JEFFERSON CITY • On the playing field of Missouri politics, Gov. Jay Nixon describes himself as a fullback, the unsung football player with the dirty jersey and plenty of bumps and bruises who pounds the ball up the middle.
"A lot of this job is three yards and a cloud of dust," says Nixon, a Democrat who is halfway through the term voters elected him to in 2008.
On Wednesday, the governor will outline his priorities in his third State of the State address, and the speech is sure to have electoral overtones. Nixon is planning to run for governor again in 2012, and he's banked more than $1 million in fundraising just in the past couple of months. He's likely to face Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican who has emerged as the governor's harshest and most persistent critic. Kinder will give the Republican response to Nixon's speech.
So how will Nixon describe the job he has done?
In using his football analogy, Nixon points to a deliberate style of governing that is in contrast to the hard-charging persona he cultivated as attorney general. Amid tough budget times, Nixon has cut state jobs and popular programs, and he'll have to do more of that in the coming budget year with a deficit of around $500 million. Ask Nixon about his accomplishments and he points to his ability to work with the Republican Legislature, the passing of a tax credit incentive bill for Ford Motor Co. and a youth job corps program that was implemented after the governor cut scores of parks employees.
Although they admit the budget problems stymied many programs, Republicans point to what Nixon hasn't done. He promised more education funding. It has been cut. He said he would undo Medicaid cuts. He hasn't. He said he would increase college scholarships for Missouri high school students. Instead? More cuts.
And in the last election cycle, both Democrats and Republicans accused Nixon of being AWOL.
"Jay Nixon has chosen to be a spectator," said Lloyd Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party. "In 2010, he turned his back on his own party. He was in the stands."
Shortly after Democrats got trounced in November, however, Nixon began reasserting himself. He started flying around the state announcing various job expansions by private businesses using state tax incentives, paying particular attention to areas of the state — such as Springfield — that would be important to his re-election. And Nixon got out in front of two legislative initiatives, a plan to build a new nuclear plant in Callaway County and a proposal to require prescriptions for pseudoephedrine products.
In many ways, it's the legislative arena where the Nixon-Kinder race in 2012 could be played out, Smith said.
"Nixon is trying to define the playing field," Smith said. "But I think lawmakers are going to put the governor on the horns of dilemma and see if he's willing to take a stand."
change in tone
Nixon's first two years in office have been quite different than his terms as attorney general, when he mixed it up politically and made headlines for his brash statements. Now, it seems, Nixon makes more headlines for not saying anything.
Such was the case last week when the governor decided to commute the death sentence of Richard Clay but didn't immediately explain his decision and declined, at first, to take questions from reporters on the issue.
Nixon acknowledges his change as governor, but he chalks it up to the difference in jobs.
"As attorney general, you're an advocate, that's your job," Nixon said. "This is a fundamentally different job."
Indeed, much of Nixon's efforts have gone toward forging alliances with Republican leaders in the Legislature, since they hold most of the cards on whether any of Nixon's priorities get passed. In his first two sessions, Nixon was particularly effective dealing with the then-leader of the Senate, president pro tem Charlie Shields of St. Joseph.
Shields gave Nixon good marks for his communication with legislative leaders, often saying the governor remembered the ways of the Senate from his time there.
It's a contrast to the style of the last Democratic governor, Bob Holden. Like Nixon, Holden faced tough budget times and Republican majorities. He chose to mix it up with the GOP and try to force his agenda on them. Instead, they jeered the governor, and he didn't recover, losing in a primary after his first term.
Working closely with Republican leaders, however, has alienated some of Nixon's Democratic base. When news broke of the governor's first fundraiser for the 2012 cycle, state Rep. Jamilah Nasheed quickly went to the social media site Twitter to express her unhappiness.
"Rep. Nasheed will not be supporting Gov. Nixon's re-election!" wrote the St. Louis Democrat.
Nasheed and others have criticized Nixon for abandoning campaign promises in the face of a tough budget, saying he seemed to put working with Republican leaders ahead of pushing Democratic ideas such as increased funding for Medicaid and college scholarships for high school students — two ideas the governor championed in his campaign.
Nixon, though, goes back to his football analogy.
"I think I've been in the middle," Nixon said of his governing style. "I think the game ought to be played between the hashmarks."
earning high marks
As far as various polls are concerned, Nixon's strategy seems to be working with Missouri voters. During the fall election, pollsters on all points on the political spectrum gave Nixon among the highest approval marks among the nation's governors, even as Democrats were being trounced in the midterm elections.
Smith, the leader of Missouri's Republican Party, said it's at least in part because Nixon has been practical in cutting the budget.
"He's played the hand that was dealt him," Smith said. "Based on the financial realities, he looked at the future and said, 'I'll do what I need to do to get re-elected.' I think that's what most of the voters see right now."
Those budget-cutting decisions earned Nixon a "B" rating from the libertarian Cato Institute, the 13th-highest score among governors, and fifth-highest among Democrats.
If voters are giving Nixon credit for approaching tough economic times frugally, it's at least in part because the Legislature ceded the issue to him, said Smith's counterpart, Susan Montee, the new chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party. While lawmakers in the past two sessions accused Nixon of giving them an unbalanced budget, in both years they passed a budget that still required the governor to make cuts.
That left Nixon as the budget-cutter-in-chief, and voters see him as doing what he has to do, Montee said.
"He's been straightforward," Montee said. "People are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who is being upfront about making tough decisions."
In other words, Montee said, Nixon has been willing to make the state government live within its means, and he got points from voters for being willing to make those tough decisions.
As Nixon prepares to give his State of the State address and deliver his budget proposal Wednesday, the process will play out for the third time in his tenure as governor. This time, though, with the 2012 governor's race hanging in the balance, the tone between Nixon and the Legislature is likely to change.
Both the House and Senate have historically large Republican majorities and new leaders: Speaker Steve Tilley of Perryville and President Pro Tem Rob Mayer of Dexter. Meanwhile, the budget times haven't gotten much better, despite a recent rise in state revenue.
Nixon and lawmakers might have to cut at least $500 million from the state's total annual operating budget of about $23 billion, and higher education and other areas the governor tried previously to protect are likely on the chopping block.
Nixon won't hint at how he'll set the agenda in his speech, though it's a fair bet he'll mention "jobs" more than once or twice. It's the top issue in voters' minds according to most polls, and Nixon has been touting his record in that department, even though it's been tough to clarify how many jobs his administration has generated.
He touts the passage of the incentives to help keep Ford in Missouri as one of his "risks" and major accomplishments, though it's still unclear what Ford's ultimate plans for its Claycomo plant are. And the governor's most recent dip into hot water came when he flew to Cape Girardeau to tout a development funded in part by state incentives, only to have to nix the deal when it was reported that the developer was a felon.
Republicans were quick to criticize the governor for that misstep, and, Smith said, they'll do a better job this year of using the legislative process to try to set the agenda and take the game to Nixon.
The governor, though, has become fond of repeating the old sports metaphor that he will handle things as they come, rather than force action where it is unlikely he will succeed.
"I let the game come to me," the governor said. "This is a job in which I finally understand what that means."
