Pine Tree Politics

Interview With Matt Jacobson

By Matthew Gagnon
August 4, 2009

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In part three of Pine Tree Politics’ gubernatorial interview series, we sit down with Republican Matt Jacobson, currently head of Maine & Company. Our conversation covered a wide range of issues from tax reform, to charter schools, to the east-west highway.

For full audio of the interview, simply click play below:

Some highlights from the interview (all comments are mostly verbatim, but are occasionally paraphrased just for ease of reading):

On why he is the best candidate in the race:

“I believe this election is about jobs and opportunity…”

“I have demonstrated in every place I have ever been professionally, that I have been able to grow jobs and grow opportunity, and I think that is the issue in this campaign, and I am the only candidate that has done that – and done it in Maine.”

On what drew him to run for Governor:

“For me, I think I have relevent experience for these times – and I feel so strongly that the biggest part of our problem is a leadership issue.  We have had this void of leadership…”

“I owe it not only to myself and to my kids, but really to other folks out there who believe like I do that we have to create opportunity, and we need somebody as Governor who has done that before.”

On the criticism of him not being a native Mainer:

“Its interesting, there are some people who make that charge – and I find it amusing, in that I never thought that military service was disqualifying… when I got an opportunity to make a choice, my wife and I picked Maine to raise our family and to live.  My wife went to Bowdoin and that’s the big connection.”

“And I guess when I had that first job running the St. Lawrence & Atlantic, where a dedicated group of railroaders here in Auburn really dramatically changed a failing railroad and turned it into the best short rail railroad in North America… and I learned a lot about the Maine work ethic, and what can happen when dedicated hard working Maine people are lead well to stated goals – we can accomplish anything.”

On how to combat Maine’s “Brain Drain”:

“Right, well that’s the tragedy of Maine – we have all this opportunity and all this potential, but our 18-34 demographic is the one that we are losing quicker than any state.  The only demographic that is growing in Maine is over 55 – and that is a problem, it is a significant problem, and it is the manifestation of people like you who leave the state.”

“I’ve been all about creating opportunity – if we had 10 Athena Health’s that are cutting edge heath care companies… Boston Financial – cutting edge financial services company… NotifyMD – one of the fastest growing healthcare companies… those are little niches… International Wood Fields, which is the second largest wood pellet manufacturer in North America… these are big companies that Maine & Companies have recruited to the state, and that is really the only answer.”

“For people like you, we’ve failed.  The generation in power now has failed.  They’ve failed you and they are on the road to failing my kids, and that is just not acceptable.  My priority is private sector jobs, and my history is successfully creating opportunity in the private sector – and I think it is time for that kind of expertise in Augusta.”

“I will tell you what I have said in speeches around the state both as a candidate and as head of Maine & Company – there are only three ways to create jobs.  You either recruit a new company here, you expand an existing business, or you incubate the third.  And in each one of those markets – and they are markets, don’t misunderstand this, we are competing for these companies – we need to have a product development strategy.  A strategy that entices companies to locate and expand and start new business in Maine.  And I would submit to you that we do not have a strategy in any one of these markets, and that is one of the reasons we fail.”

On what Maine’s biggest problem is:

“I think probably our biggest issue is a lack of leadership, and I think somewhere along the way we have lost confidence in ourselves and our ability to compete.”

“If somebody in France wants to buy a windmill, there is no better place in the world to do that R&D and production than in Maine.  And we have to sell the French windmills if that is what they want – I mean there is so much opportunity with the Bay of Fundi and tital power research… we have enormous capability and enormous talent in not only the Mainers that are here, but the Mainer’s in exile who could come help fill the void.  I am hugely optimistic, but somewhere along the way we’ve lost our confidence – and I think part of that is this real lack of leadership, and folks forgetting our legacy and what we are capable of.  But we can get that back.”

On Maine’s biggest strength:

“Its very easy – its the people here.”

“When we compete for business, when we talk about charitable giving and volunteer work, there is not any place in the world that does better than Maine.  You look at turnover rates in Maine, and we just don’t have turnover rates… there isn’t any question that our greatest asset is our people.  But we haven’t led, and we have squandered that resource to the point where people are leaving.”

On Reforming the Education system:

“We are in the top ten in the country in spending on education – and we are in the bottom five in the country in teacher salary.  Somewhere along the way that didn’t translate into getting better teachers in the classroom – certainly we spend an awful lot of money on infrastructure and schools, and we need to start taking a hard look at, do we need these multimillion dollar facilities or can we make do with rehabbing some of the old ones.  But there is a broader question here, and the way we aught to look at education to me is based on excellence – that should be our only measure.”

“We spend a lot and our attainment is below average in terms of graduation rates, degree attainment – we don’t do so well.  We spend a lot but we don’t get excellence – and part of the problem is we don’t measure it and we don’t demand it.”

“In this latest school consolidation – we were trying to do it for saving money, but nobody really talked about educational attainment.  25% of the kids who start high school in the fall will drop out before graduation.  Only 25% will have a degree within ten years of starting high school… that’s not good enough, and we are doing our kids a dis-service if we think it is.”

