Mitch Daniels Tours DC As Presidential Decision Looms

Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Mitch Daniels delivered multiple speeches in Washington DC on Wednesday, raising his national profile as speculation builds around a possible presidential bid.

In recent months Daniels had appeared to be more devoted to Indiana legislative battles than preparing a run for President, but murmurs of a national run have grown ever since his close friend, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, recently decided against entering the race.

After Wednesday’s speech on education at the American Enterprise Institute, Daniels fielded a question from the audience on whether it was too late for him to enter the race. Noting that the rest of the likely field did not seem to be far along in the campaign either, he told the audience that it was a “blessing” the race appeared to be shorter than past cycles.

“Unless you’re a political professional or running a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire it’s a darn good thing that we’ll have a nomination campaign measured in months and not years,” he said.

His appearances, however, were hardly the partisan throwdowns one might expect from a candidate testing the waters. Considered the wonkiest of the potential GOP field, Daniels mostly stuck to issues like the nitty gritty of charter school policy and offered gracious praise to the Obama administration for its own efforts on education.

Accepting an award for public service at the Arab American Institute (Daniels is half-Syrian), he even accepted friendly words from White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who called him a “great American and great public servant” whose “faith in our nation’s ideals transcends political lines.”

Daniels eschewed policy in his acceptance speech, instead offering an emotional retelling his grandfather’s journey from Syria to America at age 21, changing his name at Ellis Island to “Daniels” and building a comfortable life in a steel town in Pennsylvania.

Recently, Daniels said his family had reconnected by e-mail with distant relatives in their ancestral homeland, trading messages with concern as Syrian forces cracked down on protesters.

“I have never been able to say I’m proud of the regime that’s been in power for decades in the land from which my people came,” he said, “but now I’m so proud that brave Syrians have stepped forward as their Egyptian and Tunisian and other counterparts have and, against apparently brutal threats and repression, have stood up for the right to dream and to live free and to try to pursue better lives for themselves.”

Earlier in the week, on the same East Coast swing, Daniels raised his profile with the national media by meeting with a group of reporters in New York.

Latest DC
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: