Governor Cool

Q: What do Republicans have to be optimistic about right now?

A: A number of things. First of all, I think you've got good talent, particularly among Republican governors who will help lead the way out of this problem. I think you have a strong market-place signal that's going to force us to respond differently because you can't be a majority governing party when you essential can't compete in the Northeast, you lose all or nearly all of the Great Lakes states, you lose all the East Coast states, you lose increasing numbers of western states, you lose several mid Atlantic states, you're behind with women, you're behind with Hispanics, you're behind with African-Americans, you're behind with younger voters and the other side is raising more money and got you beat by fifteen years of technology—that is not a formula for success. So there is a lot of work to do, but that is the work we're facing and that is a candid assessment of it. And so we have to re-connect with our customers and the people that we serve. We've not done a good job with that.

Q: To think of them as "customers" that would be sort of a leap.

A: Well, we serve them. They are our bosses and our customers. Part of the challenge I think with the Republican Party is we have to do a better job communicating. Not just tactically, in terms of technology, but in the ability to explain and communicate. Barack Obama beat us almost two to one with younger voters in part because of his message but in part because he had a platform and an environment [that] technologically was welcoming and engaging and they found it welcoming and engaging … of course, having a million dollars to spend makes that somewhat easier.

Q: I've heard you describe yourself as a traditional, mainstream conservative, but you don't seem that way to me. What is it about you that makes liberals like me not frightened of you?

A: [Laughs] I consider myself a conservative, you know, it's a worn-out phrase, in the Reagan tradition. If you look at the whole Reagan record … part of it was he was pragmatic, he was hopeful, he was optimistic, he was civil, he was positive. But I think the Republican Party needs to be more contemporary.

Q: When you say "contemporary," you don't mean moderate, so what do you mean? Decode that for me.

A: I will decode that for you. A couple of tangible examples. We were behind on the energy debate. It was a huge need. It was part of the reason we're in this economic trouble and instead of scrambling to come up with some stuff over the last year like we did as a national party, we should have been doing what Minnesota and some other individuals and groups have done and been addressing this aggressively, fifteen or twenty years ago. "Drill, baby, drill" is, not by itself, a comprehensive, contemporary energy strategy. We should not have been the party DRAGGED to the renewable energy debate, we should have been out leading it, with OUR approaches, ideas and incentives for it.

That's an example, another example: just the bread and butter issues. I won't go through them all because your eyes will glaze over, but one actual example is, people are worried—“How am I gonna pay for my kid's tuition?” Republicans could be very modern, reach out to young people by saying, “We're going to reduce your tuition, and here's how we're going to do it. We're going to make the program have more variety, it's going to be more accessible, it's going to be more technologically savvy, it's going to look more like an iPod than a 1940s assembly line. We're gonna offer money to regional universities or universities that can put all or most of their degrees online. And we're gonna help pay for it. Instead of building more buildings, we're migrating delivery of higher education services online and once you add one more student to an online program, the marginal cost is zero—and so instead of having a debate about tuition going up X percent or Y percent, we could be talking about tuition going down X percent or Y percent. And, by the way, you can access it anywhere, any time, best of class…” And that would, I think, relate to young people. It would be technologically "current," it would be talking about reforming the way we deliver a service, it would about providing it better, cheaper, faster… it would be “cool.”