New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has joined the chorus of those singing the praise of Mitch Daniels. Though the Governor is still rather ambivalent about running for President in 2012, many in the national punditocracy are urging him to run:

Mitt Romney? He couldn’t make the voters like him last time … Sarah Palin? She’d lose 47 states … Mike Huckabee? Better as a talk-show host … Tim Pawlenty, Jim DeMint, Bobby Jindal, David Petraeus? Too blah, too extreme, too green, and stop dreaming …

But murmur the name Mitch Daniels, and everyone perks up a bit. Would he win? Maybe not. But he’d be the best president of any of them …

“I’ve never seen a president of the United States when I look in the mirror,” Daniels remarked last week, after officially inching the door ajar for 2012. You can’t blame him: At 5’7”, the Indiana governor wouldn’t be the tallest man to occupy the White House, and he’d be the baldest president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. If Romney looks like central casting’s idea of a chief executive, Daniels resembles the character actor who plays the director of the Office of Management and Budget — a title that he held, as it happens, during George W. Bush’s first term.

Since then, though, he’s become America’s best governor. In a just world, Daniels’s record would make him the Tea Party movement’s favorite politician. During the fat years of the mid-2000s, while most governors went on spending sprees, he was trimming Indiana’s payroll, slowing the state government’s growth, and turning a $800 million deficit into a consistent surplus. Now that times are hard, his fiscal rigor is paying off: the state’s projected budget shortfall for 2011, as a percentage of the budget, is the third-lowest in the country.

Sen. Evan Bayh’s surprising move last week to announce he was not running for re-election was stunning, even to many most familiar with Indiana politics. However, the timing of said move (just before the candidate filing deadline) struck some the wrong way, even in his own party. The Democrats’ inability to field a candidate via signatures leaves the ultimate decision to the party’s State Chair and Central Committee. Janette Surrisi, a Democrat in Culver, has started a Facebook group (which has 55 members as of this writing) to rally state Dems in demanding that convention delegates be the ultimate deciders. In an e-mail, she writes:

The people of Indiana deserve to choose the democratic candidate for Evan Bayh’s senate seat. Evan Bayh announced only a day before the deadline to get on the primary ballot that he would not be running for election in 2010. Many speculate that the timing was a political maneuver to make sure that the Indiana Democratic Chairperson and Central Committee could hand pick the candidate of choice for the senate seat and in doing so leave many primary voters in the cold.

To remedy this, we believe that the more than 2,000 Indiana Democratic State Convention Delegates should pick the candidate for Bayh’s seat. Delegates are elected in the primary to go to convention. If not enough candidates are elected to delegate spots, county party chairman can appoint citizens of the party to the position. Currently, democratic delegates pick their Secretary of State, State Auditor, and State Treasurer candidates at convention.

We petition that Dan Parker and the Indiana Democratic Party Central Committee allow the delegates to vote for the democratic senator candidate at convention in June. We believe that the candidate that earns the most votes from the delegates should be named by the Central Committee as the candidate on the ballot for the democrats in November.

This group is dedicated to giving Indiana voters a voice. All voters Democrat, Republican, or Independent deserve to pick their candidates.

Even though we have been heavily involved in candidate recruitment this election cycle, the candidate filing period was full of surprises and plenty of candidates wanting to serve Indiana at the Indiana Statehouse and the U.S. Capitol.

Here is the complete list of filings (PDF).

We will write more analysis next week, but here are some early highlights:

• Eighty-three candidates filed for U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives. Someone pull out the history book and tell me the last time the party holding an open U.S. Senate seat did not have a candidate on the primary ballot.
• U.S. Senator Bayh, Congressman Steve Buyer and Congressman Brad Ellsworth will not be returning to Washington in their current seat. Ellsworth is vacating his congressional seat for a run at the open U.S. Senate seat.
• The early scoreboard on the race for control of the Indiana House is 30-11 for the Republicans. There are 30 districts currently held by a Republican without a Democratic challenger and 11 uncontested for the Democrats. Each party has until June 30 to fill a ballot vacancy for the general election.
• The Senate scoreboard is 23-10 for the Republicans. This includes seats not up until 2012 (Republicans control 18 of those 25 seats).
• There are eight contested primaries in the Senate. Three are on the Democratic side and five on the Republican side.
• There are 38 contested primaries in the House. Ten are on the Democratic side and 28 on the Republican side.
• Sue Errington and John Waterman are the only two incumbent senators with a primary.
• There are 19 House incumbents with a primary: Charlie Brown, Dan Stevenson, Chet Dobis, Don Lehe, Doug Gutwein, David Wolkins, Shelli VanDenburgh, Tom Dermody, Bill Ruppel, Bill Friend, Jack Lutz, Jacque Clements, Tim Brown, Dan Leonard, Dick Dodge, Tom Knollman, Woody Burton, Phyllis Pond and Mary Ann Sullivan.
• There were a total of 263 candidates that filed for the Indiana General Assembly.
• Only 17.1% of the candidates were women.

Look for more analysis over the next several days on candidate filings. Please feel free to add to the conversation and post your comments or questions.

