Jeb Bush Boosts Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels as the 'Anti-Obama'

Jeb Bush, brother of one former president and son of another, isn't going to seek the White House for himself next year, he says, but he likes what he's seen so far from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Daniels, in his second term, is among a slew of Republicans considering a presidential campaign next year.

"Mitch is the only one who sees the stark [economic] perils and will offer real, detailed proposals," Bush told Jacksonville business leaders, according to the Florida Times-Union.

Daniels won rave reviews from some pundits last week for his sobering speech at the CPAC meeting in Washington where he laid out the hard choices facing a nation with a mounting debt. Politics Daily's Walter Shapiro wrote that Daniels offered an "eloquently crafted, intellectually compelling call to arms against the red ink forces of the national debt."

Before winning election as Indiana's governor, Daniels, 61, served as director of the Office of Management and Budget for former President George W. Bush -- Jeb Bush's older brother. Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, conceded that the diminutive Daniels is not a smooth or dashing figure, but he likes his style.

"He would be the anti-Obama, at least socially," Bush said in the newspaper's account of a private gathering. "He is not good on a teleprompter, but if my theory is right that would work well for him." Daniels, a Midwesterner with an understated sense of humor, also told the conservative group in Washington the next president will have to consider revamping entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Jeb Bush's good will stopped far short of any endorsement for Daniels, who first must decide whether he is going to take the plunge in 2012. (Update: Daniels wasn't feeling so chipper Thursday. He underwent rotator cuff surgery to repair a tear in his right shoulder, CNN reported. The out-patient procedure isn't expected to sideline him for long; he's scheduled to speak at an Ohio Republican dinner in Cincinnati next Wednesday.)