Cover Story
Q&A with Gov. Jim Gilmore

How do you know?
I understand it clearly. Scientifically. Taken some surveys to make sure. If you are in public life and interacting with the public all the time like I am, you know. You better know. Instinctively. Hundreds of people have communicated with me since this has been reignited by other people…Gas station attendants, bartenders, people I run into. They all say, ‘Thanks for being steadfast, thanks for delivering on this tax cut.’ Yesterday somebody said to me, ‘This meant $300 to me. . . ‘This happens all the time.

" . . . So far there has not been a single example of somebody coming up to me and saying, ‘You’re stubborn, you’re obstinate, don’t do this tax cut, instead, spend this money on something else.' Not a single example. . .I am going to do what I think is right in this public service I have chosen to do. That means I’m going to keep faith with the people. They’re going to be able to say one thing we know for sure, and that is that (when) Jim Gilmore says he is going to do something; he is going to do it.

What about people who say, but he can’t do it. He’s cutting back on college construction, not giving state employees a raise; you’re hurting the museums and other cultural attractions?
Therein lies the principle fallacy. I’m not doing any of those things you just described. The Senate did those things. The Democratic bloc did it deliberately. They did it so they could make a political argument.

They couldn’t have done it without help from your own party.
That’s right, and they bear that responsibility for having done that for whatever motives that they did….But that does not change the responsibility of the bloc of Democrats that did it deliberately, together with a group of Republicans. That’s true.

Are the Democrats more guilty than those in your party? Are they equally culpable?
They’re more guilty because the broad base of the Republican Party is in agreement on the commitments they made to the public and the underlying policy that it represents. I want to make this very clear. This is a point that is being debated at the national realm also. The tax cut is a good policy. It is the right policy. It is a good policy in and of itself.

If they discovered what you know, that it’s what the people want, that’s not being heroic, that’s just being politically smart. If this is what the people want and they took it away from them, they would suffer in November.
That’s precisely correct. And that, by the way, is a reaffirmation of the democracy. On the other hand, there are some people who still would lose their nerve if they were being asserted by the press, by the Senate and by the Democrats that this would be bad, bad, bad for them…

It would have been better, though, wouldn’t it, if there had been a budget?
Absolutely. Sure, that’s why I offered one. This issue is, can you do it? We sat around here, looked at the declining revenues, and said, can we do this or not. If we found we could do it, then it became a policy choice, or whether or not you would do it or not. And we concluded that it was good policy…We had to look at all the ways that you do this and decide are any of them acceptable within reasonable financial methods and efforts and within the long-range fiscal stability of the commonwealth? And we found it could easily be done. And not only could it be done, it could be done with a lot more progressive things on college campuses, pay increases, all the things we needed to do. Put some more money into remedial education, into mental health, a lot more aggressive efforts, and a major new construction program, almost a new building on every college campus. You could do it. It would have required that you handle the finances of the commonwealth correctly…The record is clear on this. I offered an executive budget that did all these things. And that was thrown out by the Senate, I think on the very first day of the session.

"I didn’t run on ‘some car tax.’ I ran on ‘no car tax.’ So they were not asking me to compromise. They were asking me to surrender the principle and the policy."

I think it was Lyndon Johnson who said politics is the art of compromise. Wouldn’t it have been wise, as a leader, to say, "I can’t allow this to happen,’ so while these people are doing the wrong thing, I’ll back down? Surely you could have gotten 60 percent out of the Senate.
This is a subtlety that is missed which you need to write about. I didn’t run on ‘some car tax.’ I ran on ‘no car tax.’ So they were not asking me to compromise. They were asking me to surrender the principle and the policy. . . If you could disrupt the phase-out, if you could make the policy point that the tax cut is expendable, that maybe you do it and maybe you don’t do it, do a little this year, maybe a little less next year, bouncing up and down like a ball, then you’re communicating to the public at that point that this is not a commitment. This is not real, this is not good policy, and that it’s constantly negotiable. At that point in the future, anyone could have used any excuse to shave a point here, shave 10 points there, put it off to another year. This, by the way, is the essence of the (Democratic gubernatorial candidate) Mark Warner approach, which is, we’ll do it if we feel like it. And I’m just not going to do that.

