Mitchell Elias Daniels Jr. is an American academic administrator, businessman, author, and retired politician who served as the 49th Governor of Indiana, from 2005 to 2013, as a Republican. Since 2013, Daniels has been president of Purdue University.
Born in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, Daniels is a graduate of Princeton University, and received his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center after studying briefly at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. Daniels began his career working as an assistant to Richard Lugar, working as his chief of staff in the Senate from 1977 to 1982, and was appointed executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee when Lugar was chairman from 1983 to 1984. He worked as a chief political adviser and as a liaison to President Ronald Reagan in 1985, before he was appointed president of the conservative think tank, the Hudson Institute. Daniels moved back to Indiana, joining Eli Lilly and Company, working as president of North American Pharmaceutical Operations from 1993 to 1997, and senior vice president of corporate strategy and policy from 1997 to 2001. In January 2001, Daniels was appointed by President George W. Bush as the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until June 2003.
Daniels announced his intention to run in Indiana's 2004 gubernatorial election after leaving the Bush administration. He won the Republican primary with 67% of the vote, and defeated Democratic incumbent Governor Joe Kernan in the general election. Daniels was reelected to a second term, defeating former U.S. Representative and US Department of Agriculture undersecretary Jill Long Thompson, on November 4, 2008. During his tenure as governor, Daniels cut the state government workforce by 18%, cut and capped state property taxes, balanced the state budget through budget austerity measures and increasing spending by less than the inflation rate, and despite running on a platform of improving income, Indiana's per capita income dropped from 33rd to 38th among states, and the percentage of people living in poverty in Indiana rose from 10.2% to 14.9%. In his second term, Daniels saw protest by labor unions and Democrats in the state legislature over his policies regarding Indiana's school voucher program and the Indiana House of Representatives attempt to pass right to work legislation, leading to the 2011 Indiana legislative walkouts. During the legislature's last session under Daniels, he signed the right-to-work law; with Indiana becoming the 23rd state in the nation to do so.It was widely speculated that Daniels would be a candidate in the 2012 presidential election, but he chose not to run. He is the author of the best selling book Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans. Daniels was selected to be president of Purdue University after his term as governor ended on January 14, 2013.
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