Daniels’ words awakened social conservatives enduring political anxiety. Christian right leaders– from Pat Robertson to Jerry Falwell to Land–have all expressed to me over the years one unanimous gripe with the Republican professional class: the coalition that courts them to win office often forgets them in office. That critique faded with the younger Bush presidency. “Reagan talked a good game but I think Bush is delivering,” Robertson told me in 2006. It’s the unique context of the offense that therefore causes offense. “He opened up an old wound; it was not a comment made in a vacuum,” Land agreed…

But Daniels’ faced the social issue flap, and all his weaknesses, by enlarging his strength. It was textbook political jujitsu. Reagan’s unambiguous stance against communism played a critical role uniting the coalition that still bears his name–the Christian right saw communism as the great godless foe. It helped religious Christians forget the divorced candidate from Hollywood who rarely attended church.

Daniels is likely trying to turn the vice of his virtue into the only virtue that counts. But the right does not view debt in the same existential terms as it did communism. Conservative activists do, however, see the debt in severe terms. The tea party movement attests to that.