q&a with author and former public relations executive. phone 7:00 we open our lines and take a look at this on ng's headlines brian: this week on "q&a," don cogman. mr. cogman, a longtime friend to mitch daniels, discusses his book "run mitch, run" about governor daniels' decision not to run for president in 2012. don cogman, why did you think somebody would want to read about mitch daniels' decision not to run for president? don: we thought it was an interesting story.

it is about a person who had a reasonable opportunity to the president at that particular time. he had a particular issue that was important. it is the story of somebody who went through a process who never thought about running for president, who became convinced himself that it was something he probably could do, but did not do it because of family concerns. i think the interest is not only the story itself, but so many other people who are going through that right now, who will go through it in the future. what amounts to a life-changing decision, we thought it would be applicable down through the years. brian: this is meant to be the history of why somebody decided not to run for president. i want to show you some video recorded right here. it was june 3, 2009.

[video clip] brian: are you still of the same mind? no matter how many people are writing these days, we are getting back in the race. >> for many reasons, yes. brian: you're not going to go back under any circumstances? >> i painted myself as well as a person can. i have lots of reasons for it. i want to concentrate on the positive reasons and that has to do with doing what we said we would do. we have made a very determined effort for getting on six years now to tell people in our state about the big changes we wanted to make, all the things we would like to do and we are almost religious about living up to those words. brian: what are the negatives? >> i would not subject myself or

my family to what i see is the savagery of presidential politics. brian: what made you think he was going to change his mind? don: i wasn't sure that he would change his mind. as i say, it started with that article in "the wall street journal." it asked the question, a lot of people wanted to think of you running for president. i told him what a great article it was and said, what do you think? and i got the answer that we just heard. some time passed and i called him again, saying a lot of people have called me. "would you be willing to talk about it?" that started that process which lasted nearly two years, trying to convince him that this was

something he ought to seriously consider. brian: how did you know him? don: we met in washington. i was leaving during the time he came. i have known him for 35 years. throughout our careers, we have worked on different projects together. i had moved over to the private sector. firm, a major client when he was at eli lilly. we had a relationship personal and professional for almost three decades. washington in 1972 from oklahoma. that was my first -- i was very young at the time. that was my first entry into politics. i was with him for five years. brian: why did you get involved

in the first place? don: it is something that had always been in my blood. i love politics and government and campaigns. i had a very strong feeling about how important it was to be engaged and was able to do some things earlier than i thought i would. i always wanted to work in washington. i always wanted to work in the senate. i finally made the decision to go to the private sector. brian: how much of what you wrote in the book goes on with other people thinking about running for president? don: probably a lot. it is obviously a personal decision, but as mitch said, in his circumstance, he had just been re-elected. he made that famous commercials saying this to be the last office you will have to vote for me on. he felt like he still had commitments to indiana.

there was the professional side. he was still in the middle of it. it is a life-changing decision, obviously for the candidate that in many ways, for the family, too. when you think about running for president, it is not just the campaign, you run with the idea that you will win. it is not just the campaign, but also the time in the white house. your life will never be the same. for the families, depending on the circumstances, that can be a real tough decision. brian: when we talked to him here, he was governor of indiana. during his second term -- here is some video when he was at the white house in 1985. [begin video clip] >> as a young deputy, i watched unemployment figures.

hawk. every new business start or uptick in employment triggered a celebration involving the mayor and a press release written by me. as political actors, we know to claim credit for every new job but we realize it is not the new way the world works. we know that the best tricks of the mayor's trade are of no avail without a growing economy. [end video clip] brian: he looks quite young there. where were you in 1985? don: in 1985, i was in washington with an energy company. brian: when did you first think about the presidency? you worked for senator bartlett. everybody says that everybody in the senate thinks that they can be president. when did you think you would get involved?

