Daniels helps raise cash for Mississippi GOP

JACKSON, Miss. — Two governors seen as potential 2012 presidential candidates appeared together Thursday night at a fundraiser for the Mississippi Republican Party.

Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Indiana's Mitch Daniels wouldn't say whether either has ambitions for the White House.

Instead, the longtime friends cracked good-natured jokes at each other's expense and told about 200 party faithful at a cocktail party that Republicans need to concentrate on taking back Congress this year.

"Every election that I can remember, somebody got up, thumped the podium … and said, 'By gosh, this is the most important election in the history of the republic,'" Daniels said. "This year, it's the truth."

Daniels and Barbour worked together for President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Barbour was political director for the Reagan White House. Daniels was Barbour's boss, the head of intergovernmental and political affairs.

"Now, Mitch is a little tight," Barbour said after bragging that Indiana government was shrinking under his colleague's watch. "He used to say that when we were in government together that his most difficult job was to defend my expense account. I'm not going to take issue with that."

Daniels said Indiana has law requiring store clerks to card anyone buying liquor, regardless of their age. He joked that he and Barbour went in search of liquid refreshment once in Indiana.

"The clerk did his job and said, 'Got any ID?'" Daniels said. "And Haley, being from Mississippi, said, "bout whuuut?'"

Barbour said in an interview before the reception that he, his wife and their two sons used to go to the Indianapolis 500 with Daniels, his wife and their four daughters. The Barbour sons and the Daniels daughters — all now grown — are roughly the same age.

"The Daniels girls thought the Barbour boys were scandalously interesting," Daniels said.

Barbour is head of the Republican Governors Association and is traveling extensively to promote the party's candidates in 37 states. He's in his seventh year as Mississippi governor and can't run again in 2011.

Daniels was elected to his second, and final, term as Indiana governor in 2008. He said he has only made a few trips to other states for RGA this year. "I'd do anything he asked me to do," Daniels said of Barbour.

Both governors have been coy about the possibility of running for president in 2012. Barbour repeatedly says that his priority is getting Republicans elected governor this year.

Sue Bush of Hattiesburg, a member of the Mississippi Republican executive committee, said Thursday night she hoped she was seeing her party's 2012 running mates.

"I think it's be a great ticket," Bush said. "Of course, I'd want to see Haley on top."