This is part two of our interview with Ward Cammack, Democratic candidate for governor. (See part one here.)

Because Tennessee politics is so Nashville-centric and we sometimes feel a little left out over here in East Tennessee, we wanted to get Mr. Cammack's impressions of the region. We started with an easy pop quiz.

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When he hears "East Tennessee," Mr. Cammack's first thought is "East Tennessee State University. And Mountain City." We were a little puzzled and asked him to explain. He said that early in his career he was responsible for visiting all the community and local banks, so he visited all ninety-five counties, several times over. "I made a real point to go to Mountain City, just to be there, and it's not easy to get to Mountain City." He said he visited ETSU later in his career and enjoyed it thoroughly. "So when I think of East Tennessee, I think way east."

He also recalls hiking the balds of the Appalachian Trail with his wife and camping overnight. He says "We parked at Roan Mountain and hiked over and hitched a ride back. And this was not that long ago. It was beautiful. I was whipped when we were through, though."

He has been to a U.T. football game at Neyland Stadium ("it's an experience and every Tennessean should go to a U.T. football game. In Neyland Stadium."). He said he met Pat Summitt recently and that "she is somebody to admire."

Mr. Cammack has not been to the Jimmy Duncan Family Barbecue, but says he will be at the next one for sure.

Moving on to more serious topics, we asked what he thought about merging the U.T. Board of Trustees and the Board of Regents.

"I get a little lost on this one, but I think they are two different things," said Mr. Cammack. "The University of Tennessee is one thing and state community colleges are something else. And they have very different propositions. And people who go to one have a whole different view usually than the ones who go to the other."

Next we asked whether we are effectively promoting and utilizing our resources at ORNL and TVA and UT to make Tennessee a world class center for energy research and development. This prompted an involved discussion about energy policy and resource management in our state.

Mr. Cammack said "As governor, I will expect to do a whole lot better. You really have to look at the state as a series of resources, and how we put those together and how we use those most efficiently toward even greater ends. TVA was created partly to be an innovator. It can be a lean green energy machine to the new economy and I would like to see that happen. I think it has huge opportunities and we need to see that it goes in that direction. The hard thing about TVA is that it's an independent entity. But as a state we have to make it our business to be actively involved and engaged."

In terms of how we manage our state and our resources, Mr. Cammack said "we have to be sure we are making the right decisions for our descendents who come after us. I want to see a bill and I want to see it passed that unequivocally does away with mountaintop removal. I believe our second largest job base is in the tourism business. It would seem that those two are definitely at odds with each other."

He is also acutely aware of ongoing disputes with our neighbor states regarding environmental impacts and use of resources. "I don't know how much it cost us, but last year we had two lawsuits, well there were several, but two that come to mind there was North Carolina against Tennessee because they're paying the penalty on our emissions, and then Georgia, for rights to the Tennessee River." Mr. Cammack said that the latter is serious business in Georgia and they are not going to stop until they reach a settlement. "I was at the Democratic Governor's Association meeting and met one of the candidates. He made a real point to tell me 'we're coming back.' It's an issue down there."

Mr. Cammack continued that "Water will be a major topic over the next several years, especially so as water levels around the world drop and more communities have more concern about it. You look at Coca Cola for example, and they are the largest buyer of sugar cane in the world and one of the largest users of water. Use of water, access to water is going to be more and more of a topic going forward. Whose waste is in our water, what happened to it, what are the health risks, who's paying the cost, can we get to it... those are big topics."

He says that ten years ago these issues weren't on people's minds. "It's the realization that resources are finite and they're being viewed differently by business, by government, by everybody. It forces the change. In a way it's a market force, but if you think people get upset about oil and land rights, you wait and see how they are about water rights when their kids are thirsty."

We mentioned the coal and developer friendly bills making their way through the legislature that threaten protections of our streams and rivers and water resources, and whether as governor he would veto any of these bills.

