Governor Mitch Daniels is a great wonk, a good governor, but it appears that he isn't much of a politician.

Earth to Mitch: You don't start out a presidential campaign by alienating 1/3 of your base:

The other day on Laura Ingraham's radio show, Daniels re-iterated his call for a "truce" on social issues while America gets its economic house in order. He now says he'd like to "mute" those issues for a little while.

Listen here. (You have to go 4 minutes into the clip to hear this) The transcription is below:

"If you don't accept that we face a republic-threatening issue in terms of the debt--and again I would love to conclude one day that I was overreacting--but that threatens every one of us whatever our views on these other questions. I would like to think that fixing it and saving our kids future could be a unifying moment for our country and we wouldn't stop our disagreements or our passionate belief in these other questions, we just sort of mute them for a little while, while we try to come together on the thing that menaces us all." (Laura Ingraham show 01/31/11)

If Daniels gets in the race you can be sure that some other candidate is going to call him out on this. Whoever does it first will immediately endear himself or herself to social conservatives nationwide. Who's going to do it?

OK - we get it. Fixing the deficit is titanically important. But you don't ask voters - especially when it comes to issues that touch their conscience in very personal ways - to turn off their emotions and engagement just to achieve some nebulous "peace" on social issues. First of all, it takes two to make peace and it is doubtful that the other side would be quite so accommodating. Secondly, it would be like ripping the heart out of the Republican party.

Despite a campaign that had about as much life as a zombie, McCain would have come within kissing distance of the presidency if he could have found a way to energize the social right who showed up in far fewer numbers than they did for Bush. And Daniels wants to discard them?

Not a good start to the Daniels campaign.