E-mail a friendChristine Todd Whitman
airdate September 3, 2008
Christine Todd Whitman was elected New Jersey's first female governor in '93. She appointed the state's first African American Supreme Court Justice and its first female attorney general. As a result of her strong environmental record, she was tapped to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Now president of an energy and environmental issues consulting firm, Whitman remains active in GOP politics, including co-chairing the Republican Leadership Council, which supports fiscally conservative candidates.
Former New Jersey governor addresses why President Bush spoke via satellite and not during network primetime and what that might mean. (1:51)
Full interview. (7:16)
Christine Todd Whitman
Tavis: Finally tonight, I just spoke a short while ago with another former governor and working mom, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey. Governor, nice to have you on the program.
Christine Todd Whitman: A pleasure. Good to see you again.
Tavis: What do you make so far of this convention that got off to a strange start because of that hurricane?
Whitman: It got off to a strange start, but actually I thought it was a really good start for John McCain because it enabled him to show the kind of leader that he would be, understanding there's a time for partisan politics and there's a time for policy and you should set one aside and deal with the policy, which he did, and everybody felt that that was the right thing to do. So in a way, it was good. And then it compressed things and shortened some of those speeches that might have gone on a whole lot longer.
Tavis: Yeah (laughter). To your point about McCain showing what kind of leader he would be or what kind of leader he is, Hurricane Gustav gave him an opportunity to distinguish himself from George Bush three years ago on Katrina. The way he handled it with regard to this convention allowed him to distinguish himself. His pick of a running mate, a woman, is distinguishing himself. Give me your sense of how he is going about distinguishing himself from President Bush.
Whitman: Well, he's done that all his career. He has been very clear. I mean, he was against the torture. He is somebody who has shown time and again that he believes that climate change is a real issue; we need to do something about it. You can go down the list of things where he has diverged from the administration. Now he supported it on the war, but he was for the surge before the administration was. He called for that. So he can show where he has been an independent thinker while there clearly are times where he has supported the president.
Tavis: What do you make of the parsing of the politics about the tightrope that he has been on with regard to Mr. Bush and this convention, specifically Mr. Bush appearing, of course, by satellite and not in person, not in network prime time? What do you make of the parsing of the politics about that?
Whitman: Well, I mean, George Bush is very unpopular nationwide. He doesn't have high popularity ratings. The only thing that's worse is Congress (laughter) and Congress has a lower approval rating than he does, so it's a tightrope walk on all sides here. But, you know, George Bush is our president. George Bush is the leader of the Republican Party until John McCain actually receives the nomination.
Well, actually until he goes out of office, he is the leader of the party and not everything he's done is bad. He's been a good leader for the country in many ways, but clearly it's one of those things where John McCain wants to make sure that people understand that he has been, throughout his career and continues to be, his own person and he is not going to be in lockstep with what this past administration has done.
Tavis: It's one thing to have a week where you get all the attention, where you get a chance to make that case, to make those distinctions between you and the incumbent president. I guess the question is, beyond this convention when the Democrats go back on the offensive, when Obama and Biden start coming at you again with this Bush agenda, can he run successfully away from that between now and November?
Whitman: Well, I don't think it's so much a question of running away from it. It's going to be running toward his agenda and it's going to be talking about what he has done and the facts behind his record and where it has diverged.
But I think it would be a mistake for him to allow himself to get caught into just answering the Democrat charges of "You are George Bush again" and rather to say to the American people, "Here's where I want to go. It's about leadership, it's about the future, it's about experience and I've got it and this is what I want to show the country and what I want to do for the country."
Tavis: We discussed on this show last night. I had a conversation about the fact - this is my assessment and maybe yours; we'll see in just a second here - the conversation about the baby and Ms. Palin's family, her daughter being pregnant. That conversation has legs for a couple of days; it's gonna go away at some point.
The larger question which isn't, in my judgment, going to go away is whether or not at forty-four, given the relative experience that she's had, whether or not she's ready at forty-four, should something happen to the oldest person we'd ever elect as president, John McCain, is she ready to step in? That conversation ain't going nowhere no time soon.
Whitman: No, no, it's not, and that's a legitimate question for people to be asking. But I will tell you, as I've said to you earlier, she's the only one running for this high national office who's balanced a budget. She's been a governor and governors can't vote absent. They can't abstain on votes. You have to produce and you have to produce for people on both sides of the aisle. She's done that. She's very popular in the State of Alaska.
She has taken on her own party. She did take on basically the biggest funder of the Alaska state government, which is the oil industry. So she's shown that she has an independent streak too, and that's obviously what John McCain was looking for, as well as, quite frankly, her position on social issues which are closer to him in many ways because he is a very pro life person, always has been and she clearly is.
That has engendered - she's really touched a chord. I mean, I've never seen anything like the kinds of things that have happened over the internet. They've been raising money in small and mid-size contributions, almost $10,000 since she was announced. So obviously, from a purely political looking at who they feel they need for the election, she is touching a chord.
Tavis: Speaking of touching chords, what does this selection do specifically for the conservative base, the religious right base, if you will, of your party?
Whitman: Well, that's very excited. That's very excited, without question. And then there are a lot of people who want to hear from her, want to hear more, and are, you know, not sure about her because they don't know about her, but like the fact that there's a woman on the ticket, that there's a young woman on the ticket, that there is, you know, somebody with that executive experience that she's had. Even though you might say, "Well, it's not that long," but, hey, she has had executive experience. Again, the others can't point to that kind of thing.
Tavis: Tell me how you think this race is going - I'm not concerned about how it's gonna end. We don't have a crystal ball here.
Whitman: Who knows?
Tavis: Exactly. What's your sense of how this campaign is going to unfold? That is to say, is it gonna be nasty? Is it gonna be dirty? Is it gonna be ugly? Is it gonna be racist? Is it gonna be sexist? How ugly is this gonna get?
Whitman: Boy, I sure hope it isn't gonna be any of those things. I don't think, looking at the primary candidates, that you're going to see that you have candidates in either Senator Obama or Senator McCain who want to engage in that kind of thing and that they're gonna continue to talk about the issues.
There are gonna be people around them who will probably go to some of those things and I would hope the American people will stand up and say, "I don't want to hear it. I don't care. This means nothing to me. Stop it. Get over it and let's talk about what does the future hold? Where are we gonna go in this country?"
This is one of the few times in our history where the American people overall think that the country's going in the wrong direction by a big plurality, that people don't think their children are gonna have a better future than they have had. That's wrong, that's bad and that's why John McCain needs to continue to say what he wants to do progressively, how he wants to change things for the future. But it's not change; it's accountability, it's making things work, it's making things happen.
Tavis: I'm always glad to have you on the program.
Whitman: Great. It's a pleasure.
Tavis: I thought about you the other day. I miss our mutual friend, Tim Russert. Having these conventions for two weeks without having Tim around has been -
Whitman: - I know. It's a different thing.
Tavis: - like a hole in your heart not having Tim here. But I thought about you because, as you recall - I don't know why I'm confessing this - but I did "Celebrity Jeopardy" one time, "Celebrity Jeopardy" one time. Christy Todd Whitman, Tim Russert and me. All I'm gonna say is, I didn't lose.
I did not come in last place. Russert did (laughter), but he ain't here to defend himself, sadly. Russert did. The winner, Christy Todd Whitman, so I always bow down to her when I see her for spanking my behind on "Jeopardy." Good to see you.
Whitman: Good to see you again.
Tavis: Have a good rest of the convention.
Whitman: You too.
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