Savagery of president ial politics. Yet hadnt started [end video clip] don i wasnt sure that he would change his mind. Say, it started with that article in the wall street journal. Question, a lot of of youwanted to think running for president. I told him what a great article it was and said, what do you think . I got the answer that we just heard. Past and i called him again, saying a lot of people have called me. Would you be willing to talk about it . Process whichhat lasted nearly two years, trying to convince them that this was something he ought to seriously consider. Brian how did you know him . Don we met in washington. Leaving during the time he came. Years. Known him for 35 throughout our careers, we have worked on different projects together. When he was on the Hudson Institute, i was on one of his boards. We have had a relationship or three decades. Brian when did you get into politics . Don i came to washington in 1972 from oklahoma. I was very first young at the time. That was my first entry into politics. I was with him for five years. It is something that had always been in my blood. I love politics and government and campaigns. I had a very strong feeling about how important it was to be engaged and was able to do iings earlier than i thought would. I always wanted to work in washington. I wanted to work in the senate. I finally made the decision to go to the private sector. Brian how much of what you wrote in the book goes on with other people there thinking about running . Don probably a lot. It is obviously a personal decision but as mitch said, in his circumstance, he had just been reelected. He made that famous commercials saying this to be the last office you will have to vote for me on. He felt like he still had commitments to indiana. He was stuck in the middle of it. It is a lifechanging decision, obviously for the candidate that in many ways, for the family, too. When you think about running for president , it is not just the campaign, you run with the idea that you will win. It is not just the campaign, but also the time in the white house. Your life will never be the same. For the families, depending on the circumstances, that can be a tough decision. To himwhen we talked here, he was governor of indiana. During his second term here is some video when he was at the white house in 1985. [begin video clip] watchedyoung deputy, i unemployment figures. Orry new business start uptake and employment triggered a celebration involving the mayor and a press release written by me. Know toical actors, we claim credit for every new job but we realize it is not the new way the world works. Tricks ofat the best the trade are of no avail without a growing economy. [end video clip] brian he looks quite young there. Where were you in 1985 . In 1985, i was in with an energy company. When did you first think about the presidency . Ou worked for senator bartlett everybody says that everybody in the senate thinks that they can be president. When did you think you would get involved . I was involved with the Reagan Administration as a volunteer. I served on a couple president ial commissions. I had worked with people in the white house during the reagan years and the george w. Bush years. I was on a couple of commissions. I had always been involved at that level with people that i knew. From a campaign standpoint, it was always my attitude that it would be fun to work on a president ial race but i was never interested unless i knew the person well. Or had a personal relationship with them. My interest and experience have been at a lower level. That is why when the idea of mitch running developed, because of our relationship, it was a real interest of mine and the others i mentioned. Brian where were they from . How many . On there were seven of us when i was trying to get him to be willing to talk to people, the first people i called were with tom bell. I had known tom we were in the senate together. He is a senator from tennessee. At that point, tom was an executive in atlanta. A longtime friend of mitch. Tom was a one that introduced me to mitch. Very strategic, had a lot of involvement, but a very close friend. When i first talked to mitch about getting the group together, i had in mind some other person in mitch made the comment that if we are going to talk about president ial politics, he said tongueincheek that we ought to talk to somebody who know something about it. That is when i said, lets call to the black. Charlie black he was a longtime friend of mitch, and he said sure. That was the initial group. Meetingactually did a in my home, we walked through this to think about planning it, marked bob perkins leonards, al hubbard. Perkins was a person who has helped many marketing jobs across the country, and a longtime friend. Rick powell was the youngster rosa group. Youngster of the group. Al hubbard was a longtime friend of mitch. That was the group in the beginning and was the group to the end. When was your first meeting . There was in augusta, georgia meeting. Don that was tom, charlie, mitch, and i. We were strategizing on how we would get mitch to agree to do this. He came up with the idea and said if we invite him to augusta, we will get him to come. That was our first session. We played golf and had dinner twice. Our goal was to get him to say, i am never going to do this but lets explore it. That was our goal and we did that. The full Group Meeting when we got serious was in my house in 2010. Dale