By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
September 16, 2026
Mitch Daniels hasn’t lost his touch.
As I read “Impatience is a Virtue,” the memoir just published by the former Indiana governor and Purdue University president, I find myself thinking of a moment not long after Daniels left the Statehouse.
The moment involved a conversation with a veteran Republican lawmaker following Mike Pence’s first State of the State Address as governor. I’d asked the legislator for a quote about Pence’s maiden effort.
After the lawmaker said something bland and forgettable on the record, he signaled that he wanted to go off the record. When I agreed, he said he hadn’t been impressed by Pence’s speech.
“After eight years of Mitch,” he said, “this was thin stuff.”
He paused.
“That was the thing about Mitch,” he continued. “He would really p*** you off sometimes, but he always made you think.”
Exactly.
Reading Daniels’ new book calls back those days.
All the Daniels’ traits are in evidence in its 500-plus pages—the powerful gifts of synthesis and analysis of complex material, the creative problem-solving, the inability or unwillingness to recognize weaknesses in his own argument or strengths in those of his opponents, the sometimes self-deprecating and sometimes biting wit and, most of all, the sheer joy he found in the give and take of intellectual jousting, his genuine pleasure in encountering and debating ideas.
Yeah, the book is pure Mitch.
Part of what made and still makes him such a potent force in Indiana politics was his refusal to hide who he was, a guy who always acted like the smartest person in the room because he most often was the smartest person in the room.
He makes clear in “Impatience is a Virtue” that he never had to strain to get good grades when he was in school—that, in fact, he was so naturally gifted that academic honors and achievement just seemed to float his way, even when he was distracted, bored or otherwise occupied.
That could have made him an object of resentment, but it never seemed to. He seems never to have looked for work, but rather to have had exciting jobs seek him out because people—many of them important people—liked and trusted him.
The question—which his book addresses, at least partially, anyway—is why.
The answer is in his zest.
Whatever Mitch Daniels did—whether it involved serving the late U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, Presidents Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, working at Eli Lilly, leading the state as governor or Purdue University as president—he did with zeal.
He was and is a member of what seems to be a dying breed—the happy warrior.
People accepted and even embraced his shortcomings and blind spots because they sensed, accurately, that he cares and that he acts on what he believes.
That Daniels brio can be seen on every page of his book. The man himself would acknowledge that he’s not a poet, but he’s always been able to write clean, forceful prose that communicates his thoughts clearly.
As memoirs go, “Impatience is a Virtue” may not reveal as much of the author’s inner life as one might wish. The book speaks only briefly and indirectly about Daniels’ marriage, which was not without bumps. He and his wife, Cheri, divorced in the early 1990s before remarrying in 1997 after she’d had another marriage in the interim.
But that omission is not surprising.
Daniels always has kept the curtain closed on his private life and, unlike most politicians, rarely if ever used his wife or his four daughters as surrogates or stand-ins.
Anyway, there’s enough here to interest the reader without prolonged diversions into navel-gazing.
What Daniels’ memoir conveys in its pages is the story of a man who loves both ideas and challenges, the growing disenchantment, subtly expressed, of an oft-times public servant with the mean-spiritedness of the political climate and the creative stagnation of both political parties, including his own GOP, and the sheer exuberance of seeing and making things happen.
In other words, it reveals as much of the complex and fascinating figure that is Mitch Daniels as we’re likely to see.
Are there passages that are likely to annoy or even anger people, regardless of their political beliefs?
You bet.
But that’s Mitch Daniels for you.
He can really p*** you off sometimes, but he always makes you think.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College. Also, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
