From:   Kaine, Tim Sent time:   Wednesday, 03 September 2008 06:29:40 To:   Kaine, Tim Attachments:   Kaine Administration Strategy.doc       Fyi—copy for Wayne.   TK Kaine Administration Strategy.doc Kaine Administration Strategy 9/08 until 1/10 I have 16 months left in my term. I have a lot I want to get done—for the people of the Commonwealth, for the good people who are working so hard on the team and for me. We have a good story to tell so far, but we need to finish strong. This memo is for the consideration of the Leadership Team and the leadership of my PAC. It offers some basic thoughts about how we need to direct our energies in the near term so we can finish with the record that we all want to have. I will divide my thoughts into 5 categories: A) B) C) D) E) Executive Legislative Political Public Interface Attitude A)Executive Our executive performance has been very strong. The Leadership Team, our Cabinet Secretaries and our agency heads are all proven performers. This is a great part of the Virginia brand and the Kaine brand. We need to keep it up. Good governance in the next 16 months means a few key things. Keep the focus on performance and solidify our performance management system. We need to keep Virginia Performs running at a high level, build up the productivity improvement side of our management system and make sure that we are responsive to Virginia citizens on basic items of service delivery. We need to make sure that we can handle emergencies—natural and man-made—with speed and professionalism. We have to make sure that the November 2008 election comes off as smoothly as possible—any glitch in how we do that day will be very damaging. We need to get through our difficult budget decisions in a smart way, with performance and prioritization our key guides. People will support us making tough choices if they trust we are going about it the right way. It is personally important to me that we continue to push expansion of SWAM initiatives. The next Governor may not care about inclusion as much as I do, so we want to leave this part of state government as strong as possible. Finally, we need to fully use all levers of executive power to accomplish our goals. That means looking at ongoing initiatives (e.g., Pre-K, Virginia Performs, 400k acres, Kaine Administration Strategy.doc workforce reorganization) and doing what we can to “institutionalize” them within the state government structure. It also means being creative about executive orders and other directives that I can put in place as the executive without legislative approval. The executive function is the most important thing we do. It does not attract as much attention as the legislative or political. But, we need to keep this sphere of activity in the forefront. B)Legislative Of our three main areas—executive, legislative and political—our greatest headaches have been in the legislative area. The composition of the House, and the general attitude of the Republican legislators, has made it tough for us. We have gotten a lot done, but the public doesn’t really understand that. We might have some luck in November 2009, but the faces will be the same until then. So, we have to find the right strategy for greater success in some key areas. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list, but it touches on my key priorities. This year will bring a series of initiatives on the environment and energy. We need to start lining up support. And, we also have to push forward on our SGA Climate/Energy initiative. We have done some good stuff on the environment, but gotten very little credit. Let’s do it up big this session. In the education area, other than deepening the roots of pre-k, we are in good shape. There are numerous initiatives in play that are working at the executive level (e.g., personal learning plans, career and technical academies). My remaining issue of focus is college affordability. We need to watch this in our budget deliberations and also look for new opportunities to push forward strong initiatives in this area. Of all the strategies we have here, I am most intrigued by the Community College Transfer Grant program. How far can we push this? In the area of health care, we need to keep pushing safety net expansions. If the pilot on Virginia Shares shows promise, we should work to expand it. The issues of health— building health promotion into Medicaid, state employee health benefits, no-smoking rules, nutrition and exercise in schools, etc.—also have to be front and center. Finally, what is the next step on transportation? No funds except for maintenance and public transit? Some other revenue source? Dramatic land use regulation? We have to talk about how/whether we come back and who will help us to do it. We also have to do all we can to get Rail to Dulles over the last hump (full funding grant agreement) and keep pushing forward on other innovative public/private initiatives. C)Political Kaine Administration Strategy.doc If we can win the state’s electoral votes for Obama, it will be a huge legacy item for us. I cannot overestimate the importance of reaching for this goal. We know that Mark will win and that we will pick up at least 1 more seat in Congress (maybe more). It will be a good election night in November—getting the state in the Obama column will make it an historic night. After this November, we have to throw our efforts into electing a Democratic Governor and winning enough House seats in 2009 to get a Democratic majority. Accomplishing these goals will be a validation of our success—it will say that Virginians valued our accomplishments enough to want to keep the state moving forward. We have to put together the same kind of coordinated effort in 09 that we did in 07. We need to leave the state party in good shape—organizationally and financially. It is likely that the current Chair will step down at some point and we need to be ready to install a new leader who shares our philosophy of success. Finally, working through the PAC, I need to continue to help organizations that have been helpful to me (DGA, DNC, etc.) as well as selected candidates out of state that I have some tie with. We have done a good job of supporting others and we should keep it up. D)Public Interface The last few months have been intense and instructive. My work for the Obama campaign and the recent speculation about my role in an Obama administration have been flattering. And, together with other developments, they have focused significant positive attention on Virginia. The only negative that has caused me any concern has been the repeated theme—“no significant achievements as Governor.” Given how hard we work, how good our people are, and how many things we have gotten done in some tough political and budgetary circumstances, I don’t worry about the truth of the claim. But, I do believe we have to focus more attention in telling the story so that people see what we have accomplished. Telling the story is a function of many things. First, when I am out in the public eye, I do pretty well. So, from a scheduling standpoint, we should be aggressive over the next 16 months in getting me out to all regions of the state as we highlight important initiatives. The good news is that I like being out on the road. Let’s take advantage of that. We need to push with the press a more positive message of accomplishment. Too many in the press corps accept the Republican talking point “what has he gotten done?” without pushing back. We need to give them the ammo to respond easily. We have to do a better job in getting constituency groups with us. We have a great resource in Sarah and need to use her. There are many out there who will help if we include them. Kaine Administration Strategy.doc Finally, we have to beef up our work with Democratic legislators to get them to be our champions and validators. With the exception of Ward and one or two others, we have been disappointed with public legislative support. But, we need to be self-critical and examine what we can do better to get them on board and on message. I had an interesting experience in the midst of the VP buzz. One day, I was in a down mood because of some national press that repeated the “no significant accomplishment” line. It happened to be the day that I threw a fundraiser for Mark and the coordinated campaign. At that event, Mark got up and spoke and drew huge applause with the “best managed state/best state for business/best state for a child to have a successful life” litany. I asked myself, “why is that an accomplishment when Mark talks about it, but not for us?” There are a number of answers to that question. But, the bottom line is this—we have gotten a lot done. We’ve done it not to get credit, but to help people. But, we all need to work harder to tell the story. The members of our team deserve to have their positive accomplishments recognized for what they are. E)Attitude Finally, a word about our attitude. This is particularly important because we are going into a tough time with the budget. First, we should be proud of our professionalism. Our leadership team is as good as it gets in state government. We are all competent and creative. We need to operate at a high standard of professionalism for the remainder of the term—responsive, decisive, calm. Our actions set an example for the rest of the organization. Second, we need to focus on team performance. We aren’t just a group of talented individuals. We have to work together well. The last year has seen big improvements from the first 18 months of the administration. We have to keep that up. Finally, we have to stay positive in a difficult time. Let’s face it, we work with a lot of negative people. Some are in the press, some are in the legislature, some are in our own organization. Many are only happy if they can make others around them unhappy. Let’s confound any doubters with a willed confidence and optimism. It’s the right way to operate, it maximizes the chance of success and it does rub off on people who are watching to see how we handle our challenges.