Bush budget director may run for governor

INDIANAPOLIS -- It was no big surprise, but Mitch Daniels' decision to leave Washington as President Bush's budget director still made a big splash in Indiana.\nDaniels knew that would happen. For months now, he has been riding waves of speculation that he would come home to run for governor and become the GOP's heavyweight favorite.\nDaniels declined to comment on future plans in a telephone interview Tuesday, but he left virtually no doubt among politicos in Indiana that he will become an official candidate.\n"To me it is an exciting moment because it is one step closer to him making a decision," said former state GOP Chairman Mike McDaniel, one of many prominent Republicans who have encouraged Daniels to run.\nHis decision to step down as White House budget chief alone gave Republicans reasons to cheer, and state Democrats some fresh reasons to fear.\nFive other Republicans have announced plans to seek the GOP nomination for governor: David McIntosh, the party's nominee in 2000; state Sens. Murray Clark of Indianapolis and Luke Kenley of Noblesville; conservative activist Eric Miller; and Petersburg Mayor Randy Harris.\nTwo Democrats -- state Sen. Vi Simpson and former state and national Democratic chairman Joe Andrew -- are seeking their party's nomination.\nThere are several reasons Daniels is viewed as the biggest contender among Republicans, including his GOP credentials, political savvy and assumed ability to raise big money.\nDaniels, 54, served eight years as a top aide to Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, was a political adviser to President Reagan and in the 1990s was a top executive at Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant.\nHe won praise among conservatives in Congress for his efforts to curtail spending. Whether they were enough or not, cutting government spending is a concept still held high in Indiana, which has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.\nAs budget chief to Bush for more than two years, Daniels has traveled home to Indiana on many weekends to see his wife and four daughters. It will allow him to say that even in Washington, he was an outsider who never felt quite at home.\nBrian Vargus, a political pollster at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis, said those reasons alone would make Daniels the biggest hitter among GOP gubernatorial candidates. There are five others already seeking the nomination.\n"I think you will see a number of other candidates ... very quickly re-evaluating their position on the Republican side," Vargus said.\nThere are reasons for Democrats to worry, too, no matter who gets in on the Republican side.\nDemocratic Gov. Frank O'Bannon is in his 70s and barred by state law from seeking a third straight term. Even if he could run, it seems certain he would face huge obstacles.\nHis popularity has plummeted during his second term, one dominated by the state's fiscal crisis and the budget cuts and tax increases he has pushed and backed in efforts to balance the budget.\nO'Bannon's lieutenant governor, Joe Kernan, was widely expected to be the party's nominee in 2004, but Kernan announced in December that he would not run.\nSince then, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, a former two-term governor; Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson; former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer; U.S. Rep. Baron Hill; and former House Speaker John Gregg have ruled out campaigns for the Democratic nomination.