Making History Again: A Q&A With Ed Rendell

Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, has kept busy since completing his final term in office in 2011. He returned to his old law firm, landed a gig as an NBC news analyst and pursued various business opportunities—but he also kept a foot in the political world, highlighting the need for infrastructure investment and, most recently, helping pitch Philadelphia to host of the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Before Philadelphia was officially selected, City & State’s Jon Lentz spoke with Rendell about the bid from the City of Brotherly Love, a rival bid from New York City and how the presidential field is shaping up.

The following is an edited transcript.

City & State: Why would Philadelphia be a good site for the 2016 Democratic National Convention? 
Ed Rendell: One, in 2000 we ran the Republican National Convention and it is widely regarded as the most successful political convention in the last 25 years from a logistics standpoint, from a transportation standpoint, policing standpoint, donor experience standpoint, all those things. No. 2, basically that team that ran the 2000 convention— transportation, police, political—that team is pretty much intact. We are a wonderful city now in terms of donor and delegate experience. We have great hotels: 11,000 rooms downtown, 7, 8 minutes from the Wells Fargo Center, easy transportation. We’d close Broad Street as we did in 2000, close it down to traffic and use both north and south, one way going down, one way coming up. With the buses it’s 6 or 7 minutes. Everything else in Center City is walkable. The convention center is walkable from the hotels, the restaurants are walkable, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Constitution Center—all walkable. So logistically, I think we’re the best in terms of donor and delegate experience. Third, we’re a great historic city. Our slogan is, “Let’s Make History Again.” We obviously made history in 1776 and 1787, and obviously it’s possible to be nominating the first woman to run for president of the United States. Instead of delivering the acceptance speech outdoors at a football stadium, Hillary Clinton could deliver her convention address with Independence Hall as a backdrop. The hall holds easily 40,000 people. And in terms of raising the money, the DNC is asking for a commitment of $65 million. We raised $65 million back in 2000. Adjusting that for inflation, that’s about $75 to 80 million. We have no doubt we can raise the money.

C&S: New York City was expected to have a fundraising advantage. Plus, Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed hard to bring the event in Brooklyn, while Hillary Clinton, the presumed frontrunner, was a New York senator and has strong ties here.
ER: Well, New York obviously has the strongest advantage in the fact that it can raise a lot of money, no doubt about it. But the donor and delegate experience with the hotels being in Manhattan and the center being in Brooklyn is a disaster. Security is a disaster because of the businesses and residences that are inside of the security perimeter. So New York has some assets, and obviously money is the biggest, but it’s got some significant liabilities. But then, so do Philadelphia and Columbus.

C&S: How do you see the presidential field shaping up?
ER: Well, on our side of the aisle, I don’t think there’s any serious contender to Hillary. You talk about Elizabeth Warren—No. 1, she doesn’t want to run, and everyone who knows her knows that to be a fact.

C&S: She’s been clear about that.
ER: Yeah, she’s been clear, but even if she did run she would be the strongest challenger from the left of our party and she would probably get 15 percent of the vote in primaries. Hillary Clinton is almost unprecedented in the level of her experience that she would bring as the nominee. She’s got great political strength and loyalties. In fact, by the end of the campaign in ’08, she’d ran a great campaign, and got more popular votes than then-Senator Obama did, won more of the big states than Senator Obama did. So she’s got that infrastructure still in place for her all over the country. She would be, in my judgment, if she decides to run, impossible to beat. On the Republican side, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie have the problem that they’re moderates running in a party that is clearly to the right of right almost. You know, if you saw the straw poll in the Iowa caucus, no moderate came close. The righter to the right, the better they did. It’s going to be very difficult for the moderate to emerge because the party has become so much the captive of the far right. But if anybody has a chance, Jeb Bush would have that chance. But Chris Christie obviously staying in the race hurts Jeb Bush. But on the other hand, you tell me who is going to emerge from the conservative pack—it’s hard to figure any of them emerging. If they pick someone like Scott Walker, who led the Iowa straw poll, maybe he successfully tries to keep a foot in the moderate camp and a foot in the conservative camp. Maybe he can pull it off, but it’s not clear. Rand Paul certainly has a following that’s not going to go away. It’s very unclear on the Republican side.

C&S: You were something of a moderate yourself as governor, and you also worked with officials like Michael Bloomberg, who was a centrist mayor here in New York City. Do you feel like Hillary Clinton fits that mold as a moderate—and is a moderate president something you’d like to see? 
ER: She’s a perfect Democratic candidate. She’s very progressive on social issues. She is moderate on financial and domestic issues—although, remember she was the first one to talk about a mandate. Ironically in the primaries, Senator Obama was against a mandate but later was convinced that a mandate was the only way to make it work financially, and it is. So she’s moderate fiscally and ideologically, socially liberal, strong on defense, which has always been a weakness for our party—demonstratively strong on defense. Great foreign policy experience, at a time when ISIS and others make foreign policy more important. Is she the progressive left’s ideal candidate? No. But is she acceptable to the progressive left? Absolutely. Is she the rest of the party’s ideal candidate? Absolutely.

C&S: Switching gears, you specialize in public-private partnerships, and here in in New York there’s an effort to renew lapsed design-build legislation. How important is that?
ER: When I was governor we put design-build in the Pennsylvania projects, and it can be a significant money saver, and that’s important. We’ve got to maximize the impact of those public dollars. So anything that saves money on a similar project is very important. But public-private partnerships are a very important avenue. Look, we cannot meet the transportation infrastructure needs of the country truly on government dollars. There’s just not enough government money available. So we have to get private dollars into play, particularly on the big projects. And to that end, Congress in the next transportation bill should increase TIFIA from $1 billion to $2 billion. They should do what the president wants, turning the private activity bonds into the qualified public infrastructure bonds that removes the cap and doesn’t make them taxable under the alternative minimum tax. That would be a big help. Congress should remove the ban on tolling of interstates, so that states are allowed to toll. Remember, private involvement in transportation must have a return on investment, and tolling is one of the ways to get that return on investment.

C&S: You mentioned congressional action. Are you optimistic that there could be progress made in increasing infrastructure funding in Obama’s final two years in office?
ER: No, I think they’ll kick the can down the road. Hopefully they’ll do some of the things we talked about. You know, giving out the qualified public infrastructure bonds, doubling the TIFIA spending, uncapping the ban against tolling interstates. It doesn’t cost the federal treasury hardly anything, and yet will be a help to system. In terms of raising the gas tax, which is the main vehicle, all you have to know about that is the Corker-Murphy bill, which increases the gas tax by 12 cents, and then indexes to inflation. Bob Corker is the Republican senator on it, who courageously put his name on it as the sponsor. All you need to know is that he has yet to get one Republican senator to co-sponsor it. Not one.