don: i was involved with the reagan administration as a volunteer. i served on a couple of presidential commissions. i had worked with people in the white house during the reagan years and the george w. bush years. i was on a couple of commissions. i had always been involved at that level with people that i knew well. but from a campaign standpoint, it was always my attitude that it would be fun to work on a presidential race but i was never interested unless i knew the person well. or had a personal relationship with them. my interest and experience have d been at a lower level. that is why when the idea of mitch running developed, because of our relationship, it was a real interest of mine and the

others i mentioned. how did you get the group together and where were they from? how many? don: there were seven of us. when i was trying to get him to be willing to talk to people, the first people i called were with tom bell. he was a colleague of mine. i had known tom since the senate days. he is a senator from tennessee. at that point, tom was an executive in atlanta. a longtime friend of mitch. tom was a one that introduced me to mitch. he had indiana history also. very strategic, had a lot of involvement, but a very close friend. when i first talked to mitch about getting the group together, i had in mind some other person in mitch made the

comment that if we are going to talk about presidential politics, he said tongue-in-cheek that we ought to talk to somebody who know something about it. that is when i said, let's call charlie black. he had not made a decision on who to support. he was a longtime friend of mitch, and he said sure. that was the initial group. when we actually did a meeting in my home, we walked through this to think about planning it, we headed bob perkins al , hubbard. bob perkins was a person who has held many marketing jobs across the country, and a longtime friend. mitad worked with niche -- ch. rick powell was the youngster of

the group. al hubbard was a longtime friend of mitch. that was the group in the beginning and was the group to the end. brian: when was your first meeting of the whole group together? there was in augusta, georgia meeting. don: that was tom, charlie, mitch, and i. we were strategizing on how we would get mitch to agree to do this. he came up with the idea and said if we invite him to augusta, we will get him to come. that was our first session. we spent two days there. we played golf and had dinner twice. our goal was to get him to say, i am never going to do this but let's explore it. that was our goal and we did that. the full group meeting when we

got serious was in my house in scottsdale in january of 2010. brian: hardly a couple pages go by when the name sherry comes up. who is sherry and what role did she play from the beginning? don: sherry is of course his wife, the former first lady of indiana. i have known her as long as i have known mitch. they had four children, we had four children, about the same age. again, personal friends. from the beginning, she wasn't involved. brian: why not? don: i think mitch felt like this would be a tough sell. it was a fairly tough sell when he made the decision to run for governor. it wasn't something that she

necessarily wanted to do. from the beginning, she wasn't really involved. as he went through the process, as we got more serious about it, as we started doing things like resident dinners, we kept saying, we have to sit down with sherry and have a conversation about this. i think he felt like perhaps as the idea gained momentum, she and the girls might get more interested. that was always a concern and it wasn't until the final months that we had that conversation. that is detailed in the book frankly. she really made her opinion known. brian: it appeared that she made the decision in the end.

don: welll, i will put it in his words, i love my country but i love my family more. she and the girls simply did not want to live the rest of their lives that way. she wanted to be able to do normal things. she was concerned about security. she felt like she had done eight years in the governor's office. that is not something she would have chosen. if you try to be objective, you can really understand their point of view. brian: back in 1991, mario cuomo was constantly being written about running for president. here he is telling us what he was going to do. [begin video clip] cuomo: theoretically, when our gap has been closed and our

processes restored, i could enter the remaining primaries and still be a contender. but i accept the judgment of the national chairman, it would be in the best interest of the democratic party that i abandoned any such effort now, so as to avoid whatever inconveniences that the process creates the possibility of another candidate. i regard myself as highly privileged to serve the 18 million people of my state as governor for a third term. i would be less than honest if i did not admit to you my regret at not having the chance for run -- to run for president. [end video clip] brian: he was called the hamlet of politics because he cannot make up his mind. what are you thinking when you see that? don: when i first thought about writing something about this adventure, i thought, you know,

it might be more interesting if i could think of a democrat that had gone through the process. mario cuomo is exactly the person i was thinking about. there are a lot of parallels. everybody thought he was going to run. i can remember on the republican side, that was the one we feared the most. it is interesting that you show that. i think there are a lot of parallels in that decision process. brian: i want to show you what his son said about this whole idea at his funeral. [begin video clip] >> he loved being governor and he thought that he could do four terms. he valued that over anything else. he would not trade six more years as governor even for the supreme court. why did he not run for president? because he did not want to. that is all.

that is everything to mario cuomo. [end video clip] brian: because he didn't want to. how much of this would apply to mitch daniel? don: a good deal of it when applied to mitch daniels. he said from the beginning, i look in the mirror and i don't see a president. my response was, quit looking in the mirror. from the beginning, he said this is nothing i have ever thought about. i am just enjoying my time as governor. it is not something he ever contemplated. sitting around in scottsdale, one of us remarked -- we were all friends -- we had grown up together politically and professionally -- we are sitting in my living room and one of us is thinking about running for president of the united states.

