And the Littlest State Shall Lead the Way on Covid-19

Sometimes, when I’m particularly discouraged about how the U.S. is losing the battle against the coronavirus, I daydream about how much better off we’d be if Gina Raimondo, the hard-charging two-term governor of Rhode Island, were the one leading the nation’s response to the pandemic instead of Mike Pence. She has wrestled Covid-19 to the ground in her state and demonstrated ideas and resolve that could help guide the rest of the country in moving forward.

As a native Rhode Islander, I had long admired her penchant for solving difficult problems. Raimondo, the co-founder of Rhode Island’s first venture capital firm, entered politics in 2010 when she ran for state treasurer. Why treasurer? Because, she once told me, she felt that her negotiating and business skills might allow her help fix the public employee pension system, which was both woefully underfunded and taking an increasing portion of the state’s budget. She was right. In 2012, her pension-reform plan passed the legislature with bipartisan support and helped pave the way to her run for governor.