Mitch Daniels: 'Time to Cut Bait' on 2012 Run

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has long sounded the alarm over rising debt and deficits but has been hesitant to launch a campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. However, he now acknowledges “it’s time to cut bait,” The Washington Post reported.

Ind. Gov. Mitch Daniels

When asked where he was in his deliberations, he told the Post he was “muddled,” but quickly added he didn’t want to leave a “misimpression.” “If we get in, we will go all out, and we know a little about how to do that. So reluctance or hesitation about running doesn’t mean we would be a reluctant candidate if we got there.”

Daniels has called the deficit problem the “new red menace” and advocated politically risky moves to handle it such as restructuring Medicare, changing Medicaid to slow its spending, and raising the retirement age for Social Security recipients. Much of what he advocates tracks with the plan put forth by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

However, Daniels has drawn fire from social and religious conservatives for his call for a truce on social issues and from other in the party for his willingness to compromise with Democrats to solve the debt problems, according to the Post.

“Should the best way be blocked . . . then someone will need to find the second-best way. Or the third, because the nation’s survival requires it. Purity in martyrdom is for suicide bombers,” he said in a speech this year, according to the Post.