Most of the analysis of Mitch Daniels' call for a "truce" on social issues lacks understanding of basic principles of strategic communication. Despite the heat that he is taking heat for it right now, Daniels has set events in motion that greatly increase his chances of becoming president of the United States, as well as his prospects for effectiveness once elected.

Here are the principles being missed, and their implications:

• Word Choice: The key word in attacks on Daniels has been "surrender." He has supposedly dealt a blow to his own ability to win the nomination by alienating social conservatives, who will not tolerate surrender on social issues. As Mark Twain once said, the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

A truce is not a surrender, and the pivotal difference between them is that the former is temporary and the latter permanent. In this case, the truce for which Daniels calls is meant to last until November 2012. The reason for the truce is to better contend for the votes of the independents that ultimately tip the scales in any presidential election, many of whom are put off by culture wars.

• Position: "Only Nixon could go to China" is enough of a cliché for screenwriters to have put it in the mouth of Leonard Nimoy, claiming it as an ancient Vulcan proverb. But like most clichés, it represents a very real truth. As David Kuhn of Real Clear Politics recently observed, Mitch Daniels is a bona fide and verifiable social conservative. If Rudy Giuliani called for a truce, critics might be justified in suggesting that he really meant surrender. There is little in Daniels' background to suggest that he is a Giuliani-style conservative. The salience of this point is augmented by the next strategic element, which is:

• Timing: Here lies the most important element of the Daniels strategy. The race for the Republican nomination has literally yet to begin - and that is why the call for a truce is so shrewd. In recent years, message strategy has changed in response to the quickening of the news cycle. In the rush to win day-to-day, many have lost sight of the reality that some messages create competing waves that take time to settle into equilibrium. This is especially true this early in the election cycle, and with respect to information about individuals that are not well-known to the majority of voters. By issuing his call for truce so early, Daniels has left plenty of time for the natural process of exposure to rob his critics' attacks of their sting.

• Levels of Publicity: Presidential candidates get themselves into trouble by tailoring their remarks too closely to a given audience. Barack Obama's infamous remarks about "bitter clingers" - which still hold the potential to lose him Pennsylvania, possibly a key electoral state, in 2012 - were made to well-heeled donors in the home town of Nancy Pelosi. The problem was that when he made them, reporters were hanging on his every word, and so they were broadcast to an audience to whom Obama would never have uttered them directly. This early in the cycle, Daniels can probably avoid that fate. He can reassure social conservatives quietly, away from cameras and recorders. Because social conservatives are interconnected through church and social organizations, this task is made easier. This is an element easily overlooked by those of us who eat and breathe politics, because it recalls that 99 percent of the population is not similarly afflicted.

Daniels' fundamental strategic calculation, largely revealed in his recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, is this: in 2012, beating Barack Obama will require, as he put it, "a coalition of a dimension no one has recently assembled." That will require attracting many independents, who agree that our government is overgrown and profligate, but are often put off by a focus on conservative social positions. That is the whole point of his call for a truce. He has further calculated that his record, the time available, and his current relative freedom to speak to discrete groups will allow him to shore up the social conservative base. His surrogates will be reminding those voters that George W. Bush had the reputation of being one of them, but that only their full-on revolt stopped him from putting Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court.

Daniels has probably also calculated that his stiffest competition for the nomination will be Mitt Romney, a man who has his own challenges when seeking the votes of social conservatives. All of this suggests that the Governor of Indiana is many moves ahead on the chess board. To mix game-room metaphors, if he becomes the 45th President of the United States, his call for a truce will have been that first domino that started the others falling.