“I would define excellence as – when you get done with a program that you start in Maine, you are able to get a job here.  If you are not, we’ve probably done it wrong.  We have got to find a way to connect our businesses, our immerging and existing markets with our educational system.”

“Why wouldn’t we fund educational programs based on placement rate?  High Schools would get funded based on how many kids go on to further their education.  I’m not saying that everyone has to go get a four year degree, but everyone has to go get something more than High School.  And for our post-high school programs based on placement rates.”

On Charter Schools:

“There is only ten states in the country who don’t have charter schools, and Maine is one of them.  So what do those 40 other states know about charter schools that Maine doesn’t.  Well what they know is that the traditional school is not the best way to reach some kids.  We all know that.”

“I went to High School with kids who didn’t do well in that setting, but thirty years later are very successful people, because they were able to check out of the normal school and get into a charter school that could cater to their needs and teach them the way they are good at learning.  It is also a way to run experiments on different types of educational processes and see what works the best.  We ought to be doing that – why wouldn’t we?”

On Governing with a potentially divided government (Democratic legislature, Republican Governor):

“I wouldn’t want to be running as a Democrat in this election – they have a lot to answer for.  So I think Republicans have a very good opportunity in 2010 to take majorities.  That being said, look – when I was on the St. Lawrence & Atlantic, I spent a lot of time with government regulators who were hostile to railroads and unions that clearly had agendas that weren’t necessarily those of management, and I have worked through those kinds of operations successfully.  I don’t have any doubt I know how to manage in that kind of environment – because I’ve done it.”

“And you know what, if they want a fight – I’ve been in some fights.  I was on that team that beat the Soviets during the Cold War… I know how to fight if that’s what it takes. <said in jest>”

On the Equal Marriage legislation and the people’s veto:

“I would have vetoed the bill, and here’s why.  It has nothing to do with civil rights – I think that the overwhelming majority – I think in the 90% range – believe that all folks should be treated equally, and I am clearly in that camp.  I would not have signed this bill, but not from the civil rights perspective, I think that we have to find a way to treat everybody equally and it is not acceptable that we don’t.”

“But this bill I think opens up those folks that have a reasonable religious objection to some real problems.  In other states where they have passed bills with similar language – there was a church I believe in Iowa who had convictions against same-sex marriages, and wouldn’t rent their hall as they do to other people in the public for a celebration to a same-sex couple, and they lost their tax exempt status.  There was another instance in another state where a photographer did not want to film the same-sex marriage ceremony from a religious conviction point of view, and was sued in civil court and fined tens of thousands of dollars.  I don’t have any problem extending rights to everybody, but we ought not do that at the expense of someone else – especially someone with a reasonable religious conviction against it.”

“If we could find a way – there was competing bill in the legislature that was I think a much better bill – to protect the rights of everybody, then I could support it.  But the way it is now, we actually take rights away from people at their expense, to grant this equal marriage, and I think we can do better than that.”

On the recent tax reform legislation:

“It is important how we are taxed, but it is much more important how much we are taxed.  This bill does nothing to address the how much, it is just about the how.  I’ve called it before a shell game, and I think it is just a shell game.  Until you are prepared to have a serious discussion about how much we spend, and how much tax we collect, it is just a game.  And this bill is poorly worded, poorly thought out – I mean for example a Milky Way bar gets taxed, but a Kit Kat bar does not, because a Kit Kat bar has flour in it.  How does that pass the simple test for a merchant, a small business in say Houlton, or say Wiscassit or anywhere in York county – how is that merchant able to easily identify which candy bars she should tax, and which ones she should not.”

“Clearly it is nice we have reduced the income tax – that’s a great thing.  But look guys, if you are going to reduce it, lets reduce it – why do we stop at 6%, let’s go to 4%!  Let’s curtail some spending, and let’s make a real change in the way we tax people and how much we tax them.  What we did not is just silly, and borders on political grandstanding.”

On curbing spending and entitlement reform:

“It seems like this last government – clearly run by the Democrats – was interested in taking it out of education… but nobody wants to talk about DHHS.”

“DHHS has decided that if you are on MaineCare, and you are pregnant, in order to get prenatal care – which we all agree ought to be administered to MaineCare people, we ought to give folks prenatal care and it is important for the kids – but in order to get that care, you need to get a note signed by your doctor.  But if you go to your doctor on MaineCare, there is a $5 co-pay, and if you go to the emergency room there is no co-pay.  So every night in every emergency room in Maine, we perform pregnancy tests.  If you go to the emergency room it costs somewhere between $300-600 dollars per visit, so every night in Maine, worst case we are performing $600 pregnancy tests.  So there’s an opportunity to save some money.”

“That ER example is just one, but there are hundreds more that we could do.  Part of the problem is that we do not audit DHHS, there is no goals.  As we are giving away this healthcare, there is no goals to try and see if we can get at some of the underlying causes.  Don’t we have a moral responsibility to try and make these people better, rather than just pay for whatever ailment they have?  We know that 80% of healthcare costs come from 5 diseases that are all behaviorally based, so what are we trying to do to fix that and reduce cost?  Well the short answer is nothing – we are just pouring money at a problem and not trying to fix the underlying issue, which is what is wrong with these folks who need MaineCare?”

