Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has taken himself out of the running for president, but he says he believes he could have defeated President Barack Obama for a second term.I was returning home from the Indianapolis 500 when this news item came over the car radio. Everyone in the car immediately erupted in laughter. Hey, if he thought he could have won, he would have run. He spent months teasing us all about making a run and then turned tail as soon as he saw that the national media was going to scrutinize his record in a way the local news media has declined to do. The family privacy rationale is getting a little old. That issue was there from day one. Why bother raising people's hope you were going to make a run if you were going to let women who have played no part in your political career to date make the decision for you?
“Yes, I think so,” Daniels said when asked whether he could have beaten Obama on ABC’s “This Week.” “I mean no one can know.”
Daniels said that his decision to not run was based on his family’s desire for privacy and security, which he said would inevitably have been lost in a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
“We've got young women, three of them that have been married not too long,” Daniels said. “They're looking forward to building lives, starting families and this was just a - a disruption that - that they were very, very leery of. And who wouldn't understand that?”
Daniels Thinks He Could Have Beaten Obama
I don't quite know what to make of Gov. Mitch Daniels' suggestion that he could have beaten Barack Obama if he had chosen to run for president: