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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > May > 28
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Martin Gottlieb: Longing for Daniels more about Palin than Obama
Mitch Daniels gets to be the unattainable, the “if-only,” the unblemished.
The decision by the Republican governor of Indiana not to run for president is being bemoaned by all manner of Republican and non-Republican voices, as if he was the magic guy.
And, in fact, the bemoaners do have a point, given, especially, the other names in the field.
Daniels has not been the miracle worker in Indiana that he is sometimes portrayed as. But he is a sober, experienced, independent man. He was in charge of the budget under President George W. Bush.
He had the nerve to tell social conservatives in his party to give it a rest for a while, to let the national debate revolve around economic issues. He has declined to take a “no-new-taxes” pledge.
Serious people would have to take him seriously, whatever they might think of the likes of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann or the politically departed Donald Trump.
Others in the field — former governors Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman Jr. and Mitt Romney — deserve to be taken as seriously as anybody. But they are the reason some people are still looking around.
A family man does what he has to do for his family. Daniels says his family didn’t want him to run. That appears to reflect concern about family history being dredged up. If that’s the reason, it’s sad.
Daniels and his wife were divorced for a while. She left the state where her children lived (after trying to win custody) and married somebody else.
Politically, this is a totally surmountable problem, the kind of thing that would make headlines for a while then fade, like Bill Clinton’s sex life or George W. Bush’s drinking life.
But, yes, there would be that national spotlight, given “family values” and all that. Politically engaged people in Ohio first came to know Daniels mainly because John Kasich talked about him so much during the 2010 campaign.
By that time, Daniels had become a favorite of conservative magazines and other such outlets. This is a common way for Republicans to move toward the national ticket.
When George W. Bush emerged as the favorite of the Republican establishment in 2000, it wasn’t entirely because of his name, which was hardly seen as political magic. It was partly because he had won Democratic support in Texas and coasted to re-election as governor.
But it was also because the conservative media were citing statistics about educational progress in Texas and crediting Bush. Such opinion leaders as former national party Chair William Bennett put forth those stats prominently. (Years later, the stats themselves came in for a lot of criticism.)
When John McCain picked Sarah Palin for vice president, she came out of nowhere to most people. But the Weekly Standard magazine, the leading voice of McCain’s general perspective, especially on foreign policy, liked her record in Alaska and had given her attention.
In Kasich’s race for governor in 2010, at a meeting at this newspaper, a journalist questioned whether Indiana’s progress under Daniels was really all that great. Kasich seemed surprised, as if he thought that question was settled.
Later, reporters for the Columbus Dispatch looked into the Daniels record and found reasons not to be blown away. After all, Kasich’s main case against Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland was about jobs lost in Ohio on his watch. It turned out, though, that Ohio ranked 42nd worst among the states — percentagewise — and Indiana ranked 39th.
But, after all, there are no miracle workers in the presidential field.
That field may not be so lame as to blow the 2012 election. If it’s the right year for the challenging party, anybody around whom it finally unites ends up looking pretty good to the public.
For the moment, there’s a problem: The candidates who look like they might be credible nominees are generating so little interest among Republicans as to open an opportunity for the others, like Palin, who would have difficulty uniting the party.
That’s really the nightmare that is sending pundits and others scurrying in search of somebody for the party to rally around. If not Daniels, maybe Paul Ryan, the guy with the Medicare plan. Of course, there are certain problems there, too. But somebody.
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Editorial: Mladic arrest turns corner in Balkans history
Ratko Mladic was hunted for longer than Osama bin Laden, since the mid 1990s. And for good reason.
He was a monster whose evil culminated in the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, Bosnia. That event, happening after the United Nations had sent peacekeeping troops, was humiliating to the West and was one of the factors prompting Washington to bomb Serb targets and eventually convene historic peace negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Before Srebrenica, Gen. Mladic had led the four-year siege of Sarajevo, in which that city of defenseless civilians was surrounded and bombed from the mountains encircling it. Ten thousand people died.
This wasn’t war, if it takes two to make war. Troops whom Gen. Mladic led also used rape as a weapon of war.
His arrest Thursday, May 26, ends a chapter of history. He and the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, and the president of neighboring Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, had been among the many alleged war criminals indicted for war crimes. Their names formed a triumvirate.
The other two had, after long delays, been brought to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for justice.
For years, many Europeans had believed the government of Serbia could find Gen. Mladic if it really wanted to. And Europe insisted that it do so if Serbia wanted to join the European Union.
