"Truce on Social Issues"--A Further Consideration

When Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana (and one-time no-longer candidate for President) declared the need for a "truce on social issues", he was asking for two things, one of which he probably wasn't aware of at first:

1) The GOP needs to focus on fiscal problems facing this country and not allow social issues to wedge apart the varying coalitions in the Republican party to elect Obama's replacement.

Here's the other subtext of Daniel's appeal:

2) The GOP, the media, and the public need to focus on the facts, the policies, and the vision of the Presidential candidates, not their personal lives, no matter how sordid or troubled--provided that candidates have adequately demonstrated that previous problems would not impinge on their possible Presidency.

Newt Gringrich is already waging a 90-degree (read "losing") battle against his very messy private life, man who divorced his first and second wives while dating their replacement. His lack of marital fidelity begs a crucial question for any candidate: If he cannot honor his commitments to one person, can the American People expect him honor his commitment to the Constitution?

Mitch Daniels and wife hit a rough patch in their marriage fourteen years ago. They have long since resolved the conflict between them, and they have enjoyed a happy, if uneventful, life together ever since. Yet reports were already circulating about the troubles that led to their untimely split, with implications as to how that conjugal upset would affect Governor Daniel's candidacy and potential presidency.

The Daniels have ably demonstrated their ability to rise above interpersonal adversity, which would not adversely affected his skills as an executive--consider the efficient government and robust economy of Indiana today compared to the other states in the Rust Belt.

Notwithstanding his enviable success in his home state, personal issues long dead and buried have resurrected to compromise the peace and integrity of the Daniels' home. For personal matters of an inconsequential nature, revealing very little of an incriminating nature about a presidential candidate, everyone needs to call a "truce" and let a candidate's current or unresolved record speak for itself.