One of the busiest people in Harrisburg this morning is Tim Reeves, Ridge's press secretary and chief spokesman. He isn't writing a speech or preparing a press release, though. He's meeting with Ridge to hammer out a list of demands--including action on the school proposals--that the governor will present to legislators as his conditions for supporting the pension hike. This strategy session, the culmination of a plan Reeves hatched with Chief of Staff Mark Campbell several weeks earlier, eventually will become the basis for an agreement that will break the legislative logjam.
Reeves' skill at handling situations such as this has made him the longest-serving press secretary in Pennsylvania history, and one of the most consistently effective image-makers in any state government in the country. As manager of Ridge's $10 million public relations apparatus, Reeves is spokesman, cheerleader and media strategist, all at the same time. But as his early morning meeting with the governor demonstrates, he also is a certified member of Ridge's inner circle, a policy expert who has helped shape many of the administration's most important initiatives.
These roles may seem divergent, but in modern state politics, they have become inseparable. In a world where polls shape policy decisions, where government is more complex but also more transparent, and where information spreads at warp speed, leaders risk losing control of the agenda unless they have press secretaries who can speak quickly and authoritatively. The stereotypical old-time press aide, two or three steps removed from the center of power, simply can't do an effective job in this environment, and a failure to connect with the public almost always spells serious trouble for an administration. "In government today," Reeves says, "good communication is inseparable from good governance." It sounds self-serving, but it happens to be true.
Reeves, still boyish at 39, is a man constantly in motion, whether he is planning the governor's next public appearance, managing the flow of press releases issued by state agencies, devising legislative strategy or giving reporters a personal glimpse into the governor's thinking. Tireless--he points with pride at three large storage boxes containing all the telephone message slips he has collected from the Capitol press corps in almost seven years on the job--he has made his share of enemies. But no one disputes that he has brought the Ridge administration into the big league of public relations. "He has definitely raised the bar on what a governor's press secretary should do," says Brad Bumsted of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Bumsted, one of the Capitol's veteran reporters, should know. Reeves worked alongside him for several years, serving as a Harrisburg correspondent, first for the Allentown Morning Call and then for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. As a young reporter, Reeves caught the eye of then-gubernatorial candidate Ridge, who describes him as "the one who always asked the second and third follow-up questions." After winning the governorship in 1994, Ridge hired Reeves without asking him his political affiliation. Reeves was a Democrat at the time.
The press secretary's skill at moving back and forth between the public and private realms is much on display during the two days that culminate in the governor's all-important meeting with state lawmakers. Most of Harrisburg is still reawakening from its weekend slumber when Reeves emerges from his Monday morning strategy huddle with the governor. Almost immediately, he goes into another meeting-- this time with a separate group of Republican lawmakers to discuss redistricting, an issue on which he serves as the governor's point man. It is no accident that Reeves has a hand in setting policy. Ridge has ordered that communications officials in his office and in various state agencies sit at the table when policy decisions are being made.
Press spokesmen have long argued that they need such access to be able to explain government policies thoroughly, but Ridge sees the value of this arrangement even more broadly: He thinks his spokesmen can keep him informed on the views of all the constituency groups they deal with--not only the press but trade associations and advocacy groups as well. "There is no doubt in my mind," Ridge says, "that the substance of many of our most important initiatives has been influenced by people in my communications department."
Not surprisingly, Reeves agrees. While a press secretary's perspective shouldn't necessarily be "determinative" of policy decisions, he argues, it's a useful reality check. "Once you make a decision in government, you become more and more focused exclusively on the arguments for what you're doing," he explains. "But I hear from reporters every day who have a different perspective... Lots of times I have gotten all excited about something we are going to do only to talk to reporters who aren't so impressed."
In the Ridge administration, Reeves serves as both director of communications and press secretary. In some states these are two different jobs; Reeves insists they really are different aspects of the same job, half of it devoted to playing "offense" and the other half devoted to "defense." After his Monday morning strategy meetings, Reeves briefly checks his defenses. His deputies have been taking calls from reporters working on stories about the death penalty, state aid to Philadelphia schools and whether the legislature should be called into special session to consider property-tax reform. Without pausing to consult with anyone higher up the chain of command, Reeves answers all the questions immediately, with catchy phrases.
Then he turns to offense. Ridge has consolidated all executive branch public relations offices under Reeves' control. While different agencies still have their own press spokesmen, these officials all report to the communications director, not to their respective agency heads. That means Reeves can control the substance and timing of all the messages the state bureaucracy puts out. Vince Carocci, who served as press secretary to Democratic Governor Robert P. Casey, views this centralization with some envy. "Nothing used to infuriate Casey more than to wake up and read about some statement from a state agency that he hadn't known about," says Carocci. At times, he recalls, Casey found his own efforts to frame public debate undercut when a cabinet secretary issued a press release that drowned out the message the governor wanted to deliver. "To be a successful governor, you need some coherence to what government is saying," Carocci says.
