GOP Governors Praise the Achievements of Perdue, Their Departing Chairman

DANA POINT, Calif. — After a year of guiding the Republican Governors Association, Georgia's Sonny Perdue turned over the reins of the influential group with a challenge to his peers: Be the leaders of the next Republican revival.

"It starts here," Perdue said at the group's annual meeting at this seaside resort town. "Change is not going to come from Washington. We understand that it's going to bubble up from these governors and these states."

On Friday, Perdue officially ended his chairmanship of the governor's association amid strong positive reviews for his fundraising and his long-term planning.

In the first half of 2007, the association raised more than $12 million, more than double the funds raised by the Democratic Governors Association despite a smaller membership. By the end of the year, the GOP governors association expects to have a war chest of $20 million, said Nick Ayers, executive director of the group and the former manager of Perdue's 2006 re-election campaign.

The money will help fund the most competitive of the 11 gubernatorial races Republicans are facing in 2008. The group's immediate goal is to keep five incumbent Republican governors in office.

But the real target, said Perdue, is the 2010 elections.

"Our goal is at least a minimum of 32 Republican governors coming out of the 2010 election," he said.

Currently, there are 22 Republican governors.

Replacing Perdue as chairman of the governors association is Rick Perry of Texas, a still-rising star in the Republican Party.

Like Perdue, Perry and other GOP governors are increasingly viewing themselves as their party's best hope for rekindling connections to the voters it lost in the last election.

It's a place Republican governors have been before.

In the 1990s, after suffering major setbacks in Washington, the GOP heavily touted the successes of Republican governors as it tried to convince voters they should return Republicans to Washington, said Haley Barbour, who back then was chairman of the Republican National Committee and now is governor of Mississippi.

The result, he said, was the start of the 1994 "Republican Revolution" that returned the party to the majority in both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

"Republican governors became symbols of getting the job done," Barbour said. "We didn't have anybody else to do it."

If the 1990s were any indication, the outcome of the 2010 gubernatorial elections could have a profound effect on the national political scene, Perdue said.

"The way these 32-plus states go I think is the way America goes," Perdue said. "It will have a great emphasis on shaping national policy."

With a longer approach in mind, the Republican governors group under Perdue's leadership has vastly improved its planning for longer-term campaigns, increased recruiting of younger candidates and took fundraising to new levels.

Perry also praised Perdue for helping build a stronger bond between the nation's Republican governors.

"Sonny has shown us the essentials of team play, making sure we each know our responsibilities and our importance to reaching a clearly defined set of goals," Perry said. "The results speak for themselves ... and our team is just getting rolling."

Perdue won't be completely removed from the organization.

In taking over the group Friday, Perry announced that Perdue has agreed to become its first-ever recruiting chairman, responsible for finding and cultivating promising gubernatorial candidates nationwide.