Quips and Quotes from Old Governors to New

Keep your agenda short. You'll only have time to build the necessary coalitions around three or four major priorities. The governor is like a conductor; you get the players, shake hands and start playing. The governorship is a position of leadership: assert it. You cannot be a leader without being a manager. Negotiation with the staff to share goals and to establish definite benchmarks is essential. There's no such thing as a new idea. Be willing to copy, borrow, and freshen up the old ideas. I'm a strong advocate of planning, but you can't sit around and wait for the planning process to tell you what to do. Use the 20-year rule: what will the state look like 20 years out? The governorship has tremendous power. You'll want to ask yourself Have I with this power made a real difference in the lives of the people?