13News’ Dustin Grove sat down with Mike and Maureen Braun at their home in Jasper to discuss their life, their politics and the legacy they hope to leave behind.
JASPER, Ind. — For the last decade, Mike Braun has traveled full speed down life in the political fast lane; from local school board member to state lawmaker to U.S. senator and, next month, to the Indiana governor’s office.
But home, he says, has been and always will be Jasper.
“I’m here every weekend,” Braun told 13News anchor Dustin Grove as they walked the Braun’s rural property, encompassing more than 160 acres of forest and farmland just outside the town of 16,000.
“I call it my therapy,” Braun said. “It’s unlimited exercise and things you can do in the woods, an excellent investment, and it’s all out my front door.”
During his six years in the U.S. Senate, Braun, 70, said he returned home every weekend except for a few.
Braun and his wife, Maureen, met in grade school and grew up here.
“He was a little pesky in our younger years … over time, he grew on me and I grew on him,” Maureen recalled with a smile.
After high school, Maureen graduated from IU with a business degree and Mike graduated from Wabash College, where he majored in economics. They married and moved east, where Mike earned his business degree from Harvard Business School in the late ’70s.
“I thought I was going to Wall Street because I was good at numbers and finances, and that was the highest-paying job back then,” Braun said. “(But) something called us back, and it was probably the smartest thing we ever did.”
It was their small hometown calling them back along with Maureen’s desire to start her own business, “Finishing Touches,” a home décor shop she still runs today on the downtown square more than 45 years later.
“We also moved back because of family,” Maureen said. “Family is a strong tie for us. We just really wanted to build that relationship in our life with family.”
Family is always near. On the day 13News stopped by, the Brauns were babysitting two of their youngest grandchildren. Additionally, some of the Braun’s adult children work for the family business, Meyer Distributing, a nationwide marketer and distributer of automotive specialty products.
Braun said the entrepreneurial spirit he brings to politics was born in Jasper, a community settled in the early 1800s by German immigrants, many of whom who were cabinetmakers and carpenters. Today, Jasper boasts more than 1,000 businesses, many locally owned and operated.
Security Robots – The Gadget Show
“That was pretty well woven into our fabric,” Braun said.
Transition to politics
The Brauns say it was actually Maureen, not Mike, who was first approached about running for public office.
“That call came for her,” Braun said. “And she very articulately said she didn’t have time to do it and offered me up.”
After serving on the local school board and then a term as state representative, Braun said he decided to take a shot at running for a U.S. Senate seat.
“And I’ll never forget (Maureen) asked me where I was in the first poll,” Braun recalled. “And I said well, we rounded up and I’m at 1%.”
“He could only go up,” Maureen chuckled.
And he did, eventually winning the race in 2018.
But during his term, Braun was critical of gridlock in Congress, calling it a “tough place to get anything done.” Braun said he ran for governor because he believes he has more of an opportunity to make an impact for people through the Statehouse.
“It was a pretty defined fork in the road,” Braun said. “I think, just like the founders intended, most of the issues are going to be crafted by entrepreneurial state governments that live within their means. We’ve got 50 of them as a laboratory of how things should work, and hopefully that will rub off and the federal government will maybe get back to the two or three things it ought to do well. That would mean not borrowing money to cover your bad performance.”
Braun won the GOP’s six-way May primary election to succeed term-limited Eric Holcomb with about 40% of the vote. Six months later, he easily won the Indiana governor’s race, defeating Democrat Jennifer McCormick, a former Republican who split with the party after serving as the state’s schools superintendent.
Braun’s victory extends the GOP’s 20-year-hold on the state’s top office.
Maureen says, at first, she wasn’t so sure about her husband’s decision to run for governor.
“I was a little hesitant … I felt like we needed his voice at the federal level (for) conservative spending,” Maureen said. “But then when he explained to me about coming back and a lot at the state level is really where things are going to happen, he convinced me that it was the right move.”
Looking ahead
As Braun prepares to be sworn in as Indiana’s 52nd governor, he says priority one includes a close audit of state government and running Indiana “like a business.”
“I did that for 37 years,” Braun said, recalling his background as a business owner. “I’ll look at every agency, 80 of them in total, 30 to 35 major ones, make sure they’re being run well and efficiently, and I’m almost certain we can probably spend less and get better results.”
He says policy initiatives will follow. Braun announced his agenda earlier this month.
The agenda prioritizes tax relief, a “leaner, more responsive government,” education workforce and economic development, health care access and affordability, and public safety.
Maureen Braun said she hopes their legacy will be one of public service.
“Mine would be that we gave back and made a big difference in each person’s life,” Maureen said. “…mostly economically, but also just in our example of family and faith, community and the way we live.”
