"Back to GOP Basics".
Back to GOP Basics
Virginia's governor-elect Bob McDonnell on his plans for spending cuts, offshore drilling and charter schools.
By BRENDAN MINITER
'I'm sorry," Bob McDonnell says, shaking my hand. It's a recent rainy morning in Virginia's capital, and the incoming Republican governor is late to start our meeting at his transition headquarters. His previous meeting ran over because Democratic legislative leaders were telling war stories. "Unfortunately," he says with a smile, "all of their stories involved Republican governors."
The new governor is in high spirits. Along with New Jersey's Chris Christie, in November he was one of two Republicans elected governor in states that Barack Obama carried a year ago. Mr. McDonnell won by a 17-point landslide and captured independents by a two-to-one margin. Many wonder if his victory is a sign that Republicans will run the table in the upcoming congressional elections.
So how did he win a state that Obama Democrats had thought was part of a permanent national shift to the left? "I ran on Virginia issues," Mr. McDonnell says, "which were jobs and the economy." These were, he says, "far and away" the top issues. Virginia's unemployment rate, 6.6%, is lower than the 10% national average, but it is up sharply from its low of below 3% in 2007.
"In the worst economy in 80 years," says Mr. McDonnell, "it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what we ought to be talking about." He adds: "I do think that talking about the excesses of the federal government is something you are going to hear Republican and Democratic candidates for statewide office talk about for a while because I think you're going to see a resurgence of discussions of federalism, about the 10th Amendment, about limits on federal power, and federal spending."
Given his emphasis on economic issues, I ask Mr. McDonnell whether he was able to win because he downplayed his social conservatism. He brushes off the question. "I am 100% prolife . . . We were unequivocal about our position on marriage," he says.
"I have a record," he says, that includes 14 years in the House of Delegates and three years as the state's attorney general that made it possible for him to spend the bulk of his time talking about fiscal issues. When social issues did come up during the campaign, he was able to state his position and then say "OK, now let's talk about the economy."
The clearest example came in late August, when Mr. McDonnell referred to his master's thesis at Regent University in a meeting at the Washington Post. A little reporting revealed that the thesis contained controversial social positions—such as the argument that working women and feminists were "detrimental" to building strong families. A Washington Post poll released about two weeks after news of the thesis showed Mr. McDonnell leading Democrat R. Creigh Deeds 51% to 47%—down substantially from a lead of 54% to 39% in August. The campaign was at a pivot—the point at which Mr. McDonnell might have been sent down to defeat.
Mr. McDonnell doesn't take the bait when I mention his thesis, and within weeks of the issue surfacing during the campaign he was back talking about the economy in general and energy in particular. In short order he was back to outdistancing Mr. Deeds. He had laid the groundwork to do that in February when he blasted congressional Democrats for pushing cap-and-trade legislation, and he spent months telling voters it would hit some families with as much as $1,700 in additional electricity costs each year.
Mr. McDonnell also scored politically with his proposal to allow oil drilling in the state's coastal waters. His proposal builds on a policy set in motion a year ago when a federal ban on drilling off the Atlantic Coast was allowed to expire.
"We are set to be the first state in the country in 2011 to drill [for oil] offshore, off the Atlantic Coast," he says, downplaying the environmental lobby's intense efforts to reimpose the ban. "Unfortunately, the administration is dragging its feet. So I am going to do everything I can to push federal regulators to keep us on track."
Virginia isn't as bad off as California, which has been battered by deficits in the tens of billions of dollars over the past year. But it is facing a budget crunch. Its $80 billion biannual budget is estimated to be $4.2 billion in the hole. This deficit comes after incumbent Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, cut $6 billion in state spending over the past two years.
"It has been a darn tough time to be governor," Mr. McDonnell tells me. But at the same time he sees "an enormous opportunity to rethink the way we deliver government, to look at ways to privatize, to consolidate, to innovate with technology . . . The private sector is doing this all of the time—asking how it can deliver better services to its customers and cut operating expenses. Government doesn't do that very well. I've told everybody I'm going to make that a big point."
