One of the very few states in the nation to have a budget surplus right now is Mitch Daniels’ Indiana. As Governor, Daniels actually went into office, raised sales taxes, cut property taxes, fixed his budget problems, then slashed the beejeezus out of tax rates, including the aforementioned sales tax. The state is thriving.

He’s an attractive choice to challenge Obama. I think a governor, not some congressman, is going to have to be our pick. Daniels fits the bill.

Here he is from the other night at the Indiana Republican Party’s Fall Dinner, using just notes, no prepared text or teleprompter:

Key bit in a transcript below the fold.

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I just got this from Doug over at National Right to Life. Please do read it ASAP:

Speaker Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and the White House are engaged in peddling another phony compromise. This is all theater. The “negotiations” are scripted ad phony. The language being circulated, and loosely associated with Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-In.), does not mitigate either of the abortion-subsidy provisions contained in H.R. 3962. This language is intended only to wrap the pro-abortion provisions in additional layers of concealment. The latest version of the Democrats’ abortion compromise being circulated contains a money-laundering scheme that is truly laughable. Some of the people involved in this enterprise apparently think that their constituents are simpletons.

The bill explicitly authorizes the federal insurance plan, the public option, to pay for all elective abortions. When the public option pays for abortions, it will be spending federal funds, because that is the only kind of money that a federal agency can spend in the real world. Henry Waxman and his front men can write language in the bill calling the money anything he wants, but we care about the reality, not what they call it.

The “Ellsworth Amendment” has been independently analyzed by experts at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and at the House Pro-Life Caucus. Their conclusions regarding its substantive (non)effect are fully consistent with those reached independently by NRLC. However, my comments here represent only NRLC.

Mr. Ellsworth issued a press release in which he said, “When you’re going into battle, it’s a good idea to have a contingency plan.” I say, when you’re going into battle, it is always unpleasant to be bayoneted in the back by somebody who said that he was on your side. The Ellsworth language serves no purpose except to assist the pro-abortion House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to peel votes away from the authentic pro-life amendment, the Stupak Amendment.

The Ellsworth language about the public option is particularly revealing in demonstrating the utter phoniness of the exercise. They just want to pretend that if the federal agency hires private contractors to handle the money, it is not government funding of abortion. This is already being referred to in pro-life circles on Capitol Hill as “the Ellsworth abortion money-laundering scam.”

They can write in a money-laundering scheme under which the federal agency hires a contractor to deliver the checks to the abortionists, but only a simpleton would think it is not government funding of abortion. Any lawmaker who votes for this scheme is voting to create a nationwide federal agency program that will pay for abortion on demand, with government funds.

You can go here and call your legislator to oppose the Democrats’ health care plan.

Check out (via the Campaign Spot) this amazingly fatheaded - and more amusingly, techno-illiterate - posturing by Democratic Congressman Baron Hill:

See also Hoosierpundit, who’s also covering this district pretty thoroughly, it looks like.

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[UPDATE] See also Hot Air. And may I say that there’s a part of me that hopes that Pelosi tries to quash this? It’s a lovely time of year for a gutter war.

I was tempted to go with the headline “FEDS RAID VISCLOSKY!” solely to give some of our lurkers acute acid reflux, but really: this is quite good on its own:

Feds subpoena Rep. Visclosky’s offices

Federal law enforcement officials have subpoenaed the congressional and campaign offices of Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) to get information about a former defense lobby firm raided by the FBI, according to Visclosky.

Certain Visclosky employees have also been sent grand jury subpoenas requesting documents related to the PMA Group, a lobby shop with strong ties to the Indiana lawmaker. Visclosky’s former chief of staff, Rich Kaelin, was a high-profile lobbyist at the firm that closed its doors at the end of March.

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It’s turning out to be quite the day for fiscal revelations. The latest is Pete Visclosky (D-IN), who is celebrating his recent drop in campaign contributions with a request to use what he has remaining for his upcoming legal… expenses:

Visclosky wants to dip into fundraising to pay legal fees

Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) is seeking to confirm that he can reach into his $900,000 campaign war chest to pay his legal fees arising from an FBI investigation of his campaign fundraising.

In a March letter to the Federal Election Commission released Monday, the treasurer of Visclosky’s campaign is seeking an advisory opinion allowing the use of campaign funds to pay expenses relating to the FBI’s investigation of contributions from the PMA Group and its clients.

See also here (via Instapundit). It’s turning out to be a month for this sort of thing. Visclosky, Thompson, Feinstein, Dodd, Moran, Durbin, Pelosi (with a nod to Harman), Summers, Rattner, Murtha… get the point? Because we can keep going: that list barely touches the House, not to mention the executive branch.

