Up until today, I had been kind of favorable-trending-towards-supportive of a Mitch Daniels presidential bid. Phlegmatic, conservative in an nonthreatening manner, exemplary experience as the governor of a middle-rank state, a real fiscal conservative - he's good on paper. Of course, he kept kicking 'own goals' by unnecessarily cheesing off the social conservatives, but I'm not a social conservative, so it wasn't a dealbreaker.

This is a dealbreaker. The proper response to an antidemocratic act full of contempt for law, order, and civility on the part of a minority is an iron-bound refusal to back down - especially when one is not in desparate straits. No lives are on the line here, just policy. There's no downside to smacking around a coterie of cowardly state legislators who've just lit out for the territories. It was a cheap and easy opportunity to show some backbone. What the hell is wrong with Daniels? It's as if he's afraid of the Overton Window shifting our way for a change.

On the plus side, Thune is bowing out of the 2012 campaign. Won't have to deal with his hypocritical High Plains embrace of the ethanol abomination.