Hi I’m Tom Perriello and I’m running for governor on the democratic ticket.
Since you've graduated from Yale law school has been on the national and international
fronts, you've been in Africa working on global issues, and actually other places around the
globe too, and you worked in New York leading national organizations devoted to progressive
religious issues, what has you now interested in coming to Richmond and focusing on state
issues as governor?
Well I spent a lot of that time most of that time in Virginia including with some of the
foreign policy work and really you end up with the same thing which is people are trying
to figure out today two major questions.
One how are we going to create meaningful well-paying jobs in an era of globalization,
consolidation and automation.
The second thing that I see very similarly whether I'm overseas or at home in Virginia
is that we continue to have challenges of racial tension and need progress towards racial
reconciliation.
You've seen in Virginia and I'm very proud of this.
We've become a much more diverse state and we've become a much more progressive state
and we were the only former Confederate state to reject Donald Trump in this election.
At the same time we do have deep deep racial inequalities and injustices from the past
particularly with the African-American community in Virginia where the median African-American
family has a net wealth of one tenth of that and the median white family.
We continue to have a very regressive and repressive criminal justice system despite
progress made around the margins.
So really wherever I go it's the same thing.
People want opportunity.
They want dignity.
They want a system that treats them fairly.
This seems like an exciting moment to put the worst of our past behind us as we've seen
from that broad rejection of Trump and the politics of hate and division and also really
get a lot more honest about how challenging the future is going to be as this issue of
jobless growth continues to drive inequality.
So you were ousted in the Tea Party wave of 2010 and the years following that Democrats
have seen historic losses, there's a lot of soul searching going on among Democrats.
What direction do you think the Democratic party should be going now?
Well one of the most important things for Democrats is to take state and local elections
seriously.
What we've seen over the last 10 years or so is that we've been quite effective in winning
national and federalized races but we've had a lot more trouble with state and local elections.
Some of that is that we've seen a consolidation in the media and so things have become more
nationalized in that space.
It's been the trap law fights at the state level and ultrasound fights at the state level
where you've really seen the most pernicious approaches from the right on voting rights
and voter suppression really States have been the front line on the issue of whether we'll
do more community policing or more militarization of our policing.
We've seen States be both leaders in a positive and negative direction.
Virginia's had some real success on the community policing front.
On issues of education and student debt.
Really the investments in our schools and in our public universities again states are
the front line on so many of these efforts.
So it's not a hard case to make substantively to convince progressives who are upset about
President Trump to also care about a state election.
But it's not where we've put our resources and our energy before.
So is the problem that Democrats haven't been focused enough on the state level or is there
an issue with the message democrats have been campaigning on too?
Well I think it goes deeper than message.
I actually think we need a bolder agenda that speaks more seriously to how much our economy
has shifted.
I think Democrats have often been the adults in the room who've kept the economy together
when the Republicans keep destroying it whether it was Clinton cleaning up the mess and creating
growth or Obama President Obama cleaning up the mess left by President Bush or Mark Warner
cleaning up the mess in Virginia left by Republican governors.
But we've been so busy being the adults in the room that sometimes we haven't had the
energy to focus on the storm that's gathering outside the room.
And I think those are these deeper shifts from automation in the economy consolidation
we've essentially seen sector by sector remonopolization in the economy going back to some of the decisions
President Reagan made to change antitrust jurisprudence.
And when you see that in a place like Virginia what you're seeing is geographic consolidation
where almost all of the growth has been in a few zip codes.
What do you mean when you say Democrats need a bolder agenda?
Well, as I said I think we have to understand just how much we have been seeing the middle
class and working class get pulled down the ladder instead of pushed up the ladder.
And when we make career and skills training and higher education affordable and debt free
we actually have more people moving into those spaces.
But it's going to have to be a more dynamic approach.
You would think that for many of the cybersecurity and coding jobs of the future people would
say you need at least a college degree.
Well the reality is many of those employers today are saying they would rather have someone
go get an 18 month highly specialized training program that brings them in day one adding
a lot more value with a lot less debt than students who basically spend three years screwing
around in college and then decide their senior year that they need a skill.
We have utilities namely Dominion Power that write enormous campaign checks to both political
parties and then choke off the very decentralized energy production that could transform our
farmers our small business owners.
