A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 , 2019
BY TIM CRAIGsalt lake city — The nation’s
governors are frustrated.
Overshadowed by President
Trump and turned off by hyper-
partisanship in Washington, gov-
ernors, who were once the talent
pool of America’s political par-
ties, are finding themselves in-
creasingly sidelined in the na-
tional debate.
The bipartisan angst, playing
out in the presidential contest
and in state capitals across the
country, is driven by a widely
held belief among chief execu-
tives that their accomplishments
are going unnoticed as pundits
and news media seem solely
focused on events in Washing-
ton. As a result, some are choos-
ing to walk away from a national
political stage that they view as
too divisive, while others strate-
gize about how to reinsert them-
selves in the nation’s affairs.
In the states, “the conversa-
tion, the discussion and the dia-
logue is healthy, and [Washing-
ton] has moved away from that,”
said Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R).
“They need to do what governors
do. They need to sit down at the
table, and they need to talk about
issues, and we need to find some
common ground.... This inabili-
ty to do that is not healthy for
this country.”
For the first time in a genera-
tion, political observers say, polls
show no sitting or former gover-
nor is a front-runner for either
political party’s nomination bat-
tle, at least so far. Experts say
national politics is losing the
bipartisan influence and execu-
tive experience that governors
once brought to the table.
“Governors are the most im-
portant people in the country....
They should be at the forefront,”
said Terry McAuliffe, a former
Virginia governor and longtime
Democratic strategist and fund-
raiser. “Nothing happens in
Washington, and all the action is
in the states.”
As Americans were fixated on
former special counsel Robert S.
Mueller III’s testimony before
Congress last month, governors
were huddled in Salt Lake City
for their annual summer meet-
ing to tout their bipartisan work
to expand health care, invest in
highways and build up local
economies, including the na-
tion’s booming $412 billion out-
door recreational industry.
But as they spoke to a sparse
bank of television news cameras,
the governors seemed well aware
that few people outside of the
room would hear their message,
even though one of the speakers,
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, is a
Democratic candidate for presi-
dent.
Bullock, Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee and former Colorado gov-
ernor John Hickenlooper are
running for the Democratic nom-
ination but have largely been
overshadowed in a crowded field
where U.S. senators, a former
vice president and even a mayor
have attracted the most atten-
tion. On the Republican side,
Maryland’s popular governor,
Larry Hogan, had considered
challenging Trump for the GOP
nomination but concluded he
was unlikely to win.
The governors’ relative ab-
sence from the national stage,
though, extends far deeper than
their diminished presidential
ambitions. In recent months,
they have rarely appeared on
Sunday morning talk shows, and
political observers say few are
positioned to be high-profile sur-
rogates for their party’s nominee
in the general election.
The governors’ reduced na-
tional exposure can be partially
traced to the relative inexperi-
ence of the latest class of state
executives. After the 2018 mid-
term elections, 22 governors took
office for the first time, including
seven Democrats who took over
in states previously represented
by Republican governors.
But many say their challenges
have more to do with the nation’s
political culture in the Trump era
than with experience.
“Clearly, Trump has changed
the dynamic profoundly and
sucked all of the oxygen out ofthe middle,” said California Gov.
Gavin Newsom (D). “We are in
the middle, the hyperlocal where
the people are, and it’s difficult
for governors to break through,
even though that is where the
real work is being done.”
Starting in the 1970s, with the
political rise of Presidents Jimmy
Carter and Ronald Reagan, both
of whom had been governors, the
nation’s state leaders defined an
American political system that
valued executive experience. In
1992, Bill Clinton was elected
president after serving five terms
as governor of Arkansas. He was
succeeded by George W. Bush,
who had been governor of Texas.
More recently, during Barack
Obama’s presidency, governors
still formed a major component
of the nationwide political dis-
cussion, with Republicans such
as Rick Perry of Texas, Jeb Bush
of Florida and Chris Christie of
New Jersey dominating the GOP
opposition.
But Larry Sabato, a professor
at the University of Virginia whohas written extensively about
governors for decades, said
Trump’s election demonstrates
that voters may no longer priori-
tize that experience.
“We used to call governors
‘little presidents of states,’ and it
was a perfect preparation to be
president, except on the foreign
affairs side,” Sabato said. “Now, I
don’t think most Democrats can
even name any of the governors
running for president, and the
answer as to why is, we’ve moved
on from governing being a pre-
requisite to being president, and
there is almost an advantage to
not having serious responsibility
and not having a record that can
be attacked.”
In the Democratic primary for
president, Bullock, Inslee and
Hickenlooper have struggled to
gain traction, even as they point
to an array of bipartisan achieve-
ments.
During Tuesday’s debate,
Hickenlooper accused Sen. Ber-
nie Sanders (I-Vt.) of pushing
“radical” plans for health carethat, if enacted, could become
the governors’ responsibility to
administer.
“Us governors and mayors are
the ones, we have to pick up all
the pieces,” Hickenlooper said.
Among Republicans, Sabato
said, some governors are reluc-
tant to insert themselves in the
national political process be-
cause they fear offending Trump,
who has been known to lash out
at his critics.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson
(R) used to be a familiar face on
national news programs when he
was a member of Congress from
1997 to 2001. But as a governor,
Hutchinson has largely shied
from the national spotlight, even
though he has disagreed with
Trump on trade policy with Chi-
na and Mexico.
“When you have a president of
your own party, the president is
the national spokesperson who
takes the lead on issues,” said
Hutchinson, who also served in
the Bush administration from
2001 to 2005. “The governors...express themselves, but we don’t
have the same national profile,
and that is just the nature of how
politics work in America.”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lu-
jan Grisham (D) said residents
expect governors to stay at home
more than in the past. The feder-
al government shutdown in Jan-
uary, as well as Trump’s chaotic
approach to governing, has her
constituents demanding that
state leaders do more to prove
the state is well-managed, she
said.
“There is a renewed commit-
ment to, ‘What are we doing
here? How are we protecting
ourselves?’ ” Lujan Grisham said.
“People really want to see you
doing the work that they believe
makes a difference.”
Calling the unease among gov-
ernors “palpable,” Hogan said
one of his top priorities as the
new chairman of the National
Governors Association will be
elevating the executives’ national
profile.
The NGA, which represents
the 55 governors of states and
territories, recently hired an ex-
ecutive director to help lead the
effort.
“The noise gets the attention,
but most of America is tuning it
all out,” Hogan said. “And that’s
the opportunity that the gover-
nors have: To say, ‘Yeah, maybe
we ought to pay attention to
these guys, who are the 50 or 55
most powerful people in Ameri-
ca.’ ”
Newsom, for example, recent-
ly huddled with several gover-
nors to discuss ways to more
forcefully set a nationwide policy
agenda, even if it means chal-
lenging the Trump administra-
tion.
Last week, four automakers
struck a deal with California to
produce fleets that are more
fuel-efficient than the guidelines
that had been proposed by the
Trump administration. Califor-
nia had the backing of 23 other
states, and Newsom said he
wants to expand that coopera-
tion to other hot-button issues
like immigration and social pol-
icies, in hopes of forcing the
federal government’s hand.
“It’s an exciting space to be in,”
Newsom said, “because it’s not a
Twitter war.”
[email protected]Upstaged by national politics, governors seek platforms
CHRISTOPHER SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
John Hickenlooper, former governor of Colorado, is one of three candidates for the Democratic
presidential nomination with state executive on their résumés, but not one has gained much traction.State leaders look for ways to show how ‘real work’
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