Life of the Party

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack won't say whether he's running for president, but he has plenty of ideas for how Democrats can win back the White House and restore the "American promise."

By Tim Grieve

May 18, 2005 | Iowans like their governor just fine, thanks, but they don't particularly care for the idea that he might run for president. Tom Vilsack was on the shortlist of contenders to be John Kerry's running mate, and he was briefly a candidate for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. But Iowans seem to have a hard time getting their minds around one of their own as a national political leader. An Iowa poll taken earlier this year has 55 percent of the state's population saying it would be a "bad idea" for Vilsack to run for the White House.

Poll numbers like that didn't stop Bill Clinton -- a few months before he announced his candidacy in 1991, a plurality of Arkansas residents said he shouldn't -- and they aren't likely to stop Tom Vilsack, either. Iowa's first Democratic governor in 30 years won't say whether he's running in 2008, but he won't deny it, either. He says he's concentrating on the current legislative term in Des Moines and on helping Democrats win governors races across the country in 2006. But in the next breath, he begins articulating the sort of centrist political approach -- strong on national security, big on values, a lot of talk about the "American promise" -- that is music to the ears of those who believe that the road to the White House runs right up the middle.

Ask Vilsack whether Kerry lost in 2004 because he didn't do enough to distinguish himself from George W. Bush, and whether the Democrats might benefit from a leader more in the Howard Dean mold, and the mild-mannered governor begins to bristle: "That's not where the country is," he says.

Vilsack believes the country can be found in the heartland, but he doesn't mean just geographically. Americans are worried about change, he says, and they need leaders who understand their worries, who can relate to them and reassure them that there's still reason to believe in the idea that each generation of Americans will have it better than the one before.

Vilsack recently spoke with Salon by telephone from his office in Des Moines.

Are you running for president in 2008?

My focus -- and I'm not being evasive or smart about this -- is on the legislative session that's under way here and the 2006 election cycle. There are 36 governors races that will be decided in the next two years, and that is also a wonderful opportunity for the Democratic Party to address some serious gaps that they have with ordinary folks. I'm intent on trying to help the party reconnect with those folks.

What are those gaps?

First of all, there's the "security" gap. Republicans, for the last 40 or 50 years, have done a wonderful job of convincing people that they will keep America safer than Democrats. They started this with communism in the '50s and '60s, they extended it to the war on crime in the '70s and '80s, and now [they're doing it] with the war on terror. Democrats have got to convince folks that we can keep them safe.

I think governors have a role to play in delivering that message. We are on the front line of homeland security efforts: It's our local police, our public safety departments, our emergency-management folks that will have to deal with situations. We can reassure people that we are absolutely focused on that mission -- figuring out a way to not only make sure that we're secure against an attack but also [prepare for] what is more likely to happen, whether it's a flu epidemic or a natural disaster.

But if Kerry, who served in Vietnam and who now serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, can't make that case, how can a Democratic governor make it?

I think we can make that case. In my particular case, I can suggest that it was this Democratic governor and other Democratic governors that suggested to this administration that it focus on agri-terrorism. For whatever reason, there didn't seem to be much of a focus on agri-terrorism until Midwestern governors, led by me, suggested that we put resources behind a regional effort to detect, prevent and respond to a potential agri-terrorism threat.

This isn't just about serving in a war. It's about having policies, it's about having ideas, it's about being able to say without reservation that you can and will keep people safe. Governors do this every day, as we battle methamphetamines, for example. The chances of people in my state being attacked by al-Qaida versus being affected by methamphetamines -- I can tell you the chances are much greater that they're going to be affected by methamphetamines.

Is part of it, then, switching the focus away from the narrower approach of preparing for the next time someone flies an airplane into a building?

I think it is. It's essentially saying: We need to be vigilant, and we need to be prepared for those circumstances, but we ought not to focus homeland security solely on those items. We need to look for ways to get a better bang for our buck. So, for example, if you're doing public funding for bioterrorism, maybe you create a stronger system that can respond to a flu epidemic, which can in some cases be just as deadly and just as dangerous to the population.

So is it a matter of convincing people that the other stuff isn't quite as important as they thought it was in 2004?

No. It's a matter of suggesting that Democrats understand that the first priority of any government is to protect its people. And protecting [them] involves a multitude of responsibilities, from homeland security to food safety to continuing the war on crime and the war on drugs.

Next Page: The perception that Democrats are a party of elites

• View blog reactions