in january brian hardly a couple pages go by when the name sherry comes up. Who is sherry and what role did she play from the beginning . Don sherry is of course his first lady ofer indiana. They had four children, we had four children, about the same age. Personal friends. From the beginning, she wasnt involved. Brian why not . Don i think mitch felt like this and be a tough sell. Sell whenairly tough he made the decision to run for governor. It wasnt something that she necessarily wanted to do. From the beginning, she wasnt involved. As he went through the process, as we got more serious about it, as we started doing things like saying weap kept saying, we have to sit down with her and have a conversation about this. Like perhaps as the idea gained momentum, she and the girls my get more interested. Concern and it a wasnt until the final months that we had that conversation. She really made her opinion known. Brian it appeared that she made the decision in the end. Words,will put it in his i love my country but i love my family more. Simply did notls want to live the rest of their lives that way. She wanted to be able to do normal things. She was concerned about security. She felt like she had done it years in the Governors Office governorsars in the office. If you try to be objective, you can understand their point of view. In 1991, mary oh waso mario cuomo constantly being written about running for president. Here he is telling us what he was going to do. [begin video clip] gapheoretically, when our has been closed and our processes restored, i could enter the remaining primaries and still be a contender. I accept the judgment of the national chairman, it would be in the best interest of the Democratic Party that i ,bandoned any such effort now to avoid whatever inconveniences that the process creates the possibility of another candidate. I regard myself as highly serve the 18 Million People of my state as governor for a third term. I would be less than honest if i did not admit to you my regret at not having the chance for running for president. [end video clip] brian he was called the hamlet of politics because he cannot make up his mind. I first thought about writing something about this know,ure, i thought, you it might be more interesting if i could think of a democrat that had gone through the process. Mario cuomo is exactly the person i was thinking about. There are a lot of parallels. Everybody thought he was going to run. I can remember on the republican side, that was the one we feared the most. It is interesting that you show that. There are a lot of parallels in that decision process brian . I want to show you what his son said about this whole idea at his funeral. [begin video clip] he loved being governor and he thought that he could do for terms. He valued that over anything else. Moreuld not trade six years as governor even for the supreme court. Why did he not run for president . Because he did not want to. That is all. That is everything to mario cuomo [end video clip]. Brian because he didnt want to. Don a good deal of it when applied to Mitch Daniels. , isaid from the beginning look in the mirror and i dont see a president. Inresponse was, quit looking the mirror. From the beginning, he said this is nothing i have ever thought about. I am just enjoying my time as governor. It is not something he ever contemplated. Around in scottsdale, one of us remarked we were we had grown up together politically and professionally we are sitting in my living room and one of us is thinking about running for president of the united states. It is surreal. It is just not something he ever thought was in his future. He did not really need to do it. It is a tough thing to do. There are those who said, if he doesnt want it, you will never be able to get through it. He became convinced coming toward the end the process that he is very competitive and i think if he had made a decision, he would have had his heart and soul into it. It is not something that he ever really thirsted after. Brian let me ask you you mentioned earlier the residents meetings. Before you got to those meetings, what did you do about organization . Don at that meeting in scottsdale, we went through every aspect of the campaign. We talked about finance, we talked about issues, we talked about communication, staffing, all of the elements. That meeting was to get him to say, im interested enough to take the next step. Session was, that mitch is governor, he cannot fly all over the country like most candidates, lets bring people to him. Other people had done that. The idea of the dinners to bring people who had a particular and tohey were schooled help them think about different areas of interest. One big thing in president ial ofitics there are a core people you turn to to raise money. We wanted to make sure that people would keep their powder dry until he made a decision. I think we did about one dozen of them. They gave us a lot of momentum and turns of people who were in terms of people who are interested. If you have an interest in doing it, come have dinner with him, questions, tell them to think about it. It was a way of Building Momentum to convince him that this is something you ought to think about doing. Brian were you at these meetings . Member usually had one at one. I was at three or four of them. The seventhntion person, eric holcomb. That wasthe one member his political person, he ran his campaign. None of us knew eric, people in indiana