The Indiana Chamber’s Cam Carter sat down with Gerry Dick to discuss the impact of today’s surprise announcement, though the true repercussions remain to be seen:

As political observers scramble to assess the impact of Senator Evan Bayh’s decision not to seek re-election, the vice president for federal affairs at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce believes it’s too early to tell what it could mean for business in the state. In a Studio(i) interview, Cam Carter says Bayh has been under the chamber’s microscope for voting to place a labor law attorney on the National Labor Relations Board, who appeared to favor proposals including card check legislation.

Carter says the Democratic Party will have to scramble to pick a candidate to run for the Senate seat in this year’s election.

Tomorrow is the deadline to gather 4,500 signatures from around the state to get a name on the ballot and Friday is the deadline for candidate filings.

Inside INdiana Business has video here.

House Speaker Pat Bauer and former Speaker Pro Tempore Chet Dobis have served together as Indiana legislators since 1970. That’s a lot of collaboration, and undoubtedly a little conflict, over 40 years.

Conflict is center stage now as Dobis has been removed from his second in command leadership position. The reason: he didn’t support his Democrat colleagues on a committee report that would have likely killed the Illiana Expressway, a project heavily supported in Dobis’ Northwest Indiana district.

Frugal Hoosiers has the latest, with an assist from the Northwest Indiana Times. The impact on the remainder of the legislative session, and beyond, remains to be seen.

Think Rep. Mike Pence can defeat Sen. Evan Bayh this November in one of the most talked about Senate races in the nation? Well, it doesn’t really matter, because according to Pence, he’s staying put in the House of Representatives. The following is a letter from Pence posted on his Facebook page (and relayed via Inside INdiana Business):

As many of you are aware, I have been approached about running for the United States Senate in 2010. Karen and I have been humbled by the outpouring of support and encouragement which we received from across Indiana, especially since there are several capable and qualified candidates already seeking the Republican nomination. After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to remain in the House and to seek reelection to the 6th Congressional District in 2010. I am staying for two reasons. First because I have been given the responsibility to shape the Republican comeback as a member of the House Republican Leadership and, second, because I believe Republicans will win back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010. One year ago I was unanimously elected chairman of the House Republican Conference, the third ranking position in House Republican leadership. I accepted that responsibility because I believed that if Republicans returned to their conservative roots, they could win back the confidence of the American people. And I see it happening every day. As a Republican leader, I have the opportunity to shape the policy and strategy that will return a Republican majority to the Congress in 2010. So my duty is here, in the House, serving my constituents and my colleagues as we fight to restore a conservative majority to the Congress of the United States. I am not going to leave my post when the fate of the House hangs in the balance. My place is here, in that fight, with the brave men and women who will be winning that victory for the American people. I also am staying because I believe we will win back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010, and I am excited to be a part of it. While the opportunity to serve in the United States Senate is significant, I believe the best chance this nation has to restore fiscal discipline, common sense and common values to Washington, D.C., is for conservatives to retake the House in 2010. When we win back the House, we will make history and we will have the power to stop the big government plans of this administration and to steer our nation to a more secure, free and prosperous future. Last fall, Karen and I completed our first full marathon. We finished the 26.2 miles in just under seven hours despite the rigors on this 50 year-old body and despite many opportunities to step off the track and call it a day. Our inspiration for the day came from a verse in the Bible that reads, “let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” I believe the race marked out for me in 2010 is in the House of Representatives. I believe that if we run that race with conviction and endurance, we can win back the Congress for the common sense and the common values of the American people, turn this tide of big government back and set the stage for a boundless American future. Thanks to you all who prayed our little family through this difficult decision. I hope that God will someday permit me to perform some wider service to the people of Indiana and the country, but for now my focus must remain on finishing the job I was elected to do by my constituents and my Republican colleagues; representing conservative values in Congress and winning back the House of Representatives.

In a major victory for Hoosier and American business, the United States Supreme Court handed down a much anticipated ruling today in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This ruling removes the ban placed on corporate dollars spent on independent expenditures and will give the job creators and innovators of this country the freedom to talk about issues, candidates and elections.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling frees American business from the yoke of second class citizenship.  It returns the right of American business to talk about workplace issues and hold candidates accountable,” said Gregory Casey, President and CEO of the Business and Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), the nation’s oldest business political action committee. The Court’s action is “certain to increase the discussion on economic issues in the 2010 elections, which is a very good outcome.” 

The Court’s 5-4 ruling also involved two much older cases, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission.  In Citizens United v. FEC, a small non-profit organization, Citizens United wanted to release a documentary that was critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential election on cable TV that would have been available through video-on-demand. Several lower court decisions ruled against the organization from airing the documentary.

Contributions made by corporations will be disclosed and essentially treated the same as an individual contribution currently is by the FEC. Transparency and freedom of speech are both important and both won in this ruling.

By the way, the loud moan you are hearing is coming from labor union leaders who fear business leaders talking directly with voters about an agenda centered on job creation, economic development and education reform.

Please feel free to add to the conversation and post your comments or questions.