But part of the deal was that there were triggers. It wasn’t ‘no car tax at all costs.’ There had to be the revenues.
Sure. Had to meet the triggers.

I guess some people are saying you had to use some fuzzy math to make the numbers.
That’s not true at all. You can say it and, in the absence of sophisticated dialogue on this in public, somebody will believe that. But here’s the deal: The triggers were put in there, that was understood. But there should never have been triggers. It probably was bad policy, but the tax-and-spend people insisted on it.

Now the President had a tax cut proposal and he didn’t get it all, so he compromised.
He didn’t say $1.6 trillion, take it or leave it, that’s what we’re promising you, that’s our contract with you. He didn’t do that. He had more wiggle room than I did.

Have you talked to the president about your situation?
Well, we haven’t had a detailed discussion. He’s very aware of it. Everybody’s aware of it. The former president (Clinton) told me in the White House last year, he said he knew that when we made the commitment to do the tax cut in Virginia that the Democratic candidate (then-Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer) was toast. The former president and I had some lengthy discussions about it. But President Bush and I have not. But he understands very well what we have done. That’s part of the reason, probably, why I’m chair of the RNC (Republican National Committee), because I keep my word and I’m a conservative that pushes conservative principles.

Talk a little about the duties of being chairman of the RNC. How much has it taken away from your time and your duties here at the statehouse?
I’m governor 24 hours a day, whether I’m in the District or wherever I am. So the issue isn’t really to quantify the number of hours or days or any of that. In either instance, it’s getting the job done. Clearly, when the president and I discussed this, we both contemplated that this was going to need to be made consistent with the governorship, and I think that we have. So I am physically doing both jobs, but at the same time, I am really effectuating the policies during the use of personnel. Good people there, good people here.

It’s a paid position?
It was a paid position. I’m not being paid. It would be against the law for the governor of Virginia to accept additional compensation. It usually pays about $150,000 a year, but the president and I always understood if I was going to remain governor and RNC chairman that I wasn’t going to be compensated. Actually I don’t think the president ever thought of that. He just understood it was going to be a dual position. I knew that you couldn’t be compensated additionally.

But after you leave office, and you’re still the chairman, you could be.
The RNC changed the rules so it is not required to be a full-time position. It remains to be seen what we do next year.

As you look back, has this car-tax fight inhibited you from doing things you wanted to do? Are there some disappointments?… Did you do all you wanted…for the tobacco farmers, for traffic congestion in Northern Virginia?
I could flip the question around and tell you why we’re fairly comfortable we’re sitting in this administration on those variety of issues. The one place where I would like to have more time to do is mental health. That is a place where I made a fairly strong clarion call (in his 2001 state of the commonwealth address). Changing old ways of doing things is extremely hard. Once people are locked in to doing things in a particular way, to radically change people’s perception of the world and their attitude toward doing things is very difficult. One of the reasons we have a little difficulty right now, have had a debate over the issue of the tax cut, was that there are people who are very old thinkers that can’t change. When I tell them to think new, I am really encouraging them to open their minds up to new possibilities and with mental health they have not done that. They have not been willing yet to recognize the long term benefits for our patients and our system with new approaches. They are still playing the old pork-barrel politics, saying ‘You are not going to close my hospital.’…That is a sad thing. That means we’re wasting money in places where we instead could be using it on patients.

They’re insisting on a centralized, institutionalized approach, which is really about 1900 thinking, instead of thinking about the more progressive thinking of community-based types of service that could be done with almost the same money and would be so much better. But they’re not willing to think about that because they get a few constituents who say, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen to my job?’ and we say, plaintively, we’re going to place people in new jobs, find opportunities…That scares them. ‘The status quo is what I’ve got to have here.’ And so they don’t move and, in fact, get rather angry that you even ask them.

You’re not very conservative when it comes to (health and other social issues).
" . . . I believe conservatism is progressive. I don’t want you to equate a political philosophy of conservatism with that way of looking at the world. The president and I believe that conservatism is a dynamic and progressive quality that is better for people, and we are applying our political philosophy in this way and are very pro-active, forward moving. We believe liberalism is backwards, is retrogressive. It was fine for 1930; it’s not fine for 2001. It’s an old way of looking at things in the last century that has collapsed repeatedly when it is carried to its logical conclusions. Conservatism, on the other hand, still has the hope and promise of delivering a high quality of life to people and more freedom and liberty and empowerment. The president and I always agree on these kinds of things, which is another reason probably why I’m the chairman of the RNC.

