him in the past campaigns), particularly about leaving to our children the same sort of country that gave him, and us, so many benefits.

Liberty, Sodrel said, was important to America and--with "your help, we will keep it."

Tony Bennett, a candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, introduced Mitch Daniels, noting a laundry list of the Governor's accomplishments ranging from a balanced budget and reduced government waste to tax reform (a line that got a lot of applause; the tax bill was signed in Indianapolis earlier that day).

The Governor, who flew in to Clark County for the event (he mentioned thinking about his last visit during his flight down on the plane; RV One was nowhere to be seen), then went up to the podium to speak.

First, he urged Sodrel to "keep on giving that speech" because people needed to hear it. Daniels noted that Mike Sodrel had qualities rare to individuals willing to be in public life, had nothing to prove to anyone, and that Washington needed more people like Mike Sodrel.

The Governor then went on to speak about the number of times he has been to Clark County (twenty-one) and the surrounding counties (scores of times in all), and retold some of the old campaign standby jokes familiar to anyone that has heard his stump speeches at Lincoln Days before (the "you look like that Mitch guy!" and the "you're Lance Armstrong!" stories, among others).

He got a mention in of the epic rivalry between New Albany and Jeffersonville, noting how his wife (who is from New Albany) was crushed when New Albany lost to Jeff recently in a basketball tournament.

Moving on to more serious topics, Daniels said that Hoosiers live on an island (and not just, he noted, because of the bad flooding in southern Indiana this week).

He cited a New York Times map on the state of fiscal solvency of the various states, and noted that Indiana was alone--an island--in this part of the country in being fiscally solvent.

The Governor was also careful to note in pointing out these statistics and the map that he did not subscribe to the NYT; someone apparently pointed it out to him.

Daniels noted the sorry fiscal situation in Kentucky.

I must hasten to add here that Kentucky is not as bad off as its leadership claims; the state was fiscally sound until the day after Steve Beshear was sworn into office and had to find an excuse to create a crisis to motivate a generally unwilling legislature to approve casino gambling (gaming advocates having given him more than half of all of his contributions). He created a fiscal crisis, or at least made the situation seem much worse than it actually is, in order to build support for his casino measures. Thus far, it hasn't worked.

At any rate, I digress.

The Governor noted that Indiana had obtained and retains this position of fiscal solvency without a tax increase; this was despite someone nearby pointing out to me earlier in the evening that Daniels was four-for-four in proposing tax hikes in his State of the State addresses.

Daniels emphasized budget savings, government contracts with Hoosiers in the private sector, and picking the "low-hanging fruit" of making government more efficient and effective.

He also spoke at length about the importance of measuring accomplishments (state bureaucrats, I am told, call this the "efficiency police").

Mitch touted progress at the BMV; echoing his State of the State address, he noted that if "we can fix the BMV, we can fix anything."

He went on to rattle off a variety of unemployment and job statistics (lowest unemployment in years, lowest in Midwest, Indiana recently ranked best place for business outside of the Sun Belt, et cetera).

It would be easy, Daniels said, to be Illinois, Ohio, or Michigan, but Hoosiers have wanted better.

Indiana is not, he noted, where it needs to be, but the state has come far in the past four years.

In the theme of coming far, he then spoke briefly about some of the bills he has recently signed.

Some of them were humorous:

The drunken veterinarian bill that prohibits intoxicated veterinarians from operating on animals (he joked about musing on whether cats could be an exception).

The dead body discovery bill that requires people to report a dead body within three hours of discovering one (the radio disc jockey that interviewed him the other day said that meant he could no longer collect his dead aunt's Social Security check).

There was, it is worth noting, utterly no mention whatsoever of the awful gambling expansion bill that he signed into law and decided not to veto (but then, that wouldn't be funny, and it probably wouldn't be politically popular to mention either).

More seriously, Daniels then began to speak about creating "a government of purpose," touting past accomplishments.

First he spoke of an innovative bipartisan plan to provide unfortunate Hoosiers with health care that is affordable (no mention of the cigarette tax hike).

Then he spoke of Major Moves and work on infrastructure (Major Moves), including the Ohio River bridges, US 31, I-69, and various other projects. He also repeated the oft-cited statistic that the toll road made the state of Indiana more in interest in the first year of Major Moves than it had made the state in its entire existence up to that point.

At last, the Governor came to the issue of property tax reform.

A number of people in the audience were Eric Miller property tax abolitionist sorts, so they were not as enthusiastic about this at the start as most of the others.

Daniels touted the bill he had signed earlier in the day, and noted that government could now has to live on what citizens can afford (plus better tax protections than any state save Alabama, and the usual talking points).

Moreover, returning to the island theme, he said that the property tax reform will make Indiana an island for yet more investment.

And, Mitch went on, he is just getting started.

This was where the speech went from the usual old stories and prior talking points to the sort of campaign stump speech that I expect will be the core of his campaign going forward.

He wants to ensure that every Hoosier can get at least two years of post-secondary education (college or technical school).

He wants measurable results for education (similar to measurable results elsewhere), and noted that Tony Bennett would be an important partner in getting that done.

He wants to spend more on education, but he also wants to spend that money more wisely; even a 1% savings in an $11 billion budget, he noted, is a big deal.

The state should, Mitch said, stand behind teachers in their efforts to keep order in classrooms, and quality teachers are especially important (he noted in this regard his recent veto of legislation that lowered the education requirements for teachers).

Pivoting on the veto theme, Daniels noted that he was one of the least veto-prone governors in recent Indiana history, and that he values reaching across the aisle to work with the other party.

Daniels declared that he wanted a positive campaign, because he said he felt that he has a very positive story to tell.

He has, he said, had enough of arguments that divide, and he preferred to focus on the things that unite Hoosiers.

Indiana, Mitch Daniels declared, is not sitting still and he is does not feel entitled to anything; he intends to tell what he has done to improve the state, and campaign on those accomplishments and on doing more still.

He then told a (closing) story about a little girl that had written him a letter about the environment, asking if he was ashamed of how America is treating the environment.

Daniels noted in his response to her that much has been done to improve the environment since he was her age, and acknowledged that much more remains to be done.

But then he said that he also wrote in his letter back to the girl that she should never be ashamed of America or of being American.

We have, he said, a long way to go on some things, but that is nothing to be ashamed of.

We should be, Daniels declared, proud to be American even with our country's flaws.

How, he questioned, could someone reach the pinnacle of power and not be proud of this country?

This was an obvious jab at Barack and Michelle Obama.

America, the Governor concluded, is a nation of change (no wonder change is such a buzz word in this campaign, after all); America is a nation whose golden age is always in the future.

And as for Indiana, he said, dogs do not bark at parked cars (advice given to him by an elderly supporter "up north"); Indiana's car was parked and left a few blocks back by most of the rest of the country, but now it is moving again.

And Mitch Daniels says that he intends to keep it moving forward.

All in all, an excellent speech, even if a tad bit long, and a powerful and motivating case for the fall campaign.