HE'S MORE LIKE W'S OFFENSIVE CO-ORDINATOR, BUT WE'LL TAKE HIM:

The innovators of today's GOP (LOU ZICKAR, 5/18/09, Politico)

Over the past 30 years, conservatives have successfully branded anyone who supports raising taxes as a liberal.

Now many on the right are trying to do the same with regard to government. In short, if a person supports a government program, that individual is not just a liberal but also a socialist.

The result is that many Republicans have become hesitant to acknowledge one of the most basic obligations of elective office: Lawmakers are hired to run the government, not run away from it. [...]

[R]epublicans have to develop a more innovative approach toward the role of government, one that not only recognizes the risk of big government but also acknowledges the importance of better government. A good place to start is by looking toward Indiana, where Gov. Mitch Daniels has undertaken an ambitious plan to remake the structure of local government.

As John Krauss notes in the latest edition of The Ripon Forum, in pushing to make government smaller and smarter, Daniels is not driven by some Al Gore utopian fantasy that an efficient bureaucracy can cure all the world’s ills. Rather, he is driven by the very Republican notion that a more efficient government can save taxpayers money — in this case, savings in the form of lower property taxes. It is an uphill fight — the Democratic-controlled Legislature adjourned for the year without voting on it. But it is also a fight any Republican can — and should — support.

And so Daniels pushes on with his plan. In doing so, he is proving himself to be to the Republican Party what Bill Walsh was to the game of football: an innovator.