How did you get to know him?
When I asked to him to come campaign for me when I ran for governor. He did an event in Richmond, and I became acquainted with him. I met him a few times in passing at National Governors’ Association meetings and at the Republican Governors’ Association . . . And then I made a decision to fully engage in his campaign when he began to run. I showed up very early for some events. I surprised him one time at an event in Washington, D. C. and I was the only governor there. That probably was the beginning of some kind of relationship. And then I campaigned faithfully for him, and I think the (Virginia) primary made a difference materially in his campaign and we just kind of continued to grow. But I would not overstate the relationship. It’s not like he and I are chum buddies and spend every weekend at Camp David, or something like that. But there is a mutual respect in the business that we’re in of public policy.

You come from very different backgrounds.
I think so. Yes. But somehow we arrived at something of a similar type thought process in politics.

"Well, there is a real problem here with a one-term governorship. Virginia is the only state that does this and there is a serious problem with it."

What are you going to do in the future? Run for the Senate if John Warner doesn’t run in 2002, although he says he is going to?
You asked me earlier if I had any regrets. Well, there is a real problem here with a one-term governorship. Virginia is the only state that does this and there is a serious problem with it. And that problem is the inability to develop long-term relationships and to sustain policies that other states are able to do. You can sustain policies, as we have done between Governor Allen and myself, but that was just lucky, the state was just lucky in that regard…I am able, as governor, to develop a lot of relationships on behalf of the state, on European trips and things like that. But then they get uprooted at the end of four years. And legislators are very honest about it, they don’t care. They want the governor to be gone because the institutional strength of the legislature is the non-term limited ability to be there year and year after year on its antiquated seniority system which allows them to develop their processes in a certain way, and they like a governor starting over again every four years with a new learning curve…. The lesson here is, if you’re going to write a constitution, you’ve got to write it correct the first time because you probably can’t alter something like that. But it’s really bad for the state.

Do you see yourself working to change the constitution?
I have actually tried. I have offered it up in some speeches and talked to people behind the scenes about it, and even my own best friends in the legislature don’t want to give up that legislative power. So I don’t think there’s any chance, to tell the truth, until the public itself decides it’s something that’s important to them and I don’t think they’re that focused on it.

Talk a little bit about your future. Where do you see yourself going? Would you like to be in the Senate, in the presidential cabinet, or go fishing?
I’m only 51, so I think I’ve got a lot of career ahead of me. I’ve got a lot of opportunities, a lot of things I can do. I like public service; I’ve been in it now for 14 years. I always hoped to be in elective office. I’ve served in three different capacities (commonwealth attorney of Henrico County, attorney general and governor) and I might like to serve again at some point, in some capacity. But I don’t have a firm path laid out. I have come to understand how much fun law and business can be, and that could be enjoyable….

You are planning to stay on as RNC chairman next year?
I expect to stay on as RNC chairman.

But you will still live here?
That is not clear. Roxane and I are still talking about whether the best place is Richmond or Northern Virginia or some other location. We’re just beginning that process now, because I’m still focused on being governor.

What do you see you see as your major accomplishments as governor? Where does the car-tax cut fit in?
It reawakens people to the notion that actually their own money can be used to take care of their own kids as opposed to an attitude of the 20th Century that the government is going to take care of everybody. Don’t worry about it. You don’t need initiative, you don’t need to go in there and drive, because it’s going to be okay. You’ve got to get away from that. You’ve got to do something fresh in the 21st Century and empower people and give them self-confidence and belief in themselves. You do that with a tax cut.

You also do that with technology. Virginia is a leading technology state. At one time it probably was not even thought about. But today people think about the Silicon Valley and the Digital Dominion simultaneously. And it’s the other areas that are beginning to be less thought about. That’s building on a strength that was already here. It gives you another dynamic that Virginia is not used to seeing. Our people now travel across the world building this industry and they are recognized.