Conventional-wisdom-maker David Broder had a positive piece about Mitch Daniels’ Thursday night speech to the Hudson Institute in yesterday’s Post. According to Broder, “In a party where a candidate such as Angle can be the nominee against the majority leader, brains are clearly a precious commodity. What we saw in Washington on Thursday night was a reminder that despite the occasional appearance, Republicans do not lack in that regard.”
In other words, Daniels is actually intelligent, unlike those other Republicans. As insulting as this is to the other Republicans, Broder’s IQ blessing is an important inoculation for Daniels. A consistent liberal trope over the last half century has been that GOP presidents are, well, less intelligent than their Democratic counterparts, not to mention the average Joe. Despite evidence to the contrary, Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes were all tarred with that brush, and Nixon was only spared because he was dubbed evil instead. Articles like the Broder one make it harder to apply the low-IQ tag to Daniels, though no doubt some will try if Daniels decides to run.