Mitch Daniels scoffs at heading a No Labels’ presidential bid

Mitch Daniels said that he has had informal conversations with backers of the centrist group No Labels about their efforts to run a third-party presidential ticket.

But the former Indiana Republican governor scoffed at the idea that he would be a candidate for such a unity campaign.

"They're too smart to ask, and I'm too smart to say 'yes,'" Daniels told POLITICO in an interview when asked whether he was weighing a third-party bid on behalf of the organization.

That Daniels, who famously eschews political labels like "conservative" or "liberal," would sidestep entreaties from a political outfit that calls itself No Labels as a potential candidate is another sign of the difficulty the group might have in fielding credible candidates. As a Republican who once proposed the idea of a social truce as he explored a 2012 presidential run, he cuts the profile of the kind of less-rancor, more substance candidate the group hopes to attract.

As for the conversations he’s had with the group, Daniels said it was not “any direct engagement" but, rather, conversations roughly a month ago with a few of the organization’s backers. But the idea of a marriage between him and No Labels has been the topic of some buzz. In a recent column, Nate Feltman, the publisher of the Indianapolis Business Journal and Daniels' former state commerce secretary, floated Daniels as the group’s presidential candidate.

No Labels said earlier this month that they would field a candidate for a third-party presidential ticket by Super Tuesday if the choices were former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. A spokesperson for No Labels did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Daniels defended No Labels from attacks from the left that they were merely a spoiler ticket hamstringing Biden's reelection campaign.

"The flack they're taking from the left end of the political spectrum makes me more sympathetic to them," Daniels said. "It's not surprising because the left is authoritarian to the point of being tyrannical. Let's not hear any more about voter suppression out of people trying to squash somebody's right to even get out of the ballot."

Daniels, who decided against a Senate run in January, also took a different tack from fellow former Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who, as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, recently called No Labels' mission a "fool's errand."

"I don't buy that this is Mission Impossible," said Daniels, the 74-year-old former political director to former President Ronald Reagan. "I know the history of third-party candidacies. That's all true. But if a person can't see that we're in a sui generis situation here — I mean, a huge majority of people that don't want the likely two candidates, and those two candidates being — well, I'll let you fill in the blank — but we've never seen one 80-year-old candidate let alone two, with all the doubts that come with that."

Daniels, who is friendly with No Labels ally Joe Manchin and occasionally runs into the senator at his vacation spot at The Greenbrier Resort said he had not spoken with the West Virginia Democratic since he talked with him about seeking a Senate piece.

Daniels demurred when asked whether he would vote for a No Labels ticket, saying “I don’t have anything to say about that.”

Daniels, a meticulous writer who is at work on his second book — a collection of his commencement speeches as former president of Purdue University and his Washington Post columns expected out later this fall — did say that he told the group's backers that he had some notes about their name.

"That was an appropriate name for the original mission," Daniels said. "It's not that banner you'd want to fly under if it comes to that [launching a presidential ticket.] You're going to want a signature of where you want to take the country — something that connotes unity or moving the country forward."