Mitch Daniels has been portrayed as ambivalent about running for president in 2012--telling the Associated Press he has "quite good" chances of beating President Obama only a few days after disappointing fans with an overly self-deprecating speech in which he said he was "probably not" ready to debate foreign policy. But the Huffington Post's Jon Ward reports the biggest factor holding him back from the race is actually Daniels' wife, Cheri Daniels, who does not want the media snooping into their marriage history.

A Daniels adviser told Ward that the Indiana governor "would like to do it" and would "have a decent chance of getting the nomination." But Cheri is the "last hurdle" to his decision, Ward write. That's because in 1993, Cheri left Mitch with their four young kids to marry another man in California. Four years later, she came back to Indiana, and the Daneils remarried. Cheri has never spoken about what happened, and Daniels has only said, "If you like happy endings, you’ll love our story." Daniels won't run till his family is all in, Ward reports. Which means that so far, the Daniels adviser says, "There's no campaign. There's no candidate... There is no structure. There is no anything."

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Elspeth Reeve