We're basically dead last.
Now on clean energy and energy efficiency despite being a high tech high innovation
state.
We've already been losing the solar industry to North Carolina.
Now we may lose the wind energy to Maryland and that has a lot to do with lazy politics
of taking big checks and standing in the way of innovation.
And the interesting thing about being bolder on this, the fact that I have opposed the
two pipelines supported investments and weatherization construction jobs wind and solar.
People in the media want to pitch that as being a left wing idea but it's incredibly
popular with the conservatives I mean particular the libertarians who think the monopolies
and the utilities have too much power that they're using eminent domain essentially for
private profit profit or gain in that by opening up these communities including in coal country
to the next generation of jobs.
They're pretty excited about this idea.
So when we go bolder it's not the same the media always wants to put it as more left.
It's not it's just bolder It's just creating a pathway that people believe might actually
have an impact on their lives.
And on the environment Your critics say it's fine for you to be bold and oppose the natural
gas pipelines but there's very little that a governor can do if they meet the requirements
for permitting agencies, what can you as governor do for the planned natural gas pipelines?
Well when we looked at the pipeline issue I asked my team and lawyers and researchers
two questions one do I have any authority to do anything about it.
And two do we have a better idea.
And I thought it was important to meet both of those standards.
On the first that came back very clear from the lawyers that there is the ability to call
for an independent review under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.
Other governors have done that and had not been done in this case in Virginia so it seems
like there is a clear legal authority.
I cannot determine the outcome of that study but I can make sure that Virginians are protected
by having that independent review done and I believe that that should happen in the case
of the two pipelines.
You've said that Democrats shouldn't run on a status quo message that everything is fine
with the economy, what is wrong with the status quo when virginia is at a 4 percent unemployment
rate?
Is that a rebuke to TERRY MCAULIFFE?l
I think Governor McAuliffe has done a great job managing the economy.
I think he's done a great job on issues like voter restoration of rights and fighting for
the Medicaid expansion.
It's been a very impressive effort.
As I said before I think we have these deeper tectonic shifts in the economy that are beyond
really any one party.
We have seen some growth in Virginia but the median family income basically hasn't budged
for 15 years.
So the average family is not really getting ahead.
We see unemployment very low in Northern Virginia but many people are having to work two or
three jobs.
So unemployment as a figure often doesn't tell us a lot.
How many people are having to work two or three jobs.
How many people are working but are making less than they did 10 years ago.
How many people have dropped out of the economy altogether.
So we need to look at it as a broader set of quality of life indices and not just at
GDP and unemployment which I think masks some of these changes that are happening in the
economy.
Governor McAuliffe has made jobs and the economy front and center with his administration.
What would you do differently?
Well first of all there's a lot of I think we'd want to continue I'd love to have his
energy that he brings to trying to bring companies into the state trying to build up and around
the world.
I do think that putting a particular emphasis on homegrown business how do we help that
small business to add one or two employees is really important there's often a much greater
return to the taxpayer of jobs per dollar spent on incentivizing small business.
I think where we can help with local production of food beverage and energy there are enormous
potential across the state and that's about making sure we're giving the little guy a
chance to grow out.
And I think that's going to be a huge focus for us.
So if the legislature does remain in control of Republicans and you do win the Governorship,
how do you work with that legislature?
Well you know first of all I think there's a really good chance for Democrats to run
the tables in the House of Delegates this year.
I've never seen a situation like this where all of the intensity is on one side for the
moment where you see diverse dynamic candidates coming in and thinking about running or running
for office for the first time.
We're just having these massive crowds who show up at our events with a couple of hundred
people pouring out of the doors wanting to have a two hour conversation about policy
ideas and about issues of you know automation and affordability.
So it's a really exciting time to do that.
Second I plan to do well across the state.
We're spending time in the reddest parts of the state.
But I think by doing well and some of the Redder parts of the state.
That brings me into a legislative negotiation a situation where I'm actually very connected
to the kinds of issues and priorities of those spaces as well.
So you know at the end of the day I'm probably the first governor in a while who's spent
time as an actual peace negotiator and if I'm able to work overseas in conflict zones
and bring long fighting ethnic groups to the same table I should be able to figure out
a way to bring Republicans and Democrats together to have a conversation about how to help our
communities go forward.
