What is a Republican like? Grey skin, big ears, long nose?

That's referring to the GOP's elephant icon, of course, but trying to figure out which politicians are Republicans and which are Democrats isn't as easy as spotting the difference between an elephant and a donkey. Labels don't seem to mean as much as personalities.

Few examples illustrate this as well as the curious combination of Barack Obama and Mitch Daniels.

President Obama, a liberal Democrat, was elected in a landslide because he is an agent of change. Hoosiers voted for the first time in decades to put a Democrat in office not because he was a Democrat, but because he represented a big change from President Bush's policies.

Likewise, Gov. Daniels won in a landslide on the same day because Daniels -- a Republican -- is an agent of change.

Daniels pushed for big changes, including a radical restructuring of local government. He is a strong proponent of performance-based governing. The Daniels administration even publishes a set of metrics to evaluate how the state agencies under his control are doing.

Daniels has recast the state Republican Party as a group of reformers with a "can do" attitude. Daniels didn't accomplish everything in the regular session of the Indiana General Assembly that he hoped. Local government reform emerged weak from the Senate and was killed outright in the House.

That action, among others, put House Speaker Pat Bauer, a South Bend Democrat, in the role of public policy anchor. Anything that involved reform, Bauer held on tight and dragged his feet to stop it.

It's much the same in Porter County, where Democrats have cast themselves into the role of obstructionists against regional cooperation on transportation They're fighting change in the county, even as Democrats in the nation's capitol are doing just the opposite. Why are the state, local and national Democrats so out of synch?

U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh is defying the Democratic Party stereotype as his votes skew conservative. Ryan Nees, a Yale student who writes frequently for Howey Politics Indiana, even suggested Thursday, "There's a future for an Evan Bayh Republican in the GOP."

Will Bayh switch parties, just as Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter did when he became a Democrat last week? That would be a surprise, after he worked so hard to boost Hillary Clinton's chances in the Indiana primary just a year ago. Bayh's campaigning for Clinton is widely credited for her narrow victory in the Indiana primary despite Obama's early lead.

Bayh has cast himself as a fiscal conservative, something for which Democrats historically have not been known but which Republicans at the national level haven't been lately either.

Nationally, the Republican Party hasn't offered much of a high profile lately. Sniping at the Obama administration isn't the same as offering solid, bold alternatives.

If the national Democratic Party under Obama's leadership has become the "Yes We Can" party, the national GOP is the "No We Can't" party. And it's just the opposite at the state level in Indiana.

So what does a Republican look like? What defines a Democrat? You tell me, because the state and national parties are certainly not helping anyone see a clear difference.

Editorial Page Editor Doug Ross can be reached at (219) 548-4360 or (219) 933-3357 or Doug.Ross@nwi.com. The opinion expressed in this column is the writer's and not necessarily that of The Times.