Published: June 27, 2009 12:48 am      

HOWEY: Mitch for president? Don’t count on it

Mitch Daniels for president? In 2012? It’s all the buzz in the Statehouse hallways where Democrats and lobbyists speculate on the governor’s true motives as the special session races toward the wall.

It was a question I asked him about on the way back from Kokomo last September. The response was expected: No. I’m flattered, but not interested. It has been oft stated by the governor, going back to his meeting with reporters in the summer of 2007 on the eve of kicking off what he said was his last campaign.

Since then, he has invoked the “Cheri Daniels’ term-limits.” When asked last February while he was in Washington, Daniels responded, “No. No. No. N-O. You think you’re going to catch me in an unguarded moment.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed opposing cap and trade, Daniels stated in his opening paragraph, “I’m not a candidate for any office — now or ever again ...”

Fueling the speculation is the potential GOP field, and there are problems. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s Argentina affair has eliminated him. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? While many at the Evansville Right to Life dinner urged her to run, she and her family have become tabloid fodder and she is a lightweight.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindahl? Not ready for primetime. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich? An idea machine but one who shoots from the hip — his criticism during the piracy rescue earlier this spring is an example. He too has a checkered personal past.

Mike Huckabee? Next. Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or Florida Gov. Charlie Crist? All credible but it’s unlikely they can clear the field.

And in this seeping void, with the last Washington Post-ABC poll revealing only 22 percent call themselves Republicans and the GOP’s fav/unfavs at a sorry 36/56 percent, the chattering class has discovered “Our Man Mitch.”

In a National Review cover story featuring Daniels as “The Blade,” Rich Lowry writes, “Daniels points the way ahead for his bedraggled party. He’s a Reaganite who is not trapped in 1980s nostalgia; he’s a fiscal conservative who believes not just in limiting government, but in reforming it to address people’s everyday concerns; he’s a politician of principle who refuses to sell his program in off-puttingly partisan or ideological terms.”

Could Daniels be a credible candidate? There is talk that Daniels is orchestrating a “draft.” There’s only been one true presidential draft in the past century, and it occurred when both parties sought to lure Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower to their tickets in 1952, though there was a similar scenario in 1984 with Mario Cuomo until he slammed the door shut.

As astute as Daniels is politically, he is not in a class of generals like Washington, Jackson, Grant and Eisenhower, who capture the hearts and minds of an adoring people.

How would a candidate Daniels be received in Iowa and New Hampshire? I spent time on the ground in both states with Dick Lugar’s 1995-96 campaign and I can say Daniels would be well received in both states, particularly Iowa. He could win the Hawkeye State. His retail political skills are on par with President Barack Obama.

Could Daniels run a national campaign? Yes. As a young man, he ran Sen. Lugar’s 1982 campaign against Floyd Fithian in what was an extremely tough year for Republicans. He then went on to become President Ronald Reagan’s political director and headed the Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1984.

Does he have the credentials? Daniels is a former White House budget director who departed before Iraq and deficits went haywire, as well as a two-term governor coming off an 18 percent win, who balanced budgets and has brought limited reforms to the state. He raised $35.5 million for his two gubernatorial races. Those are stellar credentials.

What if a groundswell developed around the governor? This is a guy whom Gov. Robert Orr wanted to fill Vice President Dan Quayle’s Senate seat back in 1988 and he turned it down.

There’s another aspect to consider: The Daniels’ governorship has been engulfed in a second-term crisis. Experts are stating that Indiana’s jobless rate could reach 11.5 percent between now and 2010. Hoosiers will need a full-time governor over the next three years and Daniels knows it.

So why is the governor’s staff pushing all the punditry and why is the governor emerging as a national voice?

Longtime ally Mark Lubbers states, “MD is not running, but obviously wants to influence and contribute. He is interested in policy, ideas and certainly in the rehab of our party. And he has the experience and knowledge to know that this is no time for people of substance to absent themselves from the public square. Remember, we [Lugar troops] went to D.C. in 1977 when there were even fewer Americans than today’s mid-20 percent who said they were Republicans. We’ve lived this history before. And this is no time to cede the field. There is a certain patriotism in this that political commentators in this era of the sensational, 15-minute news cycle don’t get.”

Lubbers added, “The chattering class has virtually no capacity for understanding political ambition past the purely personal. Thus their only lens is ‘running for president.’”

Mitch Daniels for president? Don’t count on it.

Brian Howey is publisher of Howey Politics at www.howeypolitics.com.