did. Eric was the person on the side that was a tremendous asset. Strangers all of us intruding on his territory with grace and professionalism and was a valuable member of the team. Number brian of them. Anything go wrong at a brian anything go wrong at the dinners . Don the only thing that went wrong is that mitch kept saying, i dont want to do this. I am probably not going to do it. Part of our struggle with him was to get him not to say that. We did not expect him to say, i made a decision. Day was doof the nothing to deny the option. We kept trying to get that into his head. As you go through this conceit support, you may and see support, you may want to do this. Toward the end of the dinners, he was saying the right thing. Brian who could talk to most frank to him . I. probably tom, bill, and to a certain extent, mark. Mark was a personal friend. I. Bably tom, bill, and it was in tods personality toms personality he was blunt. The first question he asked was, before we play golf, lets get a couple things straight. Would you want to be president . Not, could you win. Would you want to be president . Mitch responded, he had some ideas and he has things he could contribute. There was always a time in every meeting, either at the beginning at the end, tom would ask that blunt question. He would be straightforward, as most of us were. Brian in the book, you say that he was waiting for were jeb bush. In anybody else . Why those two . Don haley all of us knew him. Own up together. He was a great friend. Was one of they smartest political people we had run across. He was a good governor in mississippi. That was a personal friendship. Somebody who he felt, because of his experience with him as governor of florida, he was just a capable person. Who had done a great job as governor of florida. Surely there is somebody that can do this that is not me. Our response was, tell us who it is. He would talk about jeb bush a lot. The 2 00 a. M. Communicated in those days the two of them communicated in those days. Back then, jeb bush thought it was too soon for another bush. Early on, we knew that that wasnt going to happen. Haleyf us felt like probably wouldnt do it either. Those are the two he talked about more than anything. He was constantly saying, i know we can find somebody else. When did you decide to write the book . It is full of dates and lists. Don i did save a lot. I am a note taker. I was the coordinator of the effort once we got it going. I had thought about writing it is after the actual episode. I felt that mitch would never want me to do that. Notes in a box that said in my garage for two years. I got a call one day from rick powell, saying he had gotten a halbert, asking him some things that mitch. Me. Id, he had not called i said, i always thought about writing something that i never did. Rick is the one that said, you to. It is a piece of history. That is the thing the coming thinking about it. I want to my garage and got the box. It took me about two weeks to go through it. I organized the first by subject. Because of the internet and emails, you can organize it down to be our. That is how i started the book. I organized it into subjects, outlined it chronologically. Write, i have to write by myself. No distractions. Because it was two years later, i did not keep at it, i would lose my place. I literally wrote it in 30 days. I would do it six days a week, four straight weeks. Brian had you talk to Mitch Daniels about the book . Don no. Brian he wrote and afterward. Don he did. I finished the manuscript and thought, how am i going to talk to mitch about this . Literally the next day i got a call from him that he was going to be in scottsdale making a speech. Over and have a drink. I said, maybe this is a sign. Over and we had a drink and at the end of the conversation i said, i need to tell you something. I have written a book about our adventure. The first thing he said was, you know, you dont have enough to do. I said, i need to keep my brain working. I gave him the manuscript. I said, this is up to you, completely up to you. You can throw it away, even have it xeroxed for our friends, we can print 25 copies, or we can make a book. It is up to you. It was fun going back through it. He read it and called me one month later and said, i cant believe you actually did this but i think it is really interesting. I think other people might be interested because there will be people going through this process. Lets see what we can do about it. Brian how about a publisher . Was anybody interested . Don we didnt even really look. Mitch knew of a publisher in indiana, the largest selfpublishing Company Owned by penguin. He knew them well and had done projects with them. He said, lets do it ourselves. I said, terrific. That is probably the quicker way to get it done. It brian in that manner. When did you finish . So we just did it in that manner. Brian when did you finish it . Don it took a while, about nine months. It was another nine months. We published it last year. Brian i would not know about this book if it hadnt been for fred barnes. He wrote an article, if the campaign that never was. The campaign that never was. Speak to a here to group of students who are part of the american studies program. I was on the board of american studies for 20 years. Fred barnes took my place on the board when i finally retired. I was invited to speak to one of the classes on the book. Mitch was on the board with me, too. The president