Tonight the first lady of Indiana is set to deliver the keynote speech at the state’s annual Republican Party dinner. Political observers across the nation will be watching Cheri Daniels, the notably non-political wife of Governor Mitch Daniels, for signs of her readiness to accompany her husband in a run for the presidency.

This has been a week for the press to obsess about Republican wives. Newt Gingrich’s declaration of his candidacy yesterday necessarily involves scrutiny of his wife, because their relationship began as an extramarital romance while he was speaker of the house and she worked on Capitol Hill. Gingrich’s ability to sell himself as changed, even redeemed, is essential to his chances of winning. Callista Gingrich, his third wife, is crucial to that pitch.

The focus on Mrs. Daniels is of a different sort. There have been signs that Daniels is leaning toward running. But the reluctance of his wife, who did not take part in either of his campaigns for governor, is thought to be a major sticking point. The fact that Mrs. Daniels has chosen to speak at the party dinner tonight is being viewed, rightly or wrongly, as another indication that he will seek his party’s nomination.

By all accounts, Mrs. Daniels has been an exemplary first lady of Indiana during her husband’s seven years in the state house. But she is unlike most politicians’ wives; Cheri Daniels has never served as a prop in her husband’s political career. In fact, they have treated their private life as private in spite their unusual story. Married in 1978, they divorced in 1993. But after a brief marriage to another man, she returned to her first husband and they remarried in 1997. The couple has always refused to discuss this chapter of their lives. All Daniels will say publicly is that “If you like happy endings, you’ll love our story.” The prospect that this episode might become fodder for attacks on Daniels is highly distasteful but the Washington Post reports today that, “In exchange for anonymity, an official for another GOP prospect provided contact information for the ex-wife of the man Cheri Daniels married, in the years between her divorce and remarriage to Daniels.”

It is far from clear whether exploiting this story would hurt Daniels. In past campaigns, Daniels has been attacked for being arrested on a drug charge when he was a college student and his past role as a drug company executive, but not because he married the same woman twice.

Presidential candidate’s wives are often used as surrogates for their husbands. Yet if past comments about her interest in politics are any indication, Cheri Daniels may take a pass on such activities. If that is the path she chooses, then it is possible that a Daniels candidacy or presidency might operate along the lines that prevailed in American politics before the second half of the 20th century. Families were not always props for presidential hopefuls or even for presidents. And though it might disappoint the press, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for the country to have a first family that eschewed the Camelot model adopted first by John Kennedy and now by Barack Obama, in which the widely distributed images of wives and children are included in a president’s political arsenal.