Entre la ambición y el amor

Según ha comentado alguien de su círculo al Huffington Post, estamos juzgando equivocadamente la indecisión del Gobernador Mitch Daniels. El motivo de su vacilación es el miedo de su mujer a verse obligada a dar explicaciones sobre cierto episodio de su pasado -concretamente el haber abandonado a su marido y sus hijas hace dos décadas para casarse con otro hombre-. Siempre según esa fuente, el Gobernador sí desea presentarse, no tiene dudas. Si opta por no hacerlo será por ella.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels wants to run for president and is not in the process of convincing himself to do it, a close adviser said. The last hurdle remaining is ongoing discussions between him and his wife, Cheri Daniels, over whether she is ready to face questions about their past.

“I think he would like to do it,” the Daniels adviser told The Huffington Post by phone. “I actually think he’d have a decent chance of getting the nomination.”

The insight from a source close to the governor contradicts many of the reports that have focused on whether Daniels will run or not. Daniels has been portrayed -- and has in some ways portrayed himself -- as a reluctant potential candidate, someone who had hoped the GOP would find someone else to be their standard-bearer but is unimpressed with the candidates who have so far declared their intent to run.

The confirmation that the Daniels’ marriage is the last hurdle in front of a bid for the White House highlights the delicate situation in which the Governor finds himself.

In 1993, Cheri Daniels left her husband with their four daughters and married another man in California. She returned a few years later, reconciled with Daniels, and the two were remarried in 1997. That is, in a nutshell, the story. The national press first picked up on it last year when it was buried at the bottom of an 8,600-word Weekly Standard profile.

But much is unknown. Why did she leave Daniels? Why did she come back? That she would be reluctant to publicly answer such delicate questions in front of the nation seems only natural. (...)