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It’s been tough in Alaska for Gov. Sarah Palin the past few days. She’s been embroiled in a tug of war with the legislature over a replacement to fill the unexpired term of a state Senator who resigned to go to work for the Obama administration. The lawmakers appear certain to restore millions of dollars of the federal porkulus funds she had turned down, and they rejected her nominee for Alaska attorney general just yesterday. The legislature even voted down her selection for a seat on the state’s Board of Fisheries by a vote of 42 to 16.

That’s just some of the fallout the governor has had to deal with from her unforgivable sin of accepting her party’s nomination for the vice presidency and campaigning on behalf of Obama’s Republican opponent in the presidential race. Old bipartisan alliances between Sarah Palin and the Democrats in her legislature have been dissolved. Longstanding tensions between her and some elements in her own party in Alaska remain.

Meanwhile, the media and her other political opponents have tried to make much hay over her family and would-be family matters, playing up the recent television appearances by her daughter’s former fiance, his mother’s arrest on drug charges and her sister-in-law’s arrest for breaking into a house that wasn’t hers. The rats have been quiet as a mouse, however, about the president’s brother-in-law and his troubles with British authorities stemming from his arrest for sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl there. Some crimes are more heinous than others. Better for your media image to be a sexual predator named Obama than a cat burglar named Palin.

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Please remember to get your tea party posts in the diaries and I’ll front them. — Erick

CITY: Indianapolis, IN (Cities in every state are having tea parties on 4-15-09 www.taxdayteaparty.com)

WHO: All concerned Hoosiers and Americans

WHAT: A civil protest focusing on repealing pork and lowering federal taxes, protecting the American dream.

WHEN: 12-2 PM; APRIL15

WHERE: Grounds of State Capitol Building

Website: indianapolisteaparty.com

Other Info: Arrive early to look for parking; wear red/white/blue or colonial costumes; bring American flags, tea bags and signs (no sticks) reflecting discontent with federal fiscal policy.

Fresh from their general campaign last Saturday of utterly failing to convincing Congress to do anything, Organizing for America is now engaged in regional spamming of their email lists to go after of individual legislators considered either hostile or insufficiently favorable to the President’s plan to saddle the next three generations with even more crushing, unnecessary debt. This is primarily targeting Republicans: in fact, based on admittedly extremely limited communications with other people who might get spammed, I’m concluding OFA is not generically targeting Democrats. But they did go after Evan Bayh:

OFA sent an email to Indiana residents on Wednesday asking them to phone Republican Rep. Steve Buyer, Republican Sen. Richard Lugar and Democratic Sen. Bayh to let them “know where you stand on President Obama’s budget.”

Bayh has been one of the Democratic party’s most outspoken members against President Obama’s spending, penning recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to outline his opposition to the $410 billion omnibus bill the Obama signed. He also announced he leading a 15-member working group of moderate Senate Democrats last week. Bayh said the group was informally called “the practical caucus.”

Bayh, of course, is hated by progressives - it’s one of his more endearing traits, really - and he’s certainly been on the administration’s radar since he announced his so-called “Gang of Fifteen.” While supposedly there were no public problems between the White House and the centrist Democrats over this unwillingness of the latter to blindly follow the former over the cliff*, it’s not really a secret that President Obama likes to have deniable proxies do his dirty work for him. Which is probably why Bayh is scheduled to be personally targeted by Moveon.org, Campaign for America’s Future, USAction, and the rest of the usual suspects: apostasy is always the worst of sins to the True Believer.

Speaking as a Republican, I wholeheartedly support this activity, and think that it should be encouraged. Although I think that there are limits.

Moe Lane

*Note that they might still do it anyway.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

One of the best decisions made this year by House Republicans was putting Mike Pence in charge of the House Republican Conference. Yesterday at CPAC, he proved it.

Pence was dynamic, powerful, focused, and absolutely willing to call out other Republicans who totally failed the party and the conservative movement.

His theme, from stage, was set early:

How we, as conservatives, respond to these challenges could determine whether America retains her place in the world as a beacon of freedom; or whether we slip into the abyss that has swallowed much of Europe in an avalanche of socialism.

While some are prepared to write the obituary on capitalism and our movement, I believe we are on the brink of a great American awakening.

The crowd really responded, understanding that the GOP needs conservatives and their ideas more than conservatives really need the GOP. The fight for freedom will be based on our ideas, not the left’s. Pence drove this point home with a line that left people in the exhibit hall frozen — absorbing the wisdom of the line:

Fighting for free enterprise means standing up for free markets. The freedom to succeed includes the freedom to fail. We must defend entrepreneurial capitalism against the onslaught of the American left.

Mike Pence gets it.

After the speech, I asked Congressmen Pence how he responds to those who say the GOP leadership failed the GOP. “Not me,” he said. I responded, “Yeah, but . . . what about the leadership? The same guys are there.” He admitted there were problems, but said they are working hard to fix the problems. He pointed to toeing the line on the stimulus. He pointed out Boehner and Cantor’s leadership holding the caucus together. He made a lot of sense.

Below the fold you can listen to his whole speech.

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