Presidential Ad Touting Daniels to Run During Pro Bowl

It’s never too early for campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that traditionally kickoff the U.S. presidential primary season.

A group of students trying to encourage Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to enter the 2012 Republican field says it has purchased television ad time on a station in Des Moines, Iowa, during this weekend’s National Football League Pro Bowl game.

The ad, to run on a Fox affiliate, will be the “first televised ad for the 2012 election cycle,” Students for Daniels political action committee said in a news release.

Max Eden, 22, the group’s national director, said in an interview that the organization was started last year and is based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The group has chapters on 37 college campuses nationwide, according to Eden, who said he is a senior studying history at Yale.

Daniels, 61, who is considering a presidential bid, has said he won’t make a decision until after his state legislature adjourns in April.

The group has also purchased TV time in New Hampshire and Indiana, Eden said.

The 30-second ad features a woman who talks about how she was initially happy when a man in her life bought her a car and subsidized her health-care insurance.

“Everything was perfect, until I got my credit card bill,” the woman says as a graphic that uses a logo similar to one from President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign is displayed. “It turns out he was spending all of my money.”

‘New Man’

The woman then explains in the ad, which is on the YouTube Internet video site, that there is a “new man” in her life.

“Mitch Daniels,” she says. “He doesn’t need to rely on fancy rhetoric or empty promises. You know what he’s all about? Fiscal responsibility.”

The woman is a political science student at Yale, Eden said. The ad in Iowa will cost $1,250, a portion of the $10,000 the group has raised, he said.

“The number one issue for me and my generation is the debt,” Eden said. “We need somebody who has the guts to actually say what the problem is and confront it head on.”

Daniels headed the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush and then was elected Indiana’s governor in 2004. He won re-election with 58 percent of the vote in 2008, even as Obama carried the state on his way to winning the presidency.

To contact the reporter on this story: John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net.