Of course, centralized control also enables the governor to take credit for just about everything the government does. On this particular occasion, the Department of Motor Vehicles is preparing a mailing to tell Pennsylvanians that they now can renew their automobile registrations online. Reeves deputy Kevin Shivers has drafted an accompanying message saying this move is part of the governor's effort to produce a "friction-free" state government. Reeves edits the statement to add that taxes have come down since the governor took office. He hesitates for just a moment. Drivers' license fees aren't going down--they're scheduled to rise. But a fee isn't a tax, so the statement about taxes coming down is still accurate, Reeves reasons. "When you take an oath in court, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," he notes later. "In my job, I am committed to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. To get the whole truth, you're going to have to make a few calls."
Reeves is still playing offense at the weekly staff meeting, which convenes on Monday afternoon. He is joined by several deputies, including the governor's scheduler, his speechwriter and the head of broadcast operations. The subject is the governor's schedule, but the real issue is how to get Ridge on television as much as possible, with compelling pictures that television news directors will want to run.
Reeves and his staff take great pride in the "visuals" they have conceived. When the governor presented state funds to support construction of a performing arts center in Philadelphia, they arranged to have a crane lift an enormous check on cue from the excavated construction site. To mark the opening of a new baseball stadium in Pittsburgh, Ridge held a tailgate party that produced pictures of him rubbing elbows with construction workers. And when dignitaries gathered to celebrate their success in luring a European company to reopen the closed naval shipyard in Philadelphia, Ridge upstaged then-Vice President Al Gore by driving a bulldozer through a wall slated for demolition. "Tim exemplifies the ability to translate the governor's positions into events," says an admiring Tony May, who served as an aide to two former governors.
When it comes to television coverage, Pennsylvania leaves nothing to chance. The governor has his own state television production agency, Commonwealth Media Services, which regularly feeds tapes of his activities by satellite to stations all around the state. This emphasis on television serves at least two purposes. First, for better or for worse, most Pennsylvanians get their news from television, not newspapers. In addition, the satellite feeds enable Ridge to leapfrog the skeptical and adversarial press corps in the Capitol. "When I want to get a message out for Governor Ridge, the last place I want to go is the Harrisburg press," says Reeves. "For them, the heart of all story-telling is conflict. I don't want to talk about conflict."
What's more, while newspaper editors frequently ignore or bury press releases, local television stations, which don't have their own reporters in the Capitol, usually lap up the images the state sends over, frequently running them without even telling viewers they were provided by the governor's office. "We've even had stations call us and ask us to cover certain events for them," boasts Sean Young, a Reeves deputy and former television reporter.
Packaged media events breed cynicism among some consumers, but Reeves insists that things aren't as staged as they sometimes appear. "When I was a reporter, I assumed everything that happened was part of some Machiavellian plan," he recalls. "In reality, sometimes stuff just happens." That may be so, but Reeves has made a science of shaping how stuff happens. His last business on Monday is to consider logistics for a speech Ridge will give that evening at a political fund-raiser in Wilkes-Barre. Such an event normally would be a ho-hum affair, but this one promises to be different: Angry protesters from a nearby community that suffered a disastrous gasoline spill plan to confront the governor. They want Ridge to declare their neighborhood a disaster area. Ridge says it doesn't meet federal criteria for such a declaration.
Reeves instructs deputy Tom Charles how to handle the situation. The hosts should be advised to let the demonstrators express themselves, but Charles should make sure they don't get a chance to confront the governor directly. To ensure that Ridge is safely inside before the protesters arrive, Charles will keep in touch with state police tracking the buses taking them to the event. Then he will contact local reporters and arrange one-on-one interviews with the governor, a process that will keep Ridge indoors until the protesters leave. It all works without a hitch. While the protesters get local television coverage, they fail to engineer a showdown with the governor, and Ridge receives at least as much air time to explain his position as they get to challenge it.
On Tuesday, even as Reeves prepares for the meeting with lawmakers, he is still devoting part of his attention to playing defense. State Auditor General Robert Casey Jr., son of the late governor and a leading Democrat, is planning to release a report faulting the Ridge administration's record in awarding state construction contracts to minority- and female-owned companies. Reeves, who learns about Casey's move from a reporter on Monday, is fighting back even before the document is issued. "It is a very troubling example," Reeves tells a journalist, "of the auditor general using the auditing power to try to get elected governor."
Reeves doesn't always counter-attack this way. Sometimes, he says, responding aggressively just draws attention to a criticism that otherwise might go unnoticed. "One of the smartest things we have done," he says, "is realize that a governor can take a punch."
