Maggie Daniels: Indiana's first daughter puts school first

When Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was mentioned at a recent IU College Republicans meeting, one girl in the room buried her head in her arms as her face turned bright red. The governor's daughter, Maggie Daniels, a sophomore at IU, was noticeably embarrassed.\n"I'm just a face in 40,000 people," Maggie said. "I don't have 'governor's daughter' stamped on my forehead, so people don't really notice. I'm just a sophomore in college."\nMaggie Daniels has many facets. She's very proud of her father's achievements as governor, but doesn't like people to know she's the governor's daughter. She tries to keep a low profile, yet she is very active on campus and even campaigned for her dad.\nMaggie simply wants to prove herself without her dad's reputation.\n"I know it'd be easy to just coast in life, but I don't want to do that," she said. "I want to do it on my own."\nAnd she is certainly on that path. She is very involved at IU as a vice chair for the IU College Republicans, member of Union Board, sister in Zeta Tau Alpha and a business student working on I-CORE.\n"I'm a doer with a 'go get 'em' kind of attitude," she said. "I believe that it takes hard work and diligence to get things accomplished. I'm rarely satisfied."\nThe life of the governor's daughter isn't any more or less exciting than anyone else, Maggie said. Although there are some perks, such as spending a vacation at Camp David and meeting the Bush family, she said her life is mostly like everyone else's.\nMaggie said her father's identity doesn't affect her at school often. Professors don't treat her any differently. She's never been in any classes where a professor criticized him in a lecture. The only real time it has come up in class was as a question on an economics test.\n"It threw me off so much," she said. "I thought it was real funny that my dad was on a test, so it was almost hard to concentrate."\nAlthough most of the time her dad's job isn't an issue, the gubernatorial election did provide some extra stress on Maggie. Some people criticized him to her face. One student even asked her if it was true that her mother wasn't going to vote for her father.\n"There were rough days," she said. "Whether it's something in the news or something someone said, it's always tough to hear people say bad things about someone you love."\nAs a result, Maggie doesn't even read stories in the newspaper about her father because it can be too upsetting.\n"It's hard to have it stare you in the face," she said.\nShe said she understands politics are dirty, but she doesn't like it when it gets personal.\n"I don't like people judging his character," she said. "Criticize his policies all you want, but you don't know him. He's the nicest guy. He's always been there for me. I'm more proud of my dad than anyone else in the world."\nMaggie doesn't tell everybody who her father is. It isn't a conversation starter for her or even anything she brags about. In fact, one of her best friends, sophomore Jessie Jones, said she didn't even know her dad was the governor for quite some time.\n"She doesn't even like people to know she's the governor's daughter," Jones said. "She doesn't want people to judge her."\nMaggie said it can be frustrating when people stereotype her as a rich, spoiled politician's daughter, but said it doesn't happen that often. When it does happen, it bothers her because she works so hard on her own, she said. She said she understands the pressures of having a famous dad. \nOne thing she said she is aware of is how her behavior reflects on her dad and that her name in the police blotter would mean a story affecting her father.\n"There are things I really can't do," she said. "But those are things I probably shouldn't be doing anyway. It holds me to a better standard."\nMaggie shares her dad's political beliefs, but she said it's entirely her own decision. She believes in small government and privatization, but she said she didn't form her opinions because her father fed ideas to her. She said her dad doesn't even talk about politics at home -- he would rather just watch a ball game.\nAlthough she has campaigned for her dad and works for IU's College Republicans, Maggie said politics aren't big in her life. Most of her friends are liberal and she said she judges people on their character, not on how they vote.\n"If I was liberal, I still would have voted for my dad as governor because I think he's doing a really good job," she said. "Just look at how much he has already done in just a year."\nMaggie has a lot of goals she wants to accomplish and she is working her way to get there. She wants to study abroad. She wants to do well on I-CORE (she was pleased by an 'A' on her starter quiz). She wants to become a pharmaceutical representative. Still, she wants to do it on her own and she doesn't think being the governor's daughter has any effect on her dreams.\n"They just see me as the governor's daughter, not as Maggie Daniels," she said. "I'm not him. I support him and I love him, but I'm my own person. I'm not him. I'm Maggie"