of the program said, we will have fred barnes interview you. I had known fred for a number of years. When we met he said, i had not read the book that because of this event, i did, and i enjoyed it. I do think you have got enough publicity for it. I said, that was not the point. It was very enjoyable. He called me after to say, im going to write about it. I thought the article was wonderfully done. Brian he wrote, the publication was greeted with silence. There were zero reviews. Two indiana newspapers wrote about its existence. That was the extent of the publicity. It was a book about a campaign that never got started. Don there was a lot of interest in indiana. I spent a couple days there doing television and radio and print. Obviously, there was interest there. It wasnt something we promoted i did not do it for that reason. We hoped other people would pick it up here. Events just overshadowed it and took people in different directions. Brian by the way, why did you think that Mitch Daniels would make a difference . Principally, a couple of things. At the time, the real issue at that time was fiscal discipline. The budget leaving the next generation in the red. That was his issue. Thatd proven as governor he knew how to reduce the size of government from a debt standpoint yet, using government in a positive way. He had a lot of credibility on that issue. Was his uniqueat differentiation, that he had actually proven you can do it. You could come up with Solutions Debt andms related to fiscal discipline. All of us who had known him for knew how smart he was. You can rarely find a person that has both the policy expertise he really is a policy nerd that delves deep into policy issues but also has tremendous political instincts. The one thing we did not know about him before he ran for governor, was would he be good as a candidate . Surprised us when he first announced he was running for governor. He proved he was a master at retail politics. He would ride around the state, stay in homes, walked down a street and talk to everybody. Adept at the retail side of it that we believe he had a combination of unique elements. Brian you cite a lot of writing in the book, one particular piece by michael boron in which about Mitch Danielsked being bald and humorless. He did use it in humor, though. As i recall, his response to that column with Something Like, this is going to be a winner, for sure. Thinskinned about certain things. It was quick. He always got over it. He had a great deal of selfconfidence and competitiveness because he has an intellect that is really with hisg, combined ability to connect with the common person. It was something to behold. Brian here is a clip of somebody named cleda mitchell. I run it because she played a role in this, and we will talk about money and how you were able to fund what you did. [begin video clip] i will say this in defense of fundraising. I have helped a lot of people run for office. Tonce met a guy who wanted run for the legislator against an incumbent. Who needed to be defeated, i might add. I said, how are you going to raise money . He says, i cant raise any money. There is nobody in my district he would give me money. I say, how are you going to finance it . I said, let me tell you something, go back to your district and if there is not one person who can write you a check , that means there is nobody who believes in you enough to help. [end video clip] college. Ve no persons she is a great i have known her since college. She is a good friend of mine. She was a hardcore democrat in oklahoma. I tell people i take full credit for transforming her. She is one of the smartest liars in the country. When we first started this effort, i dont remember who called who but we talked and she told me that she was a fan of Mitch Daniels and that she thought he ought to do this. I said, we are trying to encourage him to do it. Would you be willing to help us figure out how . Were, she was pro bono in trying to figure out how to do it. Anything having to do with finance law or how to file, she was always there. She was a great advocate. Brian how did you raise money . Don we did not, because we didnt spend any. Everything was self funded. Way,uld pay for our own our own dinners. We were coming to the point where we would have to. That was part of the trigger when we kept saying to mitch, we have to make a decision. Because we have to do things and things will cost money. We want to tell line of people we wanted to line up people to get some of the players on the for the country we think we may get him to do it so wait. That was our focus. I wrote the stuff in the book, none of us trusted the new york times. Why did you not trust them . That is a republican statement. We did not feel like the Mainstream Media in terms of ,itch whatever before him although he had solid relationships with the Mainstream Media. And theticular article reason we were concerned about it was matt wanted to talk to the family. He suggested, i will write the article and it will not be published until after you make your decision but i would like to know all of the things that go into making a decision. It was an interesting approach and he was very fair about the way he would do it. Our problem was, even we had not talked to the family. We felt like it when not be right and would not be in our best interest to a nappy fair to get them to talk to a reporter. Brian tell the story about eventually you have to talk sherry