Why do you think you do well in the redder parts of the state?
What do you have to offer to Trump voters?
I think the reason I've done so well and red parts of the state despite being seen as to
the left of the Democratic Party is that most Virginians I talked to don't think about things
in terms of left and right.
They think about whether you're helping them move up or down.
And I think what they're looking for is a fighter.
I think there is a real sense that the system has not been working for everyday folks and
they're right that the both political parties have been too responsive to the richest and
most powerful and not standing up for working middle class folks and I think the reason
I was able to breakthrough in Virginia's fifth district was because they could see they saw
willingness, a fearlessness to stand up to the special interest groups from Wall Street
from fossil fuel industry from Big Pharma which has a lot to answer for in the opioid
crisis.
Is Virginia ready for an unabashed progressive governor?
This is a state that almost elected Ken Cuccenelli four years ago?
I think that Virginians are just ready for leadership.
I think they're ready for someone who is speaking to the problems that they're experiencing
every day.
You know when I'm up in Northern Virginia, D.C. and I bring up issues like consolidation
and automation people say you know you sound like a think tank.
Those people down there are never going to get that.
I was like it's coming from them it's not coming from me.
People are smart they're decent.
They understand what's going on in their lives and they bring it up because this is being
experienced every day whether you're on an automation line whether you're in a construction
crew and anywhere else.
And I think one of the problems is both parties up here tend to not give people enough credit.
And I think what Virginias are more than ready for someone who actually treats voters like
adults who are willing to admit that these issues are complex and that they're going
to be tradeoffs admits that the middle class hasn't been doing very well in Virginia even
with the macroeconomic numbers looking very good.
So why should those energized voters pick you over Ralph Northam?
You know they should make their own choice but they think they're choosing to come with
us because they can see that we're going for a bolder set of ideas.
We've really set the policy agenda.
And the last couple of months despite him having a three year head start we really set
the agenda on debt free community college.
He has now followed.
We set the agenda on a living wage he's followed.
We set the agenda on criminal justice reform.
He's coming around on that.
We've set the agenda on the pipeline.
We hope he comes around on that.
And I think ultimately people want a leader they want the person that's actually out there
setting the policy ideas for the state.
Listening to people we've been getting to every single corner of the state and having
huge crowds.
And I think ultimately people care about that.
They also want someone who knows how to get things done.
And I think executive experience is extremely important in a governor.
President Obama asked me to come in and oversee the quadrennial review that involved 80000
federal employees many in Northern Virginia and a $50 billion budget.
I've had to run and build organizations including co-founding the largest online advocacy group
in the world.
These are important experiences to be able to look at a problem see solutions other hadn't
seen partly just by listening to people who don't usually get listened to and put those
things into into action.
So I think whether it was the track record on clean energy and education funding in the
fifth district or on racial reconciliation and fighting for voting rights nationally
and in Virginia.
I think people know what I stand for.
They know this is what I've been doing for 20 years.
And that I'm willing to stand up to power to fight for them.
What was your dream job as a kid besides governor?
Oh no it wasn't governor.
I grew up admiring the movement leaders.
I knew I wasn't going to be king but you know those are the kinds of people that I dreamed
of at least knowing and working for you know the the sort of Byard Rustin, Martin Luther
King types, A. Philip Randolph you know the civil rights movement was still the oral history
in Charlottesville where people had you know lost their lives in the struggle.
What's your guilty pleasure to unwind after a long day on the governor's trail?
Texas Hold'em but I don't really have a lot of time for that these days so you know we
been able to play some cards with friends is always a nice break.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Sure.
We just had the 20th anniversary of Buffy's first airing that is a subject of much debate
on our campaign generationally of whether it's crossed over which it doesn't seem like
it's fully done to the millennial set but...
No I first saw that show actually when I was in India doing rights work for the summer
and we were working these you know 90 plus hour weeks and it was mostly Australian and
Indian human rights advocates and their one break every week was to watch Buffy the Vampire
Slayer and I said you have got to be kidding me.
And they said you got to try it.
And within two weeks I was totally hooked and got it is probably the most brilliant
show about social justice that's ever been put on on television.