orth Dakota governor Ed Schafer traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to urge passage of the China trade bill. Schafer, who is head of the Republican Governors Association, will retire as governor at the end of this year after two full terms in office. On Wednesday, he speaks at the Heritage Foundation about trade with China.

He sat down with NR on Tuesday to discuss his views on free trade, Internet taxes, and George W. Bush's running mate. Here are excerpts:

On the trade-relations bill with China: "North Dakota's exports to China have mushroomed in just the last few years. This is important to my state. I've been trying to have other governors deal with members of their congressional delegation who are still undecided about the bill."

On taxing e-commerce: "I vetoed an Internet tax my Republican legislature passed for me last year. The Internet of our future is the railroad of our past. When the United States wanted to develop the West, it gave land to the railroads, and they connected our society. It connected people to people. It connected goods and services. The Internet is going to change our society as much as the railroads did. We ought to be giving it free land, so to speak."

On the proposed plan to reconfigure the GOP primaries: "I come from a small state, but I like a system of regional primaries better than one in which all the small states go first. It's good to get candidates tuned into local issues, such as agriculture, mining, and fishing. A lot of people will just skip North Dakota and its three electoral votes. Even if all the small states go first, they'll still skip North Dakota. I don't oppose the plan. I don't think it hurts North Dakota. But I don't think it gives us any advantages, either."

On Bush's running mate: "I'm an Elizabeth Dole champion. She's got good executive-branch administrative experience — something a lot of people don't have. She's personable. She has a spark, a warmth. I like that she's female — although that's way down the list because she has so many good qualities that have nothing to do with gender. But that's an advantage for her. She's my first choice. My second choice would be a governor from the Northeast or Midwest, such as Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, George Pataki of New York, or John Engler of Michigan. My third choice would be someone like governor Marc Racicot of Montana, a real Westerner. That would be interesting."

On his own political future: "I don't know. I'm not running for re-election, even though I'm not term-limited. I don't have much of an interest on the legislative side. There are always school boards and church leadership. Public service should not be a career. I believe we need a freshness in government. The longer I'm there, the less I'm in touch with the people."

On whether he'd run for an open Senate seat: "I'm not interested in that at all."

Gore Roulette
These days, Vice President says allowing Americans to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in private-retirement accounts is "stock-market roulette." But he sang a different tune last year, as the Cato Institute pointed out today in a memo. On January 27, 1999, Gore said: "One of the single most important, salient facts that jumped out at everybody is that over any 10-year period in American history, returns on equities are just significantly higher than these other returns."