did. What were the circumstances . In december 2010 in indianapolis. Opened the meeting by saying, ok mitch, wheres your head . That is when he said, i think i am 80 there. We were all enthusiastic when we left. As we were leaving, he said, come down and talk to me a minute. He said, i didnt want to say this in front of the group, but i think we may have a problem with sherry. I dont think she is there. Would you be willing to talk to her . I was supposed to have dinner with them that night and i said, ok. I said, it would be better to talk to her by myself. Lets see if she will come see me before dinner. That is what i did. I spent two hours with her. I had known her as long as i had known mitch. I basically said, sherry, i know you dont want to talk about the subject, the let me tell you a story. I just told her how it all started and all the things we had been doing and why in the different people and why we felt so strongly that this was his time, how important we thought it was. She just wasnt there and the girls were not there. She explained to me that it wasnt something they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. Given,there was a speech at theovered, that state party dinner, how important was this . Don this was a Conspiracy Theory that had no merit. Thought she was going to speak at the dinner and say, i think it is a good idea. Later, why was she selected to be the keynote speaker at the dinner yet caught everybody thinks she was going to talk about the race. He said, we were sitting around one morning and harry called me and said, we need a speaker for the dinner and i said, sherry to you want to be the speaker of the keynote . And she said ok, and that was it. She had intended to come and talk about being first lady. It had nothing to do with the president ial politics. Therek mitch thought, will be signs that say run but maybe if there was a lot of enthusiasm and people talking about us that it might have some impact on her. That might have been in the back of his mind but there was nothing to that. Here is a few seconds of the opening comments. [begin video clip] this might be easier than i thought it was going to be. Thank you all so much. I appreciate that welcome. I have to tell you, when i was first asked to speak here, i thought, wow, this is a great honor. And then i thought, i wonder who canceled . Past, the keynote speaker for this event has always given a very politically inspired speech. If you came here tonight expecting that, i am sorry to report that you will be disappointed. Tonightyou came here with a sense of humor, you are going to have a good time. [end video clip] don that is classic sherry. Brian the elephant in the room is you saying her divorce when she was divorced back in the 1990s and married again and eventually came back, how much of this is all about that . Built ande momentum his people thought that he might do this, and i think most of the media thought he would say yes, as it happens that all candidates, it is happening now, you get all of the stories put on theireople investigative hats and there were some articles for the first time about that. When we first talked about mitchell is said, we have been through gubernatorial campaigns, this is not an issue. He would say, if you like happy endings, you would like our story. None of us ever thought the divorce would be an issue. In this time, it just isnt. To have to live through it again or explain it again with the national press, it is not something that sherry or the girls understandably would want to go through. I always thought that was the principal reason. After talking to her for two changing my life forever was equally as critical in the process. Momenthere is a tense that has been talked about that much in public on cbs sunday morning. September 18, 2011. They are being interviewed by Nora Odonnell [begin video clip]. What happened to your marriage . What happened was a happy ending. If you love happy endings, you will love our story. And their stories that after 15 years of marriage and four daughters, they divorced. , brieflyved out remarried, divorced her second husband, then remarried. When you guys got divorced, the suggestion was that you had abandoned your girls. Is that hurtful . It wasnt true. I did not move to california. I moved one quarter of a mile from the house. [end video clip] brian that was after he had made the decision not to run. Was this an issue in the Gubernatorial Election . Don no, and it would not have been an issue in this one. Having to sit through Something Like that, which would not have been the last time, is obviously something he would not want to have to do. Wrote, i responded saying,o our support by thanks for sending bug completely unfair and wrong in my view. We tried Everything Possible to change minds but the inappropriate ugliness of the medialed process was too much. Got an email when he made his decision from a gentleman really criticizing him, saying he owed it to the country to run. That was really in response to that. There are lots of duties, duty to country is one, but duty to your family is another. You say there were five crises during your time with your group and the first one was, i dont really want to run. The second was, the social truths. Ce. Don the first thing out of , he said, if ias would undertake this idea, i would want to do certain things certain ways. I would want to run not just to win, but have a conversation with the american people. I