it is almost surreal. it is just not something he ever thought was in his future. he did not really need to do it. and of course it is a tough thing to do. there are those who said, if he doesn't want it, you will never be able to get through it. he became convinced coming toward the end the process that -- he is very competitive and i think if he had made a decision, he would have had his heart and soul into it. from the beginning it is not something that he ever really thirsted after. brian: let me ask you -- you mentioned earlier the resident's meetings. before you got to those meetings, what did you do about organization? don: at that meeting in

scottsdale, we went through every aspect of the campaign. we talked about finance, we talked about issues, we talked about communication, staffing, just all of the elements. our goal was to get him to say, i'm interested enough to take the next step. one idea from that session was, mitch is governor, he cannot fly all over the country like most candidates, let's bring people to him. other people had done that. the idea of the dinners to bring people who had a particular issue or policy issue they were schooled in to help them think about different areas of interest. one big thing in presidential politics -- there are a core of

people you turn to to raise money. we wanted to make sure that people would keep their powder dry until he made a decision. we had those people come. i think we did about one dozen of them. they gave us a lot of momentum builders in terms of people who are interested. if you have an interest in doing it, come have dinner with him, ask questions, tell him to think about it. and so it was a way of building some momentum to convince him that this is something you ought to think about doing. brian: were you at these meetings? don: we usually had one member of the group. i was at three or four of them. the indiana group. i did not mention the seventh

person, eric holcomb. eric was the one staff member that was his political person, he ran his campaign. none of us knew eric, people in indiana did. eric was the person on the site that was a tremendous asset. he greeted all of us strangers intruding on his territory with great grace and professionalism and was a valuable member of the team. so i was at a number of them. brian: anything go wrong at the dinners? don: well, the only thing that went wrong is that mitch kept saying, i don't want to do this. this is not something i have thought about. i am probably not going to do

it. part of our struggle with him was to get him not to say that. we did not expect him to say, i made a decision. because he had not. the mantra of the day was do nothing to deny the option. we kept trying to get that into his head. as you go through this and see the support, you may want to do this. finally toward the end of the dinners, he was saying the right thing. brian: who could talk to most frank to him? don: probably tom, bill, and i. and to a certain extent, mark. mark was a personal friend. but probably tom, bill, and i. it was tom's personality -- he

was blunt. and the first question he asked was, before we play golf, let's get a couple things straight. would you want to be president? not, could you win. would you want to be president? mitch responded, he had some ideas and he had things he could contribute. there was always a time in every meeting that we had either at the beginning at the end, tom would ask that blunt question. he would be straightforward, as most of us were. brian: in the book, you say that he was waiting for or was interested in haley barbour or

jeb bush. anybody else? why those two? don: haley -- all of us knew haley. we had grown up together. and so he was a great friend. we thought haley was one of the smartest political people we had run across. he was a good governor in mississippi. and so that was a personal friendship. jeb was somebody who he felt, because of his experience with him as governor of florida, he was just a capable person who had done a great job as governor of florida. he kept saying, surely there is somebody that can do this that -- other than me. our response was, tell us who it

is. he would talk about jeb bush a lot. back then he felt it was too soon for another bush. very early on we knew that that wasn't going to happen. most of us felt like haley probably wouldn't do it either. but those are the two he talked about more than anything. he was constantly saying, i know we can find somebody else. brian: when did you decide to write the book? it is full of dates and lists. don: i did save a lot. i am a note taker. i was the coordinator of the effort once we got it going. i had thought about writing it

after the actual episode. i just felt that mitch would never want me to do that. and so i had all of my notes in a box that sat in my garage for two years. and i got a call one day from rick powell, saying he had gotten a call from mark halbert, asking him some things that mitch. i said, he had not called me. i did not really know him. i said, i always thought about writing something but i never did. rick is the one that said, you ought to. it is a piece of history. that is a thing that got me thinking about it. i went to my garage and got the box. it took me about two weeks to go through it.

i organized it first by subject. because of the internet and e-mails, you can organize it down to the hour. that is how i started the book. i'm basically organized it into subjects, outlined it chronologically. when i write, i have to write by myself. have no distractions. because it was two years later, if i did not keep at it, i would literally lose my place. i literally wrote it in 30 days. i would write six days a week, four straight weeks. brian: had you talk to mitch daniels about the book? don: no. brian: he wrote an afterward. don: he did. i finished the manuscript and thought, how am i going to talk to mitch about this?

