Exclusive: Gov. Daniels Shares His 2012 Political Agenda

September 28, 2011 Updated Sep 29, 2011 at 1:49 AM EDT

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) -- Keeping the Republic by Trusting Americans.

That was Governor Mitch Daniels' theme during a speech he gave at the IPFW Omnibus Lecture Series Wednesday night.

Hundreds of people attended the event, which featured a Q&A session and a book signing.

Daniels spoke for nearly an hour about his new manuscript, entitled: Keeping the Republic: "Saving America by Trusting Americans."

To prove that Indiana was on the right track, Daniels cited a recent study that said 77% of Hoosiers were confident in the state government of Indiana.

Daniels said his book is his thoughts on how America should government itself.

He said on the national level, social issues, including race and gender need to be put on the back burner.

He said national leaders should focus all their attention on our fiscal issues.

Daniels said the federal government needs to create a "Social Security 2.0" and "Medicare 2.0" so that young people have viable programs in the future.

Meanwhile, after his hour long book signing, Daniels took time to participate in an exclusive interview with Indiana's NewsCenter.

He said during his final year in office, it is his goal to continue to be business friendly and implement last session's education reform.

Meanwhile, he said he hopes to usher in local government and criminal sentencing reform in 2012.

"We have a chance to get better at helping people not come back to prison if we incarcerate them closer to home or in community settings for low level offenses, the non-violent offenses. We wanna keep our expensive prisons spaces for the worst offenders," said Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, in an exclusive one on one interview.

"We can continue to have the toughest sentences in the country but also do a better job at helping people not repeat," Daniels explained.

"We wanna leave a state that's first of all, paying its bills and keeping taxes low. We wanna leave a state that's really attractive to new jobs and business more than most (states) and that's were we are now," shared Daniels.

"I also hope we leave a state that is associated with leadership. People now look at Indiana as a leader in transportation, a leader in education reform, a leader in low property taxes and a host of other areas. I hope that this becomes Hoosiers expectations that we're gonna be out front, with other people imitating us," added Daniels.

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Governor Daniels also gave Indiana's NewsCenter some insight into his political future.

"My own thought has always been to try to serve as well as I could and go back to private life. But you don't know what will come along. If the phone rings, and there's some request for more public service, it would be wrong to say no in advance," Daniels explained.