The cover of this week's Economist...

...tempted me with The Republican to beat Obama?

Who? I couldn't wait and quickly flipped to page 21:

Mitch Daniels: The right stuff. Indiana's governor is a likeable wonk. Can he save the Republicans from themselves and provide a pragmatic alternative to Barack Obama?

Mitch Daniels? Really? Is that all you've got? Maybe in 2016, when the party will be ready for a David Cameron-type centrist, but not in 2012, when the GOP will surely nominate someone from the base.

Most Americans know little or nothing of Mr Daniels. He does not tweet. “I’m not an interesting enough person,” he explains.

That's an understatement. Have you seen this guy? It also says he's short and bald. Sarah Palin would crush him.

But he is good at one thing in particular: governing.

Too bad. If there's one thing the Republicans have no interest in it's governing.

Born in Pennsylvania and weaned in the South, he moved to Indiana at the age of ten before a scholarship took him off to Princeton.

Whoops! Fancy Ivy League education -- that's one strike against Daniels. The GOP is looking for "commonsense conservatives." And a scholarship? You mean he earned it? He didn't get in as a legacy like W?

[Daniels] served as Ronald Reagan’s budget director, and, from 2001 to 2003, served as George Bush’s budget director.

Weren't those the two guys that ran up those record deficits? And isn't that what the tea partiers are so upset about?

In his first year [as governor of Indiana] Daniels proposed a tax increase.

Whoops! Strike two.

He privatised the state’s welfare system, an unqualified disaster.

Okay, that's one in his favor.

By the end of his first term he had transformed a $200m deficit into a $1.3 billion surplus and the state had earned its first AAA credit rating.

Surplus? You're a Republican, remember? Foul tip.

He wonders whether America can afford all its military commitments, particularly those only loosely tied to fighting terrorism.

I'll pretend I didn't hear that.

He has derided the federal stimulus but taken its cash—a sign of pragmatism or hypocrisy, depending on the audience.

Shhh! That's okay. It's a dirty little secret that red states live off welfare from Washington.

More problematic, it is unclear that a clever, measured candidate stands a chance within the Republican Party. Social conservatives were rabid after Mr Daniels told the Weekly Standard that he favoured a temporary truce on social issues.

Ouch. Sorry, that's a called strike three. Especially since there's absolutely no mention in the article of Daniels as a Bible-thumping evangelical Christian.

Thanks for stopping by, Mitch. Check back with us in 2016; we might be able to use you then.