Nevertheless, Reeves has delivered his share of body blows on Ridge's behalf. Earlier this year, when two Democratic lawmakers accused the governor of shortchanging fire fighters in his budget, the press secretary issued a press release asserting that the two were "either stunningly uninformed" or "purposefully lying." Another time, when the Harrisburg Patriot-News quoted the auditor general as saying Pennsylvania ranked low on job growth, Reeves called Casey "disingenuous" and asked him to stop "trying to build himself up by inaccurately tearing Pennsylvania down."
In the view of political pollster Terry Madonna, such press release warfare reflects Pennsylvania's overheated public relations environment: Not only does Ridge have his own extensive media operation, but so does virtually every state agency and the two party caucuses in each chamber of the legislature. "They're in reelection mode all the time," Madonna says.
Tuesday, however, is one of those days when Reeves has no time for dueling press releases. The legislature's eagerness for a pension increase has given Ridge leverage to push for two of his cherished education reforms--a proposed tax credit for corporations that donate funds to provide school scholarships, and a program to provide $500 grants to help families of underachieving students pay for after- school tutoring. The proposals are controversial because, as Reeves readily acknowledges, they represent a partial step in the direction of school vouchers. But the pension proposal is a political hot potato for lawmakers. The two sides need each other.
As the time for the meeting approaches, Reeves and Chief of Staff Campbell hammer out details of the governor's demands. While they know exactly what they want, they agree to keep their terms vague so that lawmakers don't feel backed into a corner. In a further show of strategic deference, Reeves invites the legislators to await the governor in Campbell's office, "so they don't have to sit out in the lobby and get pounded by reporters." Reeves himself stays away from the meeting. He fears legislators might construe his presence in the room as a threat to leak unflattering news about the session.
When a tentative accord is reached, however, the lawmakers ask Reeves to come in and negotiate the way he will describe it to the reporters. "I gave them my personal assurances that I won't be pejorative or gratuitous," Reeves says upon emerging from the session. In a series of personal interviews through the afternoon, he walks a fine line between promoting Ridge and avoiding inflammatory rhetoric. He says Ridge wants no part of the pension increase for himself or his staff, and is most eager to see that "there is something in this for Pennsylvania." But he also tells reporters that the lawmakers' demands are reasonable. "I just don't want to get into characterizing their reactions," he tells one reporter. To another, he says, "this is not, on either side, a grandstanding relationship."
Reeves doesn't disclose the central role he played in developing the governor's strategy on the pension and school reform issues. But he does make clear that he knows exactly what happened in the meeting. Several times he goes off the record to explain the maneuvering. At one point, he explains that the governor refused an offer to sweeten his own pension because he didn't want to give the lawmakers "leverage." Reeves confides to another reporter that the governor's aides outlined Ridge's position to the lawmakers the night before the meeting so they wouldn't be taken by surprise. "Off the record," he adds, "the reaction this morning was much better than it had been last night."
It will take another week to nail down the details, but in the end the lawmakers get a 50 percent increase in their pensions and Reeves is able to issue a press release--hyperbolic, according to critics-- hailing "historic reforms for Pennsylvania's schools." But when the deal is reached, even though it marks the end of a serious logjam and decides how millions of dollars in state funds will be spent, television isn't interested in this story. Reeves doesn't summon his staff to invent "visuals." All of the calls that come in asking about the high-level meeting are from print reporters.
In some ways, the print people seem like orphans in the new media world. Their influence has been sharply reduced by television. Their editors often are more interested in local than in state news. Their monopoly over information about government has been dissipated by such new media creations as the Pennsylvania Cable Network (Pennsylvania's version of C-SPAN) and Capitolwire.com, an Internet news service that provides exhaustive coverage of government in Pennsylvania and four other states. And their once-cozy ties to policy makers have given way to a more arm's-length relationship--a result, perhaps, of faster turnover in the Capitol press corps, its increased professionalism, post-Watergate ethics and the more open and competitive media environment.
Even so, the print reporters continue to pride themselves on uncovering the inside wrangling, the nuts and bolts of Capitol politics. This passion creates an affinity between them and Reeves. Campbell, the governor's chief of staff, says the time Reeves spends with these old-fashioned newspaper hounds is crucial to the administration. "Very little will be said on TV about the pension issue, but the mood in this building will be set by how the papers cover what happened," he explains.
Reeves, for his part, revels in these interviews, which allow him to exercise his twin roles as policy insider and public spokesman simultaneously. For all his emphasis on television, these reporters, his former colleagues, are still his soul mates. Still full of nervous energy after a half dozen interviews, Reeves leans back in his chair and repeatedly bounces a ball high off the wall of his office as he rapidly talks into his phone. "Some of my strongest and most persevering relationships," he smiles during a brief respite between calls, "are with my old buddies down in the press room."