But turning him over was widely opposed in Serbia. Finally, when the government acted, it reportedly did so because it feared a pending report that it was not cooperating with the other Europeans on the search. It’s too bad that kind of pressure was needed to make the arrest happen. Ever since the war, Bosnia has looked to Serbia to make a statement about war atrocities by going after the top perpetrators. Bosnians have said that the action was necessary to heal the wounds of war.
The late Richard Holbrooke, father of the Dayton Peace Accords, always said that the arrest of Mladic was necessary if Bosnia and the Balkans were to move to a new era. Even if the EU is what made Serbia act, not concern about Bosnia, at least the issue is now in the past.
And it’s good news that the government of Serbia is more concerned about political and economic relations with the West than about placating diehards in Serbia by claiming to be unfairly singled out by the Hague.
Indirectly, at least, Serbia’s action can be seen as a good sign for Bosnia. Hardline Serb nationalists within Bosnia — the people most hostile to the idea of a Bosnia that is genuinely united across lines of religion — have looked to Serbia for support. If Serbia is focused on relations with Europe, which wants integration, the hardliners may have to moderate their dreams.
Beyond that, the cause in arresting Gen. Mladic is communicating to other potential war criminals that there’s a price to be paid. The Hague is for real; it has important friends, and, in pursuit of those it indicts, it doesn’t give up easily.
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Guest column: Ohio’s energy-efficiency efforts paying dividends
This commentary was written by Jay Wrobel, executive director of the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, a nonprofit funded through member companies, organizations, and governments supporting energy efficiency, including Duke Energy, AEP, DP&L and Columbia Gas.
Ohio is an energy-efficiency success story, thanks to the bipartisan passage of Senate Bill 221 in May 2008. The landmark energy legislation requires electric utilities to meet a portion of consumers’ electricity needs through energy-efficient products and programs.
Today these changes are saving consumers money and feeding economic development, which benefits everyone in Ohio.
Policy makers and energy stakeholders from 25 organizations recently gathered on the grounds of the State Capitol at the 2011 Ohio Energy Expo to celebrate Ohio’s energy-efficiency gains.
Did you know that since the passage of SB 221:
• Energy-efficiency programs run by American Electric Power, Duke Energy and Dayton Power & Light in a single year resulted in a combined savings of more than 850,000 megawatt-hours, enough electricity to power 81,000 average Ohio homes for a year.
• Energy-efficiency programs implemented by these three utilities will also save their customers $351 million over the life of the measures.
• By 2027, SB 221’s energy-efficiency programs will reduce Ohio’s baseline electricity use by 22 percent from 2011 usage.
• The total energy savings realized under SB221 between 2011 and 2027 could add up to 318 billion kilowatt-hours, the equivalent to all of Ohio’s coal-fired electricity plants running at full capacity for a year and a half.
• The long-term benefits of SB221 could include more than $3 billion in annual customer savings and the creation of 49,000 jobs between now and 2027.
The goal of the SB 221 is to make utilities supportive of energy efficiency. The Public Utility Commission of Ohio implemented this by changing the rate structure to give utilities an incentive to meet some of customer electricity demand with energy efficiency.
The changes were designed to counter the utility revenue losses associated with selling less electricity. The new structure allows utilities to continue making profits while working toward gradually increasing efficiency goals.
AEP Ohio, Dayton Power & Light and Duke Energy have already achieved energy-efficiency savings that surpass the statutory requirements.
Utility programs are creating jobs in Ohio and saving money for their customers. The Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance applauds them for their efforts and pledges to work with them toward continued energy savings for Ohioans.
As these energy-efficiency programs continue, the economic benefits will continue to grow. Each $1 spent on utility energy-efficiency programs means a savings of about $3 on customers’ bills. By 2027, customers statewide could be netting more than $3.8 billion in lower electricity bills when compared with 2009 bills.
The energy legislation creates a positive ripple in the state economy. When consumers spend less on energy, they have more disposable income to spend elsewhere.
Meanwhile, energy programs lead to much-needed jobs for Ohioans. Every $1 million in energy-efficiency investment creates 5.4 direct local jobs.
Efficiency programs spur their own job growth — workers will be hired to manufacture and install energy-efficient windows, doors and insulation products, while others will be hired to manage the next cycle of efficiency projects.
Outside of the energy-efficiency industry, Ohio’s economy also retains more of its money because fewer funds need to be sent out of state to import energy.
As Ohioans reap the benefits of SB 221, it’s important that we recognize these positive impacts and support the continued growth of energy efficiency .
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