Looking past running on fear and anger

Michael Gerson considers the counter-intuitive strategy of potential GOP presidential candidate Mitch Daniels:

Social conservatives criticized his idea that a "truce" on divisive, culture war controversies might be required to deal with "survival issues" such as terrorism and debt.

Daniels's clarification on Mexico City shows his realism. But his continued insistence on the idea of a truce shows his stubbornness -- a defining characteristic. "If there were a WMD attack, death would come to straights and gays, pro-life and pro-choice," he told me. "If the country goes broke, it would ruin the American dream for everyone. We are in this together. Whatever our honest disagreements on other questions, might we set them aside long enough to do some very difficult things without which we will be a different, lesser country?"

This is the paradox of Mitch Daniels: He is a uniter with an apocalyptic message, a genial Jeremiah. "I start with a premise that not everyone agrees with -- that the republic is threatened as it has not been before, if you don't count the Soviet nuclear threat. . . . It is the arithmetic of debt. If unaddressed, it makes national failure a certainty. Beyond some point, you can't come back."

Daniels's appeal is not ideological; it is mathematical. The passions aroused by ideology, in his view, hamper the ability of political adults to deal rationally with disturbing budget numbers. But if Daniels de-emphasizes ideology, he elevates moral virtues such as thrift, realism and humility.