Mr. McDonnell needs bipartisan support in the Democratic state Senate. So he is reaching across the aisle. He's informed officials in the outgoing Democratic administration that they won't necessarily be bounced from government (they are invited to reapply for positions in his administration). He has also picked one high-profile issue that might win him support among Democrats in Richmond and Washington: education reform.
The Obama administration has invited states to compete for education grants in a program called "Race to the Top." The grants will be given to states that demonstrate a commitment to education reform through charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and other policies. Mr. McDonnell is asking Democrats—including Gov. Kaine, who doubles as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee—for help in applying for these grants.
"I think this is a great opportunity for me," he says, "because we have the president of the United States and [U.S. Education Secretary] Arne Duncan promoting charter schools with $4.35 billion of federal help behind it . . . We could get hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for Virginia to promote charter schools and merit pay."
Mr. McDonnell has already coordinated with Gov. Kaine on the grant application, and he says Mr. Kaine "seems to be very willing to work together on that. So I am excited. This education reform is something I will push aggressively in the first year."
"But," he adds, "it's not just charter schools and merit pay" that matter. It's also "restructuring where the money goes."
Mr. McDonnell points out that there are only 42 schools in the state, mostly around Petersburg, that are considered failing. He says he has "a detailed plan for turnaround specialists to be involved in these 42 schools" and, more broadly, to spend more money on students than the state spends now: "I've said we need to put more money in the classroom and less into administration and overhead. I ran on the idea that 65% of the dollars [should] go to the classroom. Right now the average is 61%. So if you can transfer another 4%, it amounts to about half a billion dollars in new money."
With the state in deficit, Mr. McDonnell is likely to find broad agreement on the need to cut spending elsewhere. But where those cuts are made, how deep they are, and whether they include eliminating programs will likely be sharply contested.
The new governor seems intent on making fundamental changes to the budget: "I've told the legislature that I'm going to be asking for money to do audits of major state agencies, like the [Department of] Medical Assistance Services, the Department of Transportation. . . . In short order, we'll recommend some restructuring of state government, and maybe the elimination of some agencies."
Cutting back is a necessity, he says. "When government has billion-dollar shortfalls, you are forced to go to the table and say 'How can we do things differently?' So I am going to probably propose some things that they [legislators] may not like."
One fundamental reform Mr. McDonnell campaigned on last year is to repeal the state's monopoly on the sale of hard alcohol, and to sell off state-owned liquor stores. Locally known as the ABC stores—they are run by the state's Department of Alcohol Beverage Control—the idea of selling them has been kicked around for years. But it has been a nonstarter because lawmakers like the revenue the stores generate, and because some argue that selling them would lead to a spike in alcohol consumption.
Mr. McDonnell disagrees, and he says that selling the stores shouldn't be a hard decision: "This is a vestige of Prohibition that doesn't fit the model of the free enterprise system . . . I think it can be done in a way that gives us a huge chunk of money up front for transportation and gives us a revenue stream for down the road. We are going to try to find a way to make this happen."
While Mr. McDonnell says that his reform agenda may bring him into conflict with Democrats, he has not mentioned divisions that have surfaced among Virginia Republicans in recent years. In 2004, 34 Republican state legislators voted for a $1.38 billion tax increase. In the years that followed, Republicans lost a governor's race and both U.S. Senate seats to Democrats—evidence that the tax hike splintered public support for the GOP.
I ask Mr. McDonnell how he united his party and even overcame the ouster of his state party chairman earlier this year. He responds by praising Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (who ran for re-election rather than challenge Mr. McDonnell in a primary), Pat Mullins (the new party chairman who quickly reached out to party conservatives), and others for smoothing over rifts within the GOP.
***
But what I'm really after is whether Republicans are now determined to stand together on hard fiscal policy fights ahead. So I ask about a "Least Wanted" poster that Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., distributed to lawmakers across the country with the names and faces of Virginia Republicans who backed the tax hike. "I remember," Mr. McDonnell says of the poster. "I was glad not to be on it."
As for the damaged Republican brand, one message voters sent with Mr. McDonnell's election is that they don't want the GOP to repeat its mistakes from the past decade. Mr. McDonnell seems to have received that message, saying that it was important for him to run on fiscal issues, because "we've got to hold the line on taxes and we've got to cut spending."
Mr. Miniter is an assistant features editor at the Journal.
