Adam’s Question: You do not have any experience in any area of actual political office such as city mayor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, or state senator. How can you believe you can ascend to gubernatorial office only on the merits of your DNC chairmanship, adept political fundraising and networking? Shouldn’t you work your
way up first? I am asking you to explain what experience or personal insights would make you a great candidate for Virginia Governor.

Adam: I think I bring a fresh perspective to state government – one grounded in my experience of turning around failing businesses and rebuilding struggling organizations like the DNC, where I was Chair when we erased the debt, built the first national voter file, built a new headquarters, and left the incoming chair and his team with a clean balance sheet for the first time anyone can remember.

The last time Virginia had a budget squeeze was under Mark Warner. The reason was different – that time it was because of poor management and gimmickry from Jim Gilmore and this time we’re caught in a national economic slump – but what we need in a Governor is similar. Mark Warner had never held elected office, but he used his business
experience to know where to cut the budget and how to bring people together to find solutions. After 7 years of great management from Govs. Warner and Kaine, we’ve trimmed the fat out of the budget. There is nothing left to cut that isn’t going to impinge on a legitimate priority, and I don’t believe you should raise taxes in a struggling economy. That leaves growing the economy to bring new revenue into the state – and growing businesses and creating jobs is something I’ve done since I started my first company when I was 14 years old.

I also think we need someone who will look beyond Richmond politics to set ambitious goals for Virginia. We should be talking about ideas like connecting the state with high-speed rail, making Virginia the leader in the green economy, and continuing Governor Kaine’s great work on pre-k by making it available to all of Virginia’s four-year-olds. If we don’t set the bar high, we’ll never know how high we can jump! We can pull Virginia out of this slump and continue to set the pace for the country in many ways, but one thing I’ve
learned is that no one – not the Governor, not anyone – can do it alone. You have to bring people together to make real progress, and that’s what I’d do as Governor.

Posted by: Terry @ 04:32:24 PM
Tags: charlottesville, democratic national committee, dnc, mark warner, terry mcauliffe, tim kaine