Tonight I had the distinct honor of speaking with Oregon's Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski, at a function for the Multnomah County (Oregon) Democratic Party. My full article on the event will be available on the blog Blue Oregon tomorrow (hopefully). For now, my brief interview with the Governor.

Jonathan Singer: Gordon Smith hit the ball out of the park, so to speak, with the Smith-Bingaman amendment to reduce cuts in (Medicaid). But he also said this week that he’s not going to vote against the budget if the Republican conferees rip it out in conference. What will you and the National Governors Association be doing to try and keep it in there?

Ted Kulongoski: First of all the NGA actually has a partisan side to it, as well as the United States Senate. I can’t speak for the Republican Governor’s Association. I can tell you the Democratic governors – I just talked to Janet Napolitano last week down in Arizona, and we’re going to be down there in the beginning of April – I can tell you the Democrats are absolutely going to fight to the last to be able to void what the President wants to do with the Medicaid cuts.

Singer: Now I know this is extremely, extremely far away, but there’s talk in the blogosphere, as we like to call it, about a run in 2008 for Ted Kulongoski.

Both: [Laughter]

Singer: Not if you’re going to run, but what do you think of such talk?

Kulongoski: No and no.

Singer: Now one last question. The West seems to be the place where the Democrats are really having a resurgence. You look at yourself, you look at Washington, you look at Montana – Governor Schweitzer’s doing well – Napolitano in Arizona you brought up, even Kansas has a [Democratic Governor], not such a Western state, but it’s on the fringe, Colorado’s having a turn around. What more can the Democrats do to turn these borderline “purple” states into “blue” states in the future?

Kulongoski: You know one of the things, it’s a very good question, because the Democratic Governor’s Association is now looking for a new Executive Director and I was interviewed as to what we need, and I said the first thing is that someone understands that in fact there’s another part of this country on the western side of the Mississippi. And the other is one that has as much as a Southern policy, a Western policy.

Because I agree with you. I think that Hawaii, I think that – and I’m going to tell you, this may be surprising to you – but I think California is more in play than probably the Republicans want, because they’re putting all of their horses in out there. I think the Democrats can win Colorado this time. You have Freudenthal in Wyoming. I think that there are a number of Western states that the Democrats can win. I don’t believe that a lot of these Western states are as red as everyone says they are. I think that in fact we’re going to turn them. I really believe that.

Stay tuned for more coverage of the event in the next day and a longer interview with a former Presidential candidate later this week.