i didn't think he would want to publish it. literally the next day i got a call from him that he was going to be in scottsdale making a speech. he was at purdue, 10 minutes from my house. he said, come over and have a drink. i said, maybe this is a sign. i went over and we had a drink and at the end of the conversation i said, i need to tell you something. i said i have written a book about our adventure. the first thing he said was, you know, you don't have enough to do. i said, well, i need to keep my brain working. i gave him the manuscript. i said, this is up to you, completely up to you. you can throw it away, even have it xeroxed for our friends, we can print 25 copies, or we can make a book.

it is up to you. it was fun going back through it. he read it and called me one month later and said, i can't believe you actually did this but i think it is really interesting. i think other people might be interested because there will be people going through this process. brian: how about a publisher? could you find a publisher? was anybody interested? don: we didn't even really look. mitch knew of a publisher in indiana, the largest self-publishing company owned by penguin. he knew them well and had done projects with them. he said, let's do it ourselves. i said, terrific. that is probably the quicker way to get it done.

so we just did it in that manner. brian: when did you finish it? don: writing it ended up being the easy part. publishing you know, a book, all the things you have to check on. it took a while, about nine months. it was another nine months. we published it last year. brian: i would not know about this book if it hadn't been for fred barnes. don: i thought that was probably how you knew about it. brian: he wrote an article, the campaign that never was. don: i came here to speak to a group of students who are part the fund for american studies program. i was on the board of american studies for 20 years. fred barnes took my place on the board when i finally retired. i was invited to speak to one of

the classes on the book. mitch was on the board with me, too. the president of the fund for american studies said we will have fred barnes interview you. i said that will be great. i had known fred for a number of years. i think very highly of him. when we met he said, i had not read the book, but because of this event, i did, and i enjoyed it. i do not think you have got enough publicity for it. i said, that was not the point. but we had a session with the students and it was very enjoyable. he called me after to say, i'm going to write about it. i said that will be terrific. i thought the article was wonderfully done. brian: he wrote, "the publication was greeted with mere silence from newspapers and magazines that review books. there were zero reviews.

two indiana newspapers wrote about its existence. cogman did a few radio interviews, but that was the extent of the publicity. it was a book about a campaign that never got started." don: there was a lot of interest in indiana. i spent a couple days there doing television and radio and print interviews. obviously, there was interest there. it wasn't something we promoted because i did not do it for that reason. we hoped other people would pick it up here. and had an indication that they would. events just overshadowed it and took people in different directions. we really never did much with it here or new york. brian: by the way, why did you think that mitch daniels would make a big difference in the united states in the first place? don: principally, a couple of things.

one, at the time, the real issue at that time was fiscal discipline. the budget leaving the next generation in the red. i was mitch daniels' issue. he had proven as governor that he knew how to reduce the size of government from a debt standpoint, yet using government in a positive way. he had a lot of credibility on that issue. we felt that that was his unique differentiation, that he had actually proven you can do it. you could come up with solutions to problems related to debt and fiscal discipline. it is funny because all of us who had known him for so many years knew how smart he was. you can rarely find a person -- at least in my experience --

that has both the policy expertise -- he really is a policy nerd that delves deep into policy issues -- but also has tremendous political instincts. a political expertise. the one thing we did not know about him, this was before he ran for governor, was would he be good as a candidate? none of us saw him as a political candidate. it surprised us when he first announced he was running for governor. he proved he was a master at retail politics. he would get on that harley and he would ride around the state, stay in homes, walked down a street and talk to everybody. he proved so adept at the retail side also that we believed he had a combination of unique elements.

brian: you cite a lot of media writings in the book, one particular piece by michael boron in which he talked about mitch daniels being bald and humorless. he did use it in humor, though. don: as i recall, his response to that column was something like, this is going to be a winner, for sure. he was thin-skinned about certain things. it was quick. he always got over it. he had a great deal of self-confidence and competitiveness because he has an intellect that is really astounding, combined with his ability to connect with the common person.

