Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, one of the most popular presidential candidates who never ran for the office, believes he would have won the GOP nomination in 2012 but lost to an overpowering Obama campaign backed by a “monolithic, unpersuadable base of black and strongly liberal voters.”
Writing at length for the first time about his almost campaign, Daniels, now the president of Purdue University, also said that he has no plans to run in 2016. “Timing is truly everything in politics, and timing as fortuitous as that circumstance spread before us in 2012 never comes twice.”
His comments are in an “afterward” for a new biography titled Run Mitch, Run. The book, provided to the Washington Examiner, is written by friend Don V. Cogman and self-published by iUniverse.
It covers the highlights and low points of Daniels’ possible 2012 bid, including his controversial demand that candidates take a “truce” on social issues like such as abortion. In the end, he decided not to run because his family opposed a bid.
Daniels, a two-term governor, a former White House budget chief and one-time top political aide to former President Ronald Reagan, was championed by fiscal conservatives who believed his revival of Indiana could be a model for the nation.
Working for him was a bank of support from the Reagan and Bush teams, 2008 GOP nominee Sen. John McCain, and the conservative press. “And,” he added, “in terms of the field, well, I think it’s fair to say it wasn’t the strongest.”
His friends promised victory, but he wasn’t sure. “My own best guess is that we would have captured the nomination but lost to an Obama campaign that had several powerful advantages,” such as black and liberal support, he wrote.
Vindication, he concluded, came from Obama strategist David Axelrod, who said, “We were very relieved when Governor Daniels took himself out. He was the one we were most worried about.”
HOW WILL BERNIE SANDERS RUN?
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is under intense pressure to run for president as a Democrat and not as a “spoiler” independent who could undercut support for the eventual nominee, according to several progressives.
But Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, hasn’t decided which direction to go.
“There are advantages and disadvantages” to both, he told members of the progressive Democracy for America in a conference call the Examiner was invited to join in on.
“There are millions of people out there who feel the Democrats have not been strong enough in standing up for the working class, the middle class of this country and taken on big money interests. That suggests running as an independent,” he said.
Sanders also rapped President Obama for not maintaining “ties with the grassroots that helped elect him president.”
But, he added, “Running within the Democratic primary system gives you an opportunity to engage in debates.”
PARIS NO-SHOW WON’T BE REPEATED FOR AUSCHWITZ’S 70TH
Don’t say that the White House chief of staff is a slow learner.
Eight days after being hit for not sending an administration big shot to the Charlie Hebdo international anti-terror protest in Paris, where leaders from Israel and Arab nations linked arms but President Obama’s team was nowhere to be seen, the White House is fielding a big group for the symbolic 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Chief of Staff Denis McDonough took the heat for the Paris failure, and the White House has responded by naming a 10-person delegation to Poland led by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. It includes two Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and the State Department’s Holocaust envoy.
The anniversary is Jan. 27. Associates had told the Examiner they were concerned that the administration was not sending anybody to the event, which is expected to attract the leaders of France, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Malta, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland.
In not going, Obama joins Russian President Vladimir Putin as the other world power missing at the celebration.
QUOTED
“My mother taught me a million years ago: Do your best, share credit, focus on the team. It’s not fancy, but it worked for me.”
Former President George H.W. Bush offering a life lesson in an email to alma mater Yale University’s sports blog for a story about his days playing college baseball.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
