In that case: what kind of conservative is Daniels? How is he better or worse than, say, Christie, Palin, or Johnson?
He's the pragmatic kind. You probably wouldn't like him.
Lessee, where to start...
Daniels turned a big budget deficit into a surplus, primarily though making the state bureaucracy run more efficiently. He didn't hesitate to outsource state government functions whenever a private contractor could do the job cheaper.
Daniels broke the state's public employee unions.
When Daniels took office, the state highways were in bad shape. They'd been neglected for years, and bringing them back into good repair was going to cost a boatload of money that we didn't have. Daniels paid for it by leasing the IN Tollroad to some rich investors for $4 billion. Some of that money was used to pay for the needed repairs, the rest went into a trust fund to pay for future maintenance so that we don't wind up in the same mess again.
Daniels is extremely pro-business, especially manufacturing. Along with the highway improvements, the business environment allowed the state to land a bunch of big new factories. While the rest of the midwest decays and crumbles, Indiana has big new factories from Honda, Toyota, Cummins, Nestle, Subaru, and probably some others that I don't remember off hand.
Lifetime shall-issue carry permits. Fill out the form, pay for the administrative costs, and it comes in the mail two or three weeks later. Compare that to getting a carry permit in Illinois, Michigan, or Ohio. It's not quite as good as Vermont-style carry, but it's the next best thing, and probably as good as it's ever going to get in the midwest.
Daniels recently reformed the state's tax structure. Previously the state was funded heavily through property taxes, and with the recent rise in property values a lot of people were losing their homes and farms because they pay the taxes. The new tax structure relies heavily on the state sales tax. The thinking is that when hard times hit you can't do anything to lessen the value of your property, but you can reduce your consumption.
Daniels switched the state employees over to health savings accounts, from the old bloated insurance plans they'd previously used. HSA's, if you don't know, are the free-market solution to the nation's health insurance problems.
Daniels finally managed to switch the state onto daylight savings time. Indiana was the only state that didnt' switch its clocks, which was a huge hassle for the people and an expense for businesses. Politicians had been trying to get this done for decades, Daniels actually made it happen.
There's all sorts of other stuff he's done, big things and little things, that make the state run better and cheaper. Overall, it adds up to a situation where the state does its jobs, does them reasonably well, and otherwise stays out of your way. If you're really interested I'll try to put together a listing of it all.