it was something to behold. brian: here is a clip of somebody named cleda mitchell. she's speaking to hudson institute in february 2010. i run it because she played a role in this, and we will talk about money and how you were able to fund what you did. [begin video clip] >> i will say this in defense of fundraising. i've been a candidate, i've been an elected official. i have helped a lot of people run for office. i want to have a guy who came to me when i was in the oklahoma legislator. for ated to run legislature against an incumbent. who needed to be defeated, i might add. i said, how are you going to raise money? he says, i can't raise any money. i said what do you mean? he said there is nobody in my district he would give me money. i say, how are you going to finance it? he said i thought you would help me. i said, let me tell you something, go back to your district and if there is not one person who can write you a check, that means there is

nobody who believes in you enough to help. [end video clip] brian: how well do you know her? what role did she play? don: i have known her since college. she is a good friend of mine. as you probably know, she was a hard-core liberal democrat in the state legislature in oklahoma. i tell people i take full credit for transforming her. she is a great friend and one of the smartest lawyers in the country. particularly in the area of campaign finance. when we first started this effort, i do not remember if i called her or she called me. but we talked and she told me that she was a fan of mitch daniels and that she thought he ought to do this. exactly what we needed. i said, we are trying to encourage him to do it. would you be willing to help us figure out how to do it?

she was sort of our as we all , were, she was pro bono in trying to figure out how to do it. anything having to do with finance laws or how and when we should file, she was always there. she was a great advocate. brian: how did you raise money? don: we did not, because we didn't spend any. everything was self funded. we would have meetings we would , pay for our own way, our own dinners. we simply did not. we were coming to the point where we would have to. that was part of the trigger when we kept saying to mitch, we have to make a decision. because we have to do things and things will cost money. staffing, etc. the only thing we really did on the finance side was we wanted to line people that would be willing to raise it.

that was really a push with us. to try to get some big players all over the country to wait on him. we think we may get him to do it so just wait on him. that was are focused in terms of the financial stuff -- that was our focus in terms of the financial stuff. brian: i wrote the stuff in the book, none of us trusted the new york times. they wanted to report on mitch daniels. why didn't you trust the new york times? don: that was sort of a republican statement. we did not feel like the mainstream media in terms of would really ever be there for him. although he had solid relationships with the mainstream media. that particular article and the reason we were concerned about it was matt wanted to talk to the family.

we had an agreement he , suggested, i will write the article and it will not be published until after you make your decision but i would like to know all of the things that go into making a decision. particularly the relationship of the family. it was an interesting approach and he was very fair about the way he would do it. our problem was, even we had not talked to the family. we felt like it when not be right and would not be in our best interest and would not be fair to get them to talk to a reporter when we had not talked to them yet. brian: tell the story about eventually you have to talk ofsherry daniels, the wife mitch daniels. what were the circumstances? don: this was a meeting in december 2010 in indianapolis. when we opened the meeting, as

we opened every meeting by , saying, ok mitch, where's your head? what percentage are you? that is when he said, i think i am 80% there. we were all enthusiastic when we left that meeting. as we were leaving, he said, come down and talk to me a minute. he said, i didn't want to say this in front of the group, but i think we may have a problem with sherry. i don't think she is there. would you be willing to talk to her? i was supposed to have dinner with them that night and i said, ok. he said we can talk about it at dinner and i said i think it would be better to talk to her by myself. i can say things and she can say things. let's see if she will come see me before dinner. we will just have a conversation. that is what i did. i spent two hours with her.

i had known her as long as i had known mitch. i basically said, sherry, i know you don't want to talk about the subject, but let me tell you a story. i just told her how it all started and all the things we had been doing and why and the different people that encouraged him and why we felt so strongly that this was his time, how important we thought it was. she just wasn't there and the girls were not there. she explained to me that it wasn't something they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. brian: there was a speech given, we covered the speech. that she gave in indianapolis. she did not talk very much. party dinner. brian: the state party dinner. how important was this?

a writer for the new york times was in the bag for president obama. don: this was a classic conspiracy theory that really had no merit. everyone thought she was going to speak at this dinner and this was going to be a breakout and she was going to say i think it , is a good idea. i asked mitch later, why was she selected to be the keynote speaker at this dinner? everybody thought she was going to talk about the race. and say she was for it. he said, we were sitting around one morning and harry called me and said i got to have a speaker for the dinner. i said, sherry to you want to be the keynote for the state party dinner? and she said ok, and that was it. she had intended to come and talk about being first lady.

how they were in the final year and a half. it had nothing to do with the presidential politics. i think mitch thought, there will be signs that say "run mitch, run," but maybe if there was a lot of enthusiasm and people talking about it that it might have some impact on her. that might have been in the back of his mind but there was nothing to that. he asked her and she spoke. brian: here is a few seconds of the opening comments. just to give you a flavor. [begin video clip] miss daniels: this might be easier than i thought it was going to be. thank you all so much. i appreciate that welcome. i have to tell you, when i was first asked to speak here, i thought, wow, this is a great honor. and then i thought, i wonder who canceled?

