Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Mona Charen, Policy Editor of the Bullwork. I am sitting

in today for the vacationing Charlie Sykes, who will return after Labor Day. And I could not be

more delighted to welcome, as my guest today, the President of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels.

Now, Mitch, you and I have known each other for many years. And it is still the case that when I meet

some loan or see somebody's writing and they say that their ideal President of the United States

would have been Mitch Daniels, I know that that's a person I'm going to agree with on a lot of things.

So welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. And for those who do not know you, I want to go back a little bit

because of the current political environment. I want to you to talk a little bit about your first

race for Governor of Indiana, because it is so counter-cultural now. You didn't run a single

negative ad, did you? We did and made something of a point of it at the time and it doesn't seem

all that long ago. It was always well received when I pointed out to people that we were going to

seek public office. That's the only office I ever ran for or ever really aspired to. But I said,

I remember in a little commercial that I wrote and released right before the Republican primary,

we had a hotly contested one, which we ultimately did win to the one. But I said to my fellow Republicans,

before you vote, and you should know that there are certain things I won't do. I've not run for

office before. There are certain things I won't do to win it. That was include attacking anyone's

background motives for personal characteristics. That message, Mona, was really meant for the

broader audience, who I hope to be addressing and then was in the general election. But really,

all the way through the end of that experience in 2012, it was a really sort of an easy applause

line in a speech to point that out that we had run by then in three different elections and never

resorted to that. I do think it's regrettable that that seems to be the currency of not just part

of, but the principal currency of current political campaigns. I'm not sure it's good for the process.

...