Frederica Freyberg:
Last month Gov. Doyle announced that he will not seek a third term in office. Within days Democrats and Republicans came forward declaring their candidacy, setting up what will be a vigorous primary election season. Last week we began a series of interviews by talking with Scott Walker. Republican candidate Mark Neumann is here tonight. Thanks for being here.

Mark Neumann:
It's great to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
How do you set yourself apart from other Republicans running in this primary?

Mark Neumann:
I think I bring a different background to the race. I've got successful public life experience. Fourteen years ago the people sent me to Washington D.C. to serve the House of Representatives. During four years we went in with problems, overspending, budgets way out of whack. We got the budget balanced. We were paying off federal debt. We passed the biggest tax cut in American history. And there were tens of thousands of jobs being created every month when I left Congress. That was 10 years ago. In the last 10 years I've been back in the private sector creating private sector jobs. Together we have six companies. We basically are responsible for about 300 job opportunities in southeastern Wisconsin. And that's a very different background to bring into this office than any of the competition at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:
Which Democrat do you expect to be running against should you prevail in the primary?

Mark Neumann:
I don't know. We're really focused so much on bringing a positive vision for the future of our state and what we can do to clean up the mess that I don't really look at them that close until we know for sure who is getting into the race. Obviously Barbara Lawton is in. I would expect Ron Kind would get into the race. I don't know who else might get in. For now we're really focused on getting us back on track in this state. What can we do to attract and keep jobs in the state and what do we need to do to restore our economy.

Frederica Freyberg:
Please tell us in one sentence who you would be as governor.

Mark Neumann:
I would be a person who sold the state of Wisconsin to businesses in terms of selling; that is, attracting jobs to our state, and my central focus would be on being a cheerleader, a business person sitting across the table in these negotiations to keep our jobs here and to bring new jobs to the state. You'd see me very committed and focused on bringing jobs to the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
What's the best way to do that?

Mark Neumann:
There's three things that have to be done. We need to become globally competitive. You start with taxes. Taxes are way out of whack in this state. We need innovation and creativity in our government. We need to bring technology into government so we can streamline what's happening around us and reduce costs so we can reduce taxes. Taxes alone, however, is not enough to restore our economy. We need to look at education. We need the best educated kids in the entire world. To do that, we need to look at our public schools and where we've got great schools, we need to replicate them. Where we have failing schools, we should bring in private sector competition. Taxes and education. We go to the environment. The rules and regulations imposed on businesses are driving them out of Wisconsin, out of America. We need to figure out how to reach our environmental goals in a way that creates jobs instead of punishing businesses.

Frederica Freyberg:
One of the things you said about education, which is obviously a very big chunk of the state budget, paying for public education, but you said that where schools are failing, competition ought to be injected into those districts. Well, choice hasn't kept Milwaukee public schools from failing.

Mark Neumann:
I'm happy to say I'm very experienced in the private sector school system. I've taught in the public schools and UW System. Seven years ago we started our first choice school in Milwaukee. We've got 1,000 kids total in our school system. Let me tell you about what does work. We gave the kids a national standardized test. Our kids in the inner city of Milwaukee are growing 5 percent faster than an average child anywhere in America. So what we have put in place there does work, and I'm happy to say it's not about money. Our schools are being run at $6500 to the taxpayer versus $13,000 in neighboring schools. It's not money.

Frederica Freyberg:
That school sounds good. Let me ask you this. You want to cut taxes and cut spending. Where do you cut first?

Mark Neumann:
When people talk about these offices, you can see the politician discussion of cutting spending. What we really need to understand is what we understood 14 years ago. We need to control the growth rate of spending, because when you control the growth rate of spending, down to 1 percent under the rate of inflation, revenues will grow, plus real growth in the economy. If you can get revenue growing faster than spending growth rate, you can reduce taxes. I'm looking at top line, across-the-board how we control spending.    

Frederica Freyberg:
As a social conservative, would you give yourself a rank from one to 10, 10 being the most socially conservative?

Mark Neumann:
I'm really bad with labels. I know who I am. Actually, I've had people call me a moderate in this race because we're talking so much about the environment and how important it is we solve our environmental problems while still creating jobs here in Wisconsin. I'm not good at labels. I know who I am and am happy to answer any question you have on it.

Frederica Freyberg:
We need to leave it there. Mark Neumann, thanks very much.

Mark Neumann:
Thank you.