ANALYSIS

GOP Up-And-Comers Work The Room

by Brian Friel

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008


John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't the only Republicans trying to use the national convention to move up the ladder. Scores of down-ballot candidates are making the rounds in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and a few seem likely to be headliners four years from now.

Mike Cox, the attorney general of Michigan, is in Minneapolis-St. Paul, not yet officially running for higher office but also not discouraging talk that he will take on unpopular Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2010. Granholm herself had the attorney general's job before Cox. He has been the state's top prosecutor since 2003. Cox recalled for Convention Daily the old joke: "AG stands for Aspiring Governor."

Like a lot of outside-the-Beltway GOPers this week, Cox is embracing the McCain-Palin anti-Washington message. He said, "In Washington the last few years, we lost our way. It's like a business that goes outside its core competencies. We started wandering off and became this bloated commissariat. That's how I look at it from the provinces in Michigan."

After the 2006 election gave Democrats victories up and down the ballot, the GOP is now outnumbered in nearly every state-level office nationwide. There are 22 Republican and 28 Democratic governors; 22 Republican and 22 Democratic lieutenant governors; 21 Republican and 26 Democratic secretaries of state; and 19 Republican and 31 Democratic attorneys general.

The Republican State Leadership Committee, an Alexandria, Va.-based group that has raised $20 million in each of the last two election cycles to support state-level candidates, is aiming to even the score this year and especially in 2010, the next time a large slate of attorney general, secretary of state, lieutenant governor, and governor races will be on the ballot. "We really believe we're building the farm team for the future," said Carrie Cantrell, the committee's policy-and-communications director.

Many candidates are serving as delegates to the convention. They're also using the event to build name recognition by talking to their own local radio, television, and print publications as McCain campaign surrogates. "Everyone's looking for a local angle," Cantrell said.

One rising star at the convention is Bob McDonnell, the GOP's best hope for replacing Tim Kaine, the one-term-limited Democratic governor of Virginia. While the Democrats have yet to coalesce around a candidate, Republicans have united behind McDonnell, the Old Dominion's attorney general, who was hustling between television interviews in the convention hall in St. Paul on Monday.

He is also networking with leaders he's met at past conventions and serving as a lead surrogate for McCain in a state that has become a battleground this year. "It's a toss-up at this point," McDonnell said.

More certain is this year's Senate race in Idaho. Lt. Gov. Jim Risch is widely expected to win in this heavily Republican state in the contest to replace Sen. Larry Craig, who decided to retire after getting arrested on suspicion of attempting to solicit sex from another man in an airport restroom.

At the convention, Risch is promoting the idea of turning to the states, not Washington, for leadership and ideas. "I don't think anybody's happy with what's going on in Washington," he said. "It would be really nice if everyone who sought federal office had some experience at the state level. It's a different view. It's a better view. Over the years, I've watched as the river flows more and more to Washington, D.C. And that's not a good thing."

He said that he's at the convention to recharge. "It's just a good time to think about and talk about why you're a Republican," he said.

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