Laura Ingram asks Mitch Daniels about his call for a moratorium on social issues, and he doubles down on it, though changing from "truce" to "stand mute" on them for a while:
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."
That drew this reaction at National Review's The Corner blog:
No one would deny that this is a time when we should be focusing on the grave fiscal problems that confront our country after decades of reckless spending and avoidance of the problems with our entitlement system. Few people are as well suited to lead in such a time as Mitch Daniels. But our political system does more than one thing at a time. Daniels seems to be asserting the priority of the economic and fiscal issues, but should he not acknowledge the continuing existence and importance of the social issues alongside them, and indeed the deep and abiding connection between the two?
That will be the trickiest part of the primary process for Republicans, won't it? How do they stress the overriding importance of economic issues without slighting the social issues important to many in the base?
