All the signs point to a Daniels bid for president

From Matthew Tully at The Indianapolis Star:

Gov. Mitch Daniels isn't ready to announce his candidacy for president.

I understand.

No politician wants to be seen as overly eager. One of the many things voters don't like about politicians is a sense that they are blatantly ambitious. And according to the presidential campaign playbook, it's still too early for Daniels to actually announce his candidacy.

So today, I'm going to do it for him: Gov. Mitch Daniels is running for president.

Let's get real and start saying it. Let's stop dancing around with will-he or won't-he speculation surrounding a governor whose concerns by the day seem to stretch farther and farther beyond the boundaries of the Hoosier State. Let's stop allowing coy nondenial denials to distract us from seeing the obvious.

Daniels is running for president.

Let me make clear that I am not basing this statement on inside information from his political advisers. Rather, I'm relying on the old "if-it-quacks-like-a-duck-it's-a-duck" theory. Or, if you prefer, the classic "I know it when I see it" lesson the Supreme Court taught us about obscenity. Same goes for presidential wannabes.

Daniels, of course, insists he has only cracked open the door to a run, and that he's done that only to appease his supporters. Time and again, he has said he is not running.

But he is.

He's running for president on the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal and in the studios of Fox News. He's running for president during political appearances from Mississippi to Ohio. And he's running for president every time he inserts himself into the national political debate.

Read it all.  I tend to think the same way, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mitch was just trying to get the GOP off dead center and try to set the narrative, as he sees it. -SP