in the past, the keynote speaker for this event has always given a very politically inspired speech. if you came here tonight expecting that, i am sorry to report that you will be disappointed. but, if you came here tonight with a sense of humor, you are going to have a good time. [end video clip] don: that is classic sherry. brian: right around that was the new york times article. the elephant in the room is you andin your book was sherry her divorce. when she was divorced from mitch daniels in the 1990's and married again and eventually came back, how much of this is all about that? her not willing to go through that being public. don: as the momentum built and as people thought that he might do this, and i think most of the media thought he would say yes, then, as it happens with all

candidates it is happening now, , you get all of the stories start. everybody puts on their investigative hats. and there were some articles for the first time about that. when we first talked about it, mitch always said, we have been through two gubernatorial campaigns, this is not an issue. when people would ask about it he would say, if you like happy , endings, you would like our story. none of us ever thought the divorce would be an issue. politically. in this day and time, it just isn't. to have to live through it again and to have to explain it again with the national press, it is not something that sherry or the girls, understandably, would want to go through. i always thought that was the principal reason. after talking to her for two

part of do think it was the reason. i do think the "changing my life forever" was equally as critical in the decision-making process. i think they were both factors. brian: here is a tense moment talked aboutbeen that much in public. on "cbs sunday morning." september 18, 2011. sherry daniels and mitch daniels are being interviewed by nora o'donnell. [begin video clip] >> your marriage has been interesting. most people have interesting marriages. what happened? >> what happened was a happy ending. if you love happy endings, you will love our story. >> their story is that after 15 years of marriage and four daughters, they divorced. in 1993, sherry moved out, briefly remarried, divorced her second husband, then remarried.

-- remarried daniels in 1997. >> sherry, you know people said that when you guys got divorced, the suggestion was that you had abandoned your girls. was that hurtful? >> it was because it wasn't true. i did not move to california. i lived within one quarter of a mile from the house. that simply did not happen. [end video clip] brian: that was after he had made the decision not to run. was this an issue in the gubernatorial election? don: no, and it would not have been an issue in this one. it is just, as i said, having to sit through something like that, which would not have been the last time, is obviously something you would not want to have to do. brian: you write this -- i want to make sure that you are responded myself to our supporter who said it by saying, thanks for sending but completely unfair and wrong in

my view. we tried everything possible to change minds but the inappropriate ugliness of the media-led process was too much." don: we got an e-mail when he made his decision from a gentleman really criticizing him, saying he owed it to the country to run. that was really in response to that. there are lots of duties, duty to country is one, but duty to your family is another. that is what that comment was in response to. brian: you say there were five crises during your time with your group and the first one was, i don't really want to run. we have talked about it. the second was, the social truce. what was that? don: the first thing out of

mitch's mouth when we met in my living room was, he said, if i would undertake this idea, i would want to do certain things certain ways. i want to run to govern, not just to win. i will want to have adult conversation with the american people. i want to tell them the truth about the fiscal situation. i would want to call a social truce. i thinkean by that is my position on social issues is compatible with most people in our party. a survival issue in my view. we need to solve the fiscal problem first, the national security problem first. i'm not trying to talk anybody out of their positions on social issues. but i want to put it lower on the priority list. he defined that as the social truce.

in the republican party, that is fighting words. that is just how he felt. that is what he believed. we took a lot of heat on that and we probably did not handle that, some of that initially very well. ultimately, people respected the fact that it was and that he disagreed on many of those issues, it was a matter of priorities. brian: he was george w. bush's omb director but had gone before the crisis. crisis number three is stimulus flip-flop. don: that had to do with taking stimulus money in indiana for a project, as i recall. and his answer to a question in the press where he erroneously indicated that they had not done it. the way the story was told was

not accurate. as i recall, he corrected that later but it was just the way of handling it. sort of a defensive posture that they did not tell her right, i do not have to respond to him. and our saying, look, we just need to get the right story out there. brian: number four is press leak. don: everybody that works in the white house, in any white house becomes paranoid about press leaks. it is part of the job. he was always very sensitive about press leaks. one of the reasons that our group was such a tightknit group was that he trusted anyone. we never had any leak on -- he trusted everyone. we never had any leak on anything we ever did until one day, there was an article about the fact that we had this group and who they were. and they talked about the dinners.

