So, When is the Cosmopolitan Interview?

Thanks to the New Yorker magazine for an interview conducted a few weeks ago with the governor of a traditionally Republican state, self-described as “hard-core Republican,” who was nevertheless comfortable talking across partisan lines in measured praise of Democrat Barack Obama.

Here are some excerpts:

“The theme of our campaign was ‘new energy.’ It was no more status quo, no more politics as usual, it was all about change. So then to see that Obama—literally, part of his campaign uses those themes, even, new energy, change, all that, I think, O.K., well, we were a little bit ahead on that.

“Something’s kind of changing here … too, for being such a red state on the presidential level. Obama’s doing just fine in polls … here, which is kind of wigging people out, because they’re saying, ‘This hasn’t happened for decades that in polls the D’ ”—the Democratic candidate—“‘is doing just fine.’ To me, that’s indicative, too. It’s the no-more-status-quo, it’s change.

“Democrats also preach individual freedoms and individual rights, capitalism, free market, let-it-do-its-thing-best, let people keep as much of their money that they earn as possible. And when it comes to, like, the Party machine, no one will accuse me of being partisan.

“Turning maybe purple in the state means, to me, it’s more independent, it’s not the obsessive partisanship that gets in the way of doing what’s right for this state, and I think on a national level that’s what we’re gonna see.”

If you haven’t guessed the identity of the interviewee yet, maybe this will help:

“I’m a mom, and my son is going to get deployed in September, and we better have a real clear plan for this war. And it better not have to do with oil and dependence on foreign energy.”