The Republican Governor’s Association just wrapped up its annual meeting in Carlsbad in Northern San Diego County. I asked State GOP Vice Chairman and FR friend to give us a report on how things went. Here is his "report from the field" – enjoy!
From Ron Nehring: 
If you join the staff of a Republican governor, one of the first lessons you learn is that you want to be the guy who gets to staff the governor at the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association — it’s always held at a first class resort in a warm climate while the rest of the country is blanketed with cold, rain or snow.
For the last two days I’ve attended the RGA’s meeting here at the La Costa Resort in Carlsbad in San Diego County, both in my role as Senior Consultant for Americans for Tax Reform, and as San Diego Republican Chairman.
It’s great to see all of the Republican governors together in one place — well, most of them anyway. New York’s Pataki and Texas’ Perry were among those missing. As Jeb Bush explained at the news conference yesterday, governors have a better track record at being elected President than Senators because governors are executives – they have to make the difficult decisions and can’t hide behind the legislative process.
Four of the last five presidents were former governors. Lots of governors want to be president. During the meeting Nevada’s Kenny Guinn stepped down and was replaced by Massachusetts’ Mitt Romney as RGA Chairman. The RGA has a normal succession structure, with a single term limit for Chairman and a tradition where the Vice Chairman ascends to the Chairman position. The new Vice Chairman is Sonny Perdue of Georgia – the first Republican to sit in the Governor’s office in that state since the Civil War.
Romney is one to watch. He’s a successful, conservative, pro-life governor in a hopelessly liberal state. He’s taken on big labor and big spending in a state where the Democrats hold about 80% of the seats in the legislature, and every congressional district. He has a solid reputation, both as a governor and as the guy who came in to clean up the debt-ridden and scandal-plagued Salt Lake Olymic Committee in 2001. The RGA chairman is always a person to watch. While Guinn is not seen as having national (or federal) ambitions, past RGA chairmen have included Owens of Colorado (once considered Presidential material), Gilmore of Virginia (became RNC Chairman, likely future Senate candidate), Ridge of Pennsylvania (became first Secretary of Homeland Security), Ashcroft of Missouri (elected to the Senate, then became Bush’s first AG), etc. Barbour of Mississippi was particularly missed. He developed a strong reputation as a highly successful RNC Chairman in the 90’s, and is frequently mentioned as a 2008 presidential contender. He has a very folksy, personable style that helps him connect with people quickly. In the wake of Katrina, Barbour also makes that lame Governor in Louisiana look ridiculous by comparison.
The plenary session was opened by Republican Jerry Sanders — not a governor, the new Republican mayor-elect of San Diego. Deputy Secretary from the US Department of Labor Steven Law participated in a governor’s discussion of pension and workers comp issues. (While some might consider that fun, the real progress at the Department of Labor under Bush has been to tighten up the reporting requirements of major labor unions, forcing more detailed disclosure of how they spend their member dues.) RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman dropped in and gave a speech focusing on immigration reform in the wake of the President’s speech on the same topic earlier on the week. His tone was pro-legal immigration, while also seemingly tougher on illegal immigration than in the past.
Kate O’Bierne of National Review led a political roundtable discussion that featured Mike Murphy, Bill McIntruff and Stuart Stevens. The bottom line from the political discussion seemed to be that Democrats don’t have much of a message beyond trying to make the "culture of corruption" mantra stick, and that Republicans in DC need to take their responsibility as the controlling party in Washington seriously and show progress in moving Republican principles forward. Now for the other reason you want to be the guy from your office sent to cover the RGA meeting: the afternoon consisted of a golf tournament, a skeet and trap shoot sponsored by the NRA, and a boat cruise sponsored by Ameriquest. Meanwhile, Romney and Hawaii’s Lingle instead chose to speak to a luncheon meeting of the influential Fairbanks Republican Women’s club at the Four Seasons Resort next door. Lingle is well liked by the members of the club, who financially supported her campaign for governor. (Sidenote: In response to Lingle’s stunning success in raising money from outside of Hawaii, Democrats in her legislature passed a new law restricting out-of-state donations to Hawaii campaigns. Lingle spoke first, then set off on a five-state fundraising tour around the country to raise money for her re-election bid before the new law kicks in on Jan 1.) Romney followed, giving a first class speech that was both partisan and substantive, and went over extremely well with the all-Republican audience. Romney is widely believed to be setting the stage, developing a network and honing a message for a 2008 White House run.
Governor Schwarzenegger was the featured speaker at the pre-dinner reception where about 400 people piled in to the room to hear the Republican Governor from Kalifornia speak. The Governor seemed more relaxed yet energetic than he did during the final days of the grueling special election campaign. While the Governor’s pick of a prominent Democrat as his new Chief of Staff earlier in the week was causing conservatives and Republicans to worry he was tacking left, there was no sign of it in his speech to the RGA.
Here’s a sample:
And one issue we should focus on together is to work with our Republican colleagues in Washington to preserve something our party has always stood
for: States’ Rights and Local Control.
I became an American because I wanted to enjoy the freedoms of this country.
I became a Republican because I wanted to protect those freedoms.
But for the last half century, states’ rights were constantly weakened by the federal government.
Federalism made a comeback under Ronald Reagan, but incredibly, under Republican control of Congress, states’ rights are beginning to erode once again.
And what’s really ironic is that Washington is dictating to us how we should do our job but at the same time, they’re falling short of doing their job.
They are telling us how to run state education, state healthcare, state elections and even where we can locate a liquefied natural gas plant in California.
But at the same time, they don’t lead on issues where the federal government should be leading like immigration and homeland security, including border security, healthcare, education and incarceration of undocumented immigrants.
So I hope this is something we can work on with our partners in Washington so we can build solutions together.
This is one way we can secure a bright Republican future – one with lower taxes and higher opportunity, less bureaucracy and more ingenuity. And a future in which government is not a roadblock to success but a partner in prosperity.
— End excerpt
As speculation continues over who will run for President in 2008, the RGA meeting provided a good glimpse. Here’s your official unofficial list of who is thinking about it: (* denotes governor. ** denotes former Governor)
George Allen** (VA)
Mitt Romney* (MA)
Mark Sanford* (SC)
Haley Barbour* (MS)
Rick Perry* (TX)
George Pataki* (NY)
John McCain
Sam Brownback
Rudy Guiliani
(Plus, add about every other Republican United States Senator. Each one has thought about it at least once).
Finally, the RGA is the GOOD governor’s association. By contrast, the National Governors Association (NGA) is the taxpayer-funded club of all the governors. Putting aside how the taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund a governor’s club (the RGA is privately funded), even when Republicans hold the majority of governorships, the NGA Chairmanship alternates between an R and a D, while the staff remains constantly liberal, promoting all kinds of big government ideas.