On the right tract

Gov. Mitch Daniels has a book coming out, which puts him in an elite group:

Of the nation's 50 sitting governors, almost a quarter of them are authors. Four, including Daniels, have written tomes while serving as their state's chief executive. That number is set to increase by one early next year when South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's book, "Can't is Not an Option," hits the bookshelves.

Another seven governors penned tomes before they took office: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Ohio Gov. John Kasich wrote books, while California Gov. Jerry Brown's "Thoughts" came out in 1976 during his first go-round as governor.

The politician's tome has become "almost routine," said Peter Osnos, founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs Books.

"All of them want to be thought of as people who have something to say and they want to address their constituency," said Osnos, who helped publish President Barack Obama's first book, "Dreams from my Father," in 1995.

No offense to the governor, but I can't imagine anything more boring, unless it's a tell-all by a City Council member or other local politician about what goes on behind (gasp!) closed doors. To be fair, Daniels' book will be more a "here are my ideas on what direction the country should take" tome than a "why I was right and everybody else was wrong" piece of self-aggrandizement. So that makes the book more interesting, and Daniels has been in Washington circles enough to have gathered some evidence of how things there can work or not work in guiding the rest of the country.

The article points out the the book is a natural tool for politicians because it "allows them to talk directly to a captive audience at length with no filters." When it's a book about policies or ideas, it also helps voters by getting something down on the record that can be dissected and debated. In this age of lighting-fast thrust-and-parry argument, that's not a bad asset. It can sometimes be tricky to handle for the writer, though, as Rick Perry is discovering.