want to tell them the truth about the fiscal situation. I would want to call a social truce. On social issue issues is compatible but it is not a survival issue. We need to solve the fiscal problem first, the National Security problem first. I am not try to talk anybody out positions, but i want to put them lower on the priority list. He defined that as, the social truce. In the republican party, that is fighting words. That is just how he felt. Of heat on that and did not handle some of that initially very well. Ultimately, people respected the fact that it wasnt about disagreement, it was about priorities. Crisis number three is stimulus flipflop. With takingd to do stimulus money in indiana for a and his answer to a question in the press where he erroneously indicated that they had not done it, the way the story was told was not accurate. As i recall, he corrected that later but it was just the way of handling it. Posture thatensive they did not i dont have to respond saying, look, we just need to get the right story out there. Brian number four is press leak. Don anybody who works in any white house becomes paranoid about press leaks. He was always very sensitive about press leaks. One reason we were so tightknit is that he trusted everybody. We never had any leak on anything we ever did until one day, there was an article about the fact that we had this group and who they were in a talked about the dinners. Brian was that Jonathan Martin . Don he was one, and there was another article. From our standpoint, it was fine. We never found out who leaked it. A cause people to start calling saying, why have i not been invited to indiana . From our standpoint, it was positive. From his standpoint, he did not want any of this in the press. I think part of it was because he had not talked to family yet. Commentumber five, that at Hudson Institute. Don herman con was a friend of his. The founder of the Hudson Institute and he gave a speech there, accepting an award. He quoted herman couple things. It in maypicked up on big headlines out of the fact that he was calling for certain things and all he was really doing was quoting herman and saying that, big ideas are important. They are worth discussing. That that was blown out of proportion. It was the way we responded. He wanted to respond by blasting back, we wanted to respond by saying, lets be a little bit more circumspect. Brian how do people get the book . Don amazon is probably the best. Kindle . An you get it on don yes. Brian for only three dollars . Don probably. Brian here is what mitch ard. Els said in the afterword is there any difference today and would he have survived donald trump . Don a lot of people believe that he had it backwards. A lot of people believe the toughest race would have been the primary. It was such a great contrast. I could talk to both sides of that debate, so i am not sure. Today, i dont know. The donald trump phenomenon is when we havent seen. Itll be interesting to see how it turns out. There are a lot of people in the republican race, it is going to be the toughest. Get the nomination, i think the republicans will have an opportunity to win, but the real race will be a primary. In mitchs case that wouldve been the situation. Brian what is a reason to buy this book . Don i think it is an interesting story. As a story that somebody who had ambition but who wasnt willing to do this but he really had something to offer the country. If you are interested in president ial politics, it talks a lot about how you do it. From that standpoint, i think it is an interesting book. If you dont know Mitch Daniels, he is worth getting to know. It talks about what we felt so strongly that he was the person. It is about the emotional toll of what it takes to make the decision to run for president. Is from thertant it family standpoint it is. All three are those elements are what the book is about. We think it was an interesting story. I like everything about the book except the ending. I live in scottsdale, arizona. I am retired but serving on boards and doing other nonprofit type stuff. Brian again, this self published book called run mitch, run. Cogman,t has been don the former assistant thank you very much. Don thank you. Give us your comments on the program, visit us on q a. Org. Mitch daniels talked about his decision not to run for president on a previous q a in 2011. You can find that online at cspan. Org. Other interviews you might mankiewicz, and mitt romney talking about his political philosophy at the time he was first considering running for president. Announcer cspan presents, landmark cases, the book, a guide to our series which explores 12 Historic Supreme Court decisions, including marbury versus madison. Brown versus the board of education, miranda versus zona, and rovers i road versus wade road versus wade. Published by cspan and cooperation with cq press. Landmark cases is available for shipping. Coming up next, prime ministers questions of the british house of commons. Then a recent Campaign Event with rand that is followed on a discussion of the balance between personal privacy and National Security. At 11 00, another chance to see our conversation with dan cog man. The british house of commons was in session this week with members returning from party conferences. Prime minister David Cameron was asked about several topics, including affordable housing, the syrian refugee crisis, and apprenticeships. Speaker questions to the prime minister