Winners

Mitch Daniels should probably be in there somewhere, too.

Of course, don’t tell the angry sociopath at One North Capitol that her party’s highest-ranking person in state government–and pretty much all of her party’s representatives in the House–voted for property tax reform.

The more effort is expected attacking the reform package, driven by foolish knee-jerk reactions and blind hatred of the Governor, the more some Democrats are attacking others of their own party at the same time.

It is not for nothing that both The Hair and the Governor have generally been perceived as coming out of the General Assembly session as winners by pundits ranging from Abdul to Jim Shella.

Brian Howey has commented on the disconnect:

(Read more after the leap)

House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer lauded the historic tax reform, saying, “Hoosiers demanded action on the Governor’s program and it has been delivered.” The votes in the House and Senate were by wide bipartisan margins. But Democrats across the state are not in lockstep. Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel called it “misguided.” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson (pictured) called the plan a “short-sighted political band-aid” designed to help Gov. Mitch Daniels re-election. Her primary opponent - Jim Schellinger - said, “Unfortunately, his plan is a stop-gap, election year response to a problem that’s going to come back to haunt us time and again because we haven’t truly addressed its roots.”

Note to Brian Howey: The short paragraph is your friend, the long paragraph your enemy.

Anyhow, never mind that Schellinger proposed no such plan to “address those roots.”

The fact that Diamond Jim Schellinger’s racket in designer schools might be one of the things at the root of the problem might just have something to do with it.

And, of course, why would anyone be surprised to see Schellinger’s talking points being parroted from the headquarters of the Indiana Democratic Party?

The Hair, for whatever else may be said of him, is more cunning than the dead animal that now rests atop his head.

He saw the writing on the wall and has made his bed.

And as Abdul notes, the Speaker sees a lot of Mitch Daniels in his future, and the Schellinger campaign is utterly hapless:

Losers (Or better luck next year)

Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Jim Schellinger - Schellinger is a smart guy, but to put out a news release to say the state needs to wait until next year for tax reform is the equivalent of handing Daniels a victory on a silver platter with a square plate and garnish on the side.

Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Jill Long Thompson - By passing tax reform, lawmakers took this issue away from the Democratic candidate and so now she’s going to have to find something else to run on. By they way, Speaker Bauer told us Friday he would have no problem pointing out errors in the criticism of the plan by either Thompson or Schellinger.

During the State of the State address, Mitch Daniels referenced that the Chinese word for crisis is formed from the characters for danger, and opportunity.

He seems also to have read the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu:

“The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities. It is best to win without fighting.”

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

(This post also available via the Hoosier Pundit)