Eli Lilly Exec to Head OMB

"Mitch Daniels is a successful businessman who has an extraordinary amount of experience working within the federal government. He will be an important adviser within my administration and will help ensure that our federal government maintains fiscal discipline," the president-elect said when making the announcement.

The 51-year-old Daniels, currently a senior vice president at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, will now be in charge of preparing the president's annual budget and spearheading the administrative oversight of Cabinet departments and regulatory agencies through the executive branch.

"He is a competent Reaganite and will be an asset in trying to rein in spending," Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative grassroots group, said.

Jim Miller, who was Ronald Reagan's OMB director between 1985 and 1988, called the choice "a surprise pick."

Miller says Daniels "has a great understanding of politics and Congress. He was more an idea and strategy man in the Reagan White House than he was hands-on in dealing with the Hill. The president-elect is clearly looking for someone who can help him sell his program to Congress."

"Daniels would be an unconventional OMB director inasmuch as he would be much more a marketer than a number cruncher. He has a suspicion of the excesses of the agencies and he is more likely to emphasize the regulatory functions of OMB as well as the management side."

Daniels is an experienced Washington hand. He served as chief of staff to Indiana's senior senator, Republican Richard Lugar, for a number of years. For a two-year period, Daniels was also executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the organization charged with overseeing the campaigns of Republican U.S. Senate candidates.

Tim Hyde, a Washington consultant who worked with Daniels at the NRSC, says, "He is one of the smartest political operatives I've ever known. He is a quick study and he is uncanny in his ability to figure out how things work. He has worked in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and he's a lawyer, so he understands how all three branches of government work as well as the political dimensions."

In addition to his work in the Reagan White House and on Capitol Hill, Daniels was a senior executive with the pharmaceutical giant Lilly, where he held several senior management positions, including president of the North American pharmaceutical operations.

Daniels was also president and chief executive officer of the Hudson Institute, an Indianapolis think tank, from 1987 to 1990.

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