I’ll tell you why they like Daniels. He managed to beat a democrat for his first term. In 2008, he, in spite of the state going Obama, it was close,(lots of cheating in Lake County to give Obozo a win, my personal opinion) Daniels managed to win by a pretty good margin. The elites see him as being able to get both parties votes. That is his allure to the GOP.
For me, he has done better than most governors and has managed to do some very conservative things like defunding Planned Parenthood and pushing Right To Work. They are very close to passing RTW. It would pass if they could get the Dems in the Indiana House to show up for a vote.
To me? Daniels is somewhat a nanny stater and he is not too good on illegal immigration.
His drug arrest over 25 years ago doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore because that was then, this is now. The bigger scandal for Daniels is the one that kept him out of the race. That has to do with his wife running off and leaving him with their daughters. They later reconciled, but I don’t think Daniels wanted to ruin his life as it is now.
Daniels could not win now because he isn’t well known enough to come in late. The only way that would work is to get someone who is well known.
“His drug arrest over 25 years ago doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore because that was then, this is now.”
It may not at the state level, but at the national level, with a media DETERMINED to make sure he loses, it certainly might. There’s a lot of questions they could ask, such as: “How could you live in an apartment with 2 roommates running the biggest (or near-biggest) drug dealing operation in New Jersey, over a period of nearly a year, and not know what was going on.” Then they would drag up people that knew him...who could very easily be lying (ala, Cain). It would be very tough for him to get out of. The difference with Newt is that he will at least fire up the base, as he’ll take the fight to Obama - Daniels, Romney, McCain, etc. just don’t seem up to it.
Here in Texas, Governor Perry’s been in power for over a decade, and we learned more about his record, his past, and the details of what he did in Austin in 3 MONTHS than we ever knew before that. And that was BEFORE the media got to work on him (he collapsed just as the media was starting on him). Same for Governor Palin - very, very, well-liked, until she was nominated and then the media felt they had to stop her.
Don’t think anyone on the Republican ride will get off easy for major past mistakes. Daniels may have to find that out the hard way...but hopefully it doesn’t leave us with Romney.