Virginia's governor-elect Bob McDonnell on his plans for spending cuts, offshore drilling and charter schools.
By BRENDAN MINITER
'I'm sorry," Bob McDonnell says, shaking my hand. It's a recent rainy morning in Virginia's capital, and the incoming Republican governor is late to start our meeting at his transition headquarters. His previous meeting ran over because Democratic legislative leaders were telling war stories. "Unfortunately," he says with a smile, "all of their stories involved Republican governors."
The new governor is in high spirits. Along with New Jersey's Chris Christie, in November he was one of two Republicans elected governor in states that Barack Obama carried a year ago. Mr. McDonnell won by a 17-point landslide and captured independents by a two-to-one margin. Many wonder if his victory is a sign that Republicans will run the table in the upcoming congressional elections.
So how did he win a state that Obama Democrats had thought was part of a permanent national shift to the left? "I ran on Virginia issues," Mr. McDonnell says, "which were jobs and the economy." These were, he says, "far and away" the top issues. Virginia's unemployment rate, 6.6%, is lower than the 10% national average, but it is up sharply from its low of below 3% in 2007.
"In the worst economy in 80 years," says Mr. McDonnell, "it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what we ought to be talking about." He adds: "I do think that talking about the excesses of the federal government is something you are going to hear Republican and Democratic candidates for statewide office talk about for a while because I think you're going to see a resurgence of discussions of federalism, about the 10th Amendment, about limits on federal power, and federal spending."
Given his emphasis on economic issues, I ask Mr. McDonnell whether he was able to win because he downplayed his social conservatism. He brushes off the question. "I am 100% prolife . . . We were unequivocal about our position on marriage," he says.
"I have a record," he says, that includes 14 years in the House of Delegates and three years as the state's attorney general that made it possible for him to spend the bulk of his time talking about fiscal issues. When social issues did come up during the campaign, he was able to state his position and then say "OK, now let's talk about the economy."
The clearest example came in late August, when Mr. McDonnell referred to his master's thesis at Regent University in a meeting at the Washington Post. A little reporting revealed that the thesis contained controversial social positions—such as the argument that working women and feminists were "detrimental" to building strong families. A Washington Post poll released about two weeks after news of the thesis showed Mr. McDonnell leading Democrat R. Creigh Deeds 51% to 47%—down substantially from a lead of 54% to 39% in August. The campaign was at a pivot—the point at which Mr. McDonnell might have been sent down to defeat.
Mr. McDonnell doesn't take the bait when I mention his thesis, and within weeks of the issue surfacing during the campaign he was back talking about the economy in general and energy in particular. In short order he was back to outdistancing Mr. Deeds. He had laid the groundwork to do that in February when he blasted congressional Democrats for pushing cap-and-trade legislation, and he spent months telling voters it would hit some families with as much as $1,700 in additional electricity costs each year.
Mr. McDonnell also scored politically with his proposal to allow oil drilling in the state's coastal waters. His proposal builds on a policy set in motion a year ago when a federal ban on drilling off the Atlantic Coast was allowed to expire.
"We are set to be the first state in the country in 2011 to drill [for oil] offshore, off the Atlantic Coast," he says, downplaying the environmental lobby's intense efforts to reimpose the ban. "Unfortunately, the administration is dragging its feet. So I am going to do everything I can to push federal regulators to keep us on track."
Virginia isn't as bad off as California, which has been battered by deficits in the tens of billions of dollars over the past year. But it is facing a budget crunch. Its $80 billion biannual budget is estimated to be $4.2 billion in the hole. This deficit comes after incumbent Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, cut $6 billion in state spending over the past two years.
"It has been a darn tough time to be governor," Mr. McDonnell tells me. But at the same time he sees "an enormous opportunity to rethink the way we deliver government, to look at ways to privatize, to consolidate, to innovate with technology . . . The private sector is doing this all of the time—asking how it can deliver better services to its customers and cut operating expenses. Government doesn't do that very well. I've told everybody I'm going to make that a big point."
Mr. McDonnell needs bipartisan support in the Democratic state Senate. So he is reaching across the aisle. He's informed officials in the outgoing Democratic administration that they won't necessarily be bounced from government (they are invited to reapply for positions in his administration). He has also picked one high-profile issue that might win him support among Democrats in Richmond and Washington: education reform.