"I would. I know that's a semi-hypothetical question, but I would," he replied. "The reason is because right now at this point in time we're going in to, I don't want to call it a new economy or a new era, but I will say it's a new age. We've been through the industrial age, and the industrial age was driven by unlimited access to resources and marginal pricing. That's changed, and it's changed forever."

Coming back to the demographic change, Mr. Cammack said further that "for the first time in American history we're going to have fewer people turning eighteen, and this an absolute drop, not a relative drop. So we've got this thirty year time frame. We ought to be encouraging people to move to Nashville, retire, bring their savings, and they're going to expect a lot. They're going to expect clean water, they're going to be expecting a safe place for their family to come and visit, they're going to be big on recreation and we're already a big tourism state. We need to lead with our strengths and not weaken some of our best propositions."

Using another business analogy, Mr. Cammack concluded that "We have to think really big, really long term and do the things that are going to preserve our assets. When you deplete your assets you deplete your ability to create prosperity. The income statement is driven by the balance sheet. You diminish your balance sheet you destroy your income statement. When we look at the state as our balance sheet, we have to preserve and enhance our balance sheet and lead with our assets and take care of them."

We asked if this didn't sometimes feel like a losing battle in Tennessee. Mr. Cammack's response provides some insight into his idea of leadership and his vision for Tennessee:

"Not at all. Having been around the investment and finance business so long, and having grown up around it, too, you recognize that when things look like they're on top, they're on top. They've got no place to go but down.

"I think a lot of people out there are really wondering what's going on, and the thing about this economy is it doesn't pick favorites and it doesn't make distinctions as to whether somebody is a Democrat or a Republican or liberal or conservative. It affects everybody.

"The next governor of Tennessee has got to have a really bold, audacious vision of where this state is going. I think people are looking for a leader and I don't think this has anything to do with dealing at the margins and I don't think it's a time and place for people who've been in the legislature. I think it is a time for somebody who is willing to get out there and say what he or she really believes in and take it as far as we can take it.

"I didn't get into this election because of risk to my political career. If I want people to really understand what I'm about and what we should be thinking about as a state we need to get off the argument about environment. The environment is a warning, the environment is a symptom, and we really need to get at what's changing in the world and the United States' position in the world.

"If people are bothered by energy dependence then it naturally, logically follows that we should be doing everything in our power to get there. There are states in our country like Wisconsin that are making it their business to get off the energy grid and for their communities to be self-sufficient. You think my example about Wal-Mart and the energy efficient light bulbs is powerful, that [going off the grid] is powerful. You talk about something that's empowering, that's empowering.

"You want to create jobs and we ought to be looking at new industries, and the biggest new industry in our nation is going to be renewable energy. The Solar Institute at Oak Ridge, that's huge. And we have to look all across that state and every county can participate and there's a lot that we can do.

"But we have to make this our business, and this can be our strength because we're ideally suited for business to come in here because of our geographical position in the country. But it needs to be the right business. We need to make sure we pull theses businesses into the communities and connect them with our educational institutions, one for a funding source but also as a regenerative theater into these businesses so it keeps cycling through.

"Every place that a business comes in and links with a school you tend to get lots of small business and in a small business for every job created you tend to get three other jobs in the economy created at the same time. For every person who goes back and gets a GED that adds about six thousand dollars to the state economy almost immediately.

"So getting people on the path that they want to be... we've lost our finite businesses and the manufacturing facilities that are going to move out of the state, we've lost a lot. Well, OK, how are we going to build it back?

"You have to understand how business is created and what people are looking for when they create a business. They're looking for talent pools. They are looking for the ability, with the assumption that they're going to grow, how we are going to get people in who are trained, how are we going to make sure they are healthy, how are we going to make sure they are educated and that they can do these tasks and that, whatever it is we do, this is a place other people want to move in to. This is the proposition.

"I'm running on jobs, schools, and health care. Every one of these is interlinked with each other. You can't fix one without fixing the other two."

Stay tuned for the next installment of our conversation with Ward Cammack.