brian: who wrote it? was that jonathan martin? don: he was one, and there was another article. from our standpoint, it was fine. we never found out who leaked it. other than it was not a member of our group. it caused people to start calling saying, why have i not been invited to indiana? i want to talk to him. from our standpoint, it was a positive story. from his standpoint, he did not want any of this in the press. i think part of it was because he had not talked to family yet. brian: number five, that comment at hudson institute. which he ran at one time. don: herman kahn was a friend of his. the founder of the hudson institute and he gave a speech there, accepting an award.

he quoted him on a couple things. the press picked up on it and made big headlines out of the fact that he was calling for certain things and all he was really doing was quoting herman and saying that, big ideas are important. you might not agree with them all but they are worth discussing. he felt that that was blown out of proportion. again it was the way we , responded. he wanted to respond by blasting back, we wanted to respond by saying, let's be a little bit more circumspect. brian: if somebody wants the book "run, mitch run," how do they get it? don: amazon is probably the best. brian: can you get it on kindle? don: yes. brian: for only three dollars? don: i do not know the answer to that but probably. brian: here is what mitch daniels said in the afterward. "several of those who encouraged the idea that remain convinced we would have won.

while they could be right, my best guess is we would have captured the nomination but lost to the obama campaign that had powerful advantages, a base of black and strongly liberal voters, an electoral college head start through its ownership of a few coastal states and a clear superiority in grasp of social media, and its track record of success in successfully demonizing opponents." is there any difference today and would he have survived donald trump? don: there's a great debate on that. a lot of people believe that he had it backwards. a lot of people believe the toughest race would have been the primary. in many ways he would offend the best candidate against the incumbent because it was such a great contrast. i could talk to both sides of that debate, so i am not sure. and today, i don't know. the donald trump phenomenon is

one that we have never seen. it'll be interesting to see how it turns out. there are a lot of people in the republican race, it is different because there are so many. the republican race is going to be the toughest for most of them. if they can get the nomination, i think the republicans will have an opportunity of winning. but the real race will be a primary. i personally think that in mitch's case that would've been the situation. brian: what would be the number one reason for someone in politics, republican or democrat to buy this book? , don: i think it is an interesting story. as a story that somebody who had -- and who was not burning to do this. but he really had something to offer the country. it is a nuts and bolts book. if you are interested in presidential politics and you are a political junkie it talks , a lot about how you do it. from that standpoint, i think it is an interesting book. if you don't know mitch daniels, he is worth getting to know.

it talks a lot about why we felt so strongly that he was the person. thirdly, it is about the emotional toll of what it takes to make the decision to run for president. and how important it is from the family standpoint. what a life changing decision is. all three are those elements are what the book is about. we think, at the end of the day it was an interesting story. ,as i tell people i like , everything about the book except the ending. brian: you live where? don: scottsdale, arizona. i am retired but serving on boards and doing other nonprofit type stuff. brian: again, this self published book called "run mitch, run." the hard decisions one man faced for the 24 presidential election. our guest has been don cogman. former administrative assistant to do a barton, the senator from oklahoma. thank you very much. don: thank you. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute,

which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> for free transcripts or to give us comments about this program, visit us at qand a.org. programs are available as c-span podcasts. ♪ >> as governor, mitch daniels talked about his decision not to run for president on a previous "q&a" program in 2011. find it online on c-span.org. other interviews you might enjoy, former npr president and public relations executive frank kiewicz on his career.

mitt romney talking about his political philosophy at the time he was first considering a run for president. here's a look at what is coming up to fancy span. -- coming up today on c-span. "washington journal" is next. at 11:00, we take you to the bipartisan policy center for a discussion on the response to the syrian refugee crisis. later, the senate judiciary committee looks at legislation on mandatory minimum sentencing and a hearing scheduled for 3:00. the iran nuclear agreement goes into effect today and coming up on washington journal, we get an idea of what that entails with of the singh washington institute for near east policy. a look at the transpacific

partnership with former agriculture secretary dan .lickman later, reporter stephen all -- stephen ohlemacher describes how social security recipients might be affected without a cost of living increase in benefits. ♪ host: congress gets back to work this week. back from the columbus day break. president obama in washington at the white house meeting with c ceos talking about climate change. monday, october 19. welcome to "washington journal." we begin with the news that social security beneficiaries would not be getting a cost-of-living increase in 2016 due to the low inflation rate people we hear from your experiences. for