Daniels says debt could wreck America

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WANE) - Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is weighing a run for president and will make a final decision at the end of April or before. In a year-end interview with NewsChannel 15, he talked presidential politics. Excerpts of that interview are below.

Mark Mellinger: "Many have said you [would] have a lot going against you if you were running for president. And some obstacles you just can't help. One is that you're short."

Mitch Daniels: "I don't dispute it. You know, if it comes down to height and hair, I guess we won't- wouldn't do too well."

"Mark, in different ways, questions have come up in the past. In any campaign, there are always going to be pluses and minuses. And I've always taken the position it is not for me to suggest to any free citizen why they cast their vote. If they pick a reason that you say 'Well that doesn't make any sense', it's their vote. It's their right. And I don't ever begrudge them."

Mellinger: "Do you regret now saying that we should call a truce on social issues in the interest of paying attention to the debt and fiscal matters?"

Daniels: "I never regret saying what I think. I've tried to make a practice of being straight and level with people and I accept if people disagree. I think some people misunderstood what I was really saying."

Mellinger: "What did you mean by a truce?"

Daniels: "I simply meant that I think the nation faces a genuine emergency in the debt we've piled up. It could wreck America. It could end the American dream literally if we don't handle it and handle it soon."

"It's just like if there was an army on our border. We would drop other things or we would set them aside for awhile and we would rush to the barricades and defend our country. And all I was saying was [that] if you're facing a mortal survival threat like that, we're going to need to get together more than just a bare majority of Americans. When you're trying to make big change in a state or a nation, the way to do that is to have an unnaturally large consensus. And so we're going to need people who disagree sincerely about other questions to agree about these changes."

Mellinger: "This was not you saying 'I'm not going to work to appoint Supreme Court justices in the Alito or Roberts or Thomas mold.' It wasn't anything to alarm social conservatives."

Daniels: "First of all, it wasn't directed to them. It was directed as much to people who, for instance, are very aggressively trying to change the definition of marriage... Stand down for awhile. Let's save America."

"I've had the first and only Indiana Supreme Court opportunity I think I'll ever get. Anybody looking at the choice [should see] a strict constructionist, very much a person who wants to interpret law, not make law. Of course that's my view and a very deeply held one."

Mellinger: "Do you think that [in] the [2012] Republican presidential primary, it will be the candidate who best displays competence and proven accomplishment who wins this time?"

Daniels: "I'll just reflect what I hear from so many people: that because of the really very dangerous position the country is in, and because of the failures of the federal government -especially the failures to be responsible about finances- that there will be a premium on people who have deep convictions about that. And if they can show they've actually done something and succeeded in doing it, that it would be a help."

Mellinger: "Do you think Sarah Palin can win the presidency in a general election?"

Daniels: "I don't know. No one knows right now. "

Mellinger: "Does she represent the best and brightest the Republican Party has to offer in 2012?"

Daniels: "[She] hasn't been fully tested, you know. Give her a chance. Give her a chance. She's been heard from lately on some issues for the first time and I thought she wrote about them and spoke about them pretty well."