The Obama administration has invited states to compete for education grants in a program called "Race to the Top." The grants will be given to states that demonstrate a commitment to education reform through charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and other policies. Mr. McDonnell is asking Democrats—including Gov. Kaine, who doubles as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee—for help in applying for these grants.
"I think this is a great opportunity for me," he says, "because we have the president of the United States and [U.S. Education Secretary] Arne Duncan promoting charter schools with $4.35 billion of federal help behind it . . . We could get hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for Virginia to promote charter schools and merit pay."
Mr. McDonnell has already coordinated with Gov. Kaine on the grant application, and he says Mr. Kaine "seems to be very willing to work together on that. So I am excited. This education reform is something I will push aggressively in the first year."
"But," he adds, "it's not just charter schools and merit pay" that matter. It's also "restructuring where the money goes."
Mr. McDonnell points out that there are only 42 schools in the state, mostly around Petersburg, that are considered failing. He says he has "a detailed plan for turnaround specialists to be involved in these 42 schools" and, more broadly, to spend more money on students than the state spends now: "I've said we need to put more money in the classroom and less into administration and overhead. I ran on the idea that 65% of the dollars [should] go to the classroom. Right now the average is 61%. So if you can transfer another 4%, it amounts to about half a billion dollars in new money."
With the state in deficit, Mr. McDonnell is likely to find broad agreement on the need to cut spending elsewhere. But where those cuts are made, how deep they are, and whether they include eliminating programs will likely be sharply contested.
The new governor seems intent on making fundamental changes to the budget: "I've told the legislature that I'm going to be asking for money to do audits of major state agencies, like the [Department of] Medical Assistance Services, the Department of Transportation. . . . In short order, we'll recommend some restructuring of state government, and maybe the elimination of some agencies."
Cutting back is a necessity, he says. "When government has billion-dollar shortfalls, you are forced to go to the table and say 'How can we do things differently?' So I am going to probably propose some things that they [legislators] may not like."
One fundamental reform Mr. McDonnell campaigned on last year is to repeal the state's monopoly on the sale of hard alcohol, and to sell off state-owned liquor stores. Locally known as the ABC stores—they are run by the state's Department of Alcohol Beverage Control—the idea of selling them has been kicked around for years. But it has been a nonstarter because lawmakers like the revenue the stores generate, and because some argue that selling them would lead to a spike in alcohol consumption.
Mr. McDonnell disagrees, and he says that selling the stores shouldn't be a hard decision: "This is a vestige of Prohibition that doesn't fit the model of the free enterprise system . . . I think it can be done in a way that gives us a huge chunk of money up front for transportation and gives us a revenue stream for down the road. We are going to try to find a way to make this happen."
While Mr. McDonnell says that his reform agenda may bring him into conflict with Democrats, he has not mentioned divisions that have surfaced among Virginia Republicans in recent years. In 2004, 34 Republican state legislators voted for a $1.38 billion tax increase. In the years that followed, Republicans lost a governor's race and both U.S. Senate seats to Democrats—evidence that the tax hike splintered public support for the GOP.
I ask Mr. McDonnell how he united his party and even overcame the ouster of his state party chairman earlier this year. He responds by praising Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (who ran for re-election rather than challenge Mr. McDonnell in a primary), Pat Mullins (the new party chairman who quickly reached out to party conservatives), and others for smoothing over rifts within the GOP.
***
But what I'm really after is whether Republicans are now determined to stand together on hard fiscal policy fights ahead. So I ask about a "Least Wanted" poster that Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., distributed to lawmakers across the country with the names and faces of Virginia Republicans who backed the tax hike. "I remember," Mr. McDonnell says of the poster. "I was glad not to be on it."
As for the damaged Republican brand, one message voters sent with Mr. McDonnell's election is that they don't want the GOP to repeat its mistakes from the past decade. Mr. McDonnell seems to have received that message, saying that it was important for him to run on fiscal issues, because "we've got to hold the line on taxes and we've got to cut spending."
Mr. Miniter is an assistant features editor at the Journal.
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