“And frankly the overarching problem, is where is the opportunity in Maine so these folks don’t need charity?  Where is the opportunity so these folks could get a job and pay for their own healthcare?  Where is our attention to their human dignity, to give them the chance?”

On Dirigo Health:

“Stop it!  Stop it now!”

“We spent $155 million dollars on this to insure less than 4,000 people!  Are you kidding me?  Really?  And that’s not something that we cut immediately?”

“We have fed into this health insurance cost problem by these purported solutions.  What we need to do is add a little common sense and add a little competition.”

“We have made minimum requirements in Maine so onerous that only one insurance company wants to have the discussion, basically – which is Anthem.  But here’s part of the folly – most people I meet on this campaign, I will ask them this question: – We have just met, and I will bet you that we have different car insurance companies, I will bet you we have different deductable, and different collision, and we have different policies. – and they nod, ‘yeah you’re probably right’ – well then why won’t the government trust me to do the same thing for my healthcare insurance?  Why do they mandate that everyone in the state of Maine have to carry pregnancy coverage – maybe some people don’t want that?  Certainly there are some things we should madate that you cover – certain catastrophic illnesses – but after that why don’t we let people pick off a menu?  People are smart, they’ll figure out what they need.”

On the East-West Highway:

“Pete Vigue and Cianbro have an idea to privately finance a toll road – we ought to help them do that.  We ought to help them with regulatory approval – if you look in history, every time you have built a road you driven economic activity, so I think it is a good idea from that perspective.”

“I wouldn’t lost sight of the fact that you already have TWO east-west highways, the St. Lawrence & Atlantic railroad runs from Portland to Montreal where it connects with Canadian National Railroad, which is by any measure the world’s best freight railroad… the Montreal Maine and Atlantic, the old Bangor and Aroostook, runs to Montreal as well.  So we have two real under-utilized east-west highways, and we ought to think really carefully about how we could utilize that infrastructure and those roads more efficiently.”

“I really like that private toll road, and I’d like to see the government support it around regulatory approval to make that happen.”

On the Legalization of Marijuana:

“I could not be further from that [Lynne Williams' position]…”

“Can you imagine the department we would create to regulate marijuana growers and users in Maine?  My God you think you’d actually make money in a project like that?”

“Clearly, marijuana is not something that we accept as socially acceptable, it is not something that you want to see your kids doing.  Clearly it is not something that we ought to look at as a tax revenue.”

“It is the same fallacy we have about smoking.  We keep taxing smoking, and we purportedly say that we’d love to have people quit.  If everybody in Maine were to quit smoking tomorrow, the dome would collapse because we need the revenue.  We have now built a budget around smoking taxes – and we have to have that money now, and it is a fallacy.  The way we fix this problem from a revenue perspective is to grow opportunity.  There is just no other way to do it.”

On his new media presence:

“It’s part of a larger strategy of being effective.”

“This is a campaign that will try to connect with as many people as we can.  And I think what is important is that you connect with people in a medium that they are comfortable.  And so you have to get good at connecting in all of them.”

“It is also important to me that we run a very technologically advanced campaign, because to me it is a pretty good indication of how we would run a government.  That we would become technologically advanced, that we’d become would be easy to deal with, easy to connect with.  That the distribution of information needs to be done in a way that people are comfortable, and the same old methods aren’t necessarily relevent.”

“It is important that we embrace technology and show people how it works, and how it would work in a campaign, as a real good indicator of how advanced we could run a government, and I think it is time we have some technological savvy in our government…”

“I think a lot of folks are comparing themselves clearly at this point to our campaign and how we are doing, and I think you’ll probably see more of them try to emulate what we are doing – which is great.  That’s what leadership is all about.”

On what he would do if he did not become Governor:

“In terms of advocacy, what I do every day at Maine & Company and what I did every day at the railroad is a form of the same sort of advocacy.  Advocating for more and better opportunity for Maine people – and I will continue to do that one way or another in government or not.  But I expect I will be in government.”

On if any sitting Governors in the United States could beat him in a 10K race:

“There’s got to be some!”

“I didn’t run very well in the Beach to Beacon, and I ran 47 for 10k, and I ran a 44 and change last year, so I have it in me, I just didn’t get it out this Saturday… but I’d certainly like to give that one a shot!”

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Pine Tree Politics would like to thank Mr. Jacobson for spending an hour of his time last night talking about issues that are on the minds of voters at this early stage.

We have been speaking with the Peter Mills and Les Otten campaigns as well, both of which should hopefully be in the works this month.  We also continue to reach out to our Democratic friends as well, but as of yet none of them have returned my requests for an interview.

Stay tuned.

Tags: 2010 Gubernatorial Race, 2010 Republican Gubernatorial Primary, Gubernatorial Interviews, Matt Jacobson