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Mitch Daniels presents something of an enigma for conservatives.

On more than one occasion, Mr. Daniels, Indiana’s Republican governor and a potential 2012 presidential candidate, has rejected conservative orthodoxy. As governor, he has raised Indiana’s sales tax. He has mentioned the possibility that the federal government may need to adopt a national sales tax to close the deficit. He has even suggested that Republicans have paid too much attention to social issues.

Why, then, are so many conservatives – George Will, for instance – so fond of Mr. Daniels?

His success in cutting government in Indiana, the subject of my Economic Scene column this week, is probably the main reason. But there is another reason, too.

Mr. Daniels often talks a lot like a libertarian. And it does not appear to be an act. He genuinely seems to believe that government should be kept as small as possible (even if he does not oppose every single tax increase to close a deficit).

“I believe that there’s zero-sum relationship between government growth and freedom,” he said in an interview. “I think that the promotion and protection of liberty is the center of our project in this country. My preference is for confining government to those things it clearly must do.”

I asked him whether he really believed that the relationship was zero-sum — that more government always led to less freedom. Knowing that the police are keeping the streets safe would seem to make people feel more free. So might knowing that they can take economic risks and still have a safety net to protect them from destitution.

“It’s too broad a statement, I guess,” Mr. Daniels said, adding that he said it without thinking it fully through. “But I would hope you’d agree that an enormous amount of what government does now — it may not limit freedom directly, but it doesn’t promote it in any meaningful way,” he said. “Each time we take a tax dollar from a free citizen, we do diminish their freedom.”

In a similar vein, Mr. Daniels said that he would prefer a a long-term budget plan even more conservative than the one written by Representative Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who will be the chairman of the House Budget Committee. Mr. Ryan calls for major changes to Medicare — turning it into a voucher program, rather than a guaranteed benefit — in order to keep taxes equal to 19 percent of gross domestic product in coming decades.

Most Republicans have declined to endorse Mr. Ryan’s far-reaching plan.

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Even as it nears a critical vote in Congress today, the compromise tax deal worked out by President Obama and Republicans on Capitol Hill has some new enemies.

Conservatives.

Last week, the agreement was assailed by liberals who accused the president of giving away the store by agreeing to a temporary extension of tax breaks and reductions in the estate tax, both of which will benefit the wealthy.

But with a critical procedural vote scheduled for Monday afternoon in the Senate, some Tea Party activists and other conservative pundits are attacking it from the other side.

A group called the Tea Party Patriots is circulating a petition accusing Republican lawmakers of cutting a bad backroom deal with the president that violates the principles that Tea Party candidates campaigned on in the midterm elections.

“’The Deal’ revives the death tax, an immoral ‘vampire tax’ that sucks the blood from the dead, ruins family businesses and double taxes savings that were accumulated over a lifetime,” the petition says. “‘The Deal’ spends billions and billions of dollars that the country does not have in order to prevent a tax hike that the country voted against.”

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, said the tax deal “should not happen.” On his show Friday, Mr. Limbaugh blasted the Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill for giving in too much to Mr. Obama.

“The economic benefit here, if we do this deal, is going to be minimal,” Mr. Limbaugh said, insisting that Republicans should have fought for the permanent extension of the tax cuts rather than giving in to a temporary one. “Where is the Republican vision?”

Erik Erickson, the conservative blogger, wrote at Redstate.com that the “deal must now die.”

“It must now be opposed by Republicans,” Mr. Erickson wrote. “Released now in print, the legislation is loaded up with budget-busting pork of ridiculously absurd levels.”

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, appears to agree with Mr. Limbaugh. In a Twitter message, she endorsed the position of Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, who has criticized the compromise.

The Twitter message from a conservative commentator said, “Thank you, @JimDeMint — DeMint comes out against tax deal, says G.O.P. must do better than this.”

And Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist for The Washington Post, wrote in his last column that Mr. Obama and the Democrats had gotten more than people realized in the deal.

“Obama is no fool,” Mr. Krauthammer wrote. “While getting Republicans to boost his own re-election chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea Party, this-time-we’re-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.”

The Tea Party petition echoes many of the criticisms that disaffected liberals hurled at Mr. Obama after he took office and started negotiating with Congress to advance his agenda. Some of the accusations could easily have been written about Mr. Obama’s health care fight.

“This ‘backroom deal’ ignores those who voted for principled leadership on Election Day,” said Mark Meckler, the national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. “Americans demand transparency in the legislative process and policies that reflect fiscal responsibility — not secret negotiations and weak compromise.”

Will the carping from the right make a difference in the bill’s chances? That’s hard to imagine, given the louder chorus of praise for the compromise from Republican lawmakers who will vote as early as today.

But keeping your base satisfied is tough, as President Obama discovered during his first two years in office. And in the House, especially, it looks like Republicans will have to be quite united behind the legislation if many Democrats abandon the president.

Stay tuned for the voting.

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