Ten Questions with Fred Malek

Recently, Virginia Virtucon had the chance to sit down and interview RPV Finance Chairman Fred Malek on a variety of topics. A transcript of that interview follows.

Jim Riley - Thank you for joining us here at Virginia Virtucon, Mr. Malek.  It is truly an honor to have this opportunity to speak with you.  You have certainly led an incredible life – West Point graduate, Green Beret in Vietnam, corporate executive with Marriott and Northwest Airlines, high-ranking government official, advisor to several Republican presidents and now a financier.  Out of everything you have done, what is the one thing you are most proud of in your life?

 Fred Malek - When you look back at it, and if you’ve been through a number of careers, a lot of experiences and you add it all up, what I’m most proud of is my family.  I’ve got a great wife who has led the way in a lot of charitable activities, two fine kids and three wonderful grandchildren.  I’m proud as heck of them and what they’re doing. That is my greatest source of pride.  If I had to characterize it in terms of my career, it is kind of hard to pick one thing out, but I have always endeavored to do exactly what I said I would do – be true to my word and have the courage to choose what the West Point motto says, “Choose the harder right versus the easier wrong.”  That is something that has been important to me.  And third, the opportunity to give something back.

 Jim Riley - I know that you and your wife are very interested in charity work.  Which charities are you involved with these days?  What causes are out there that our blog readers might want to consider supporting? 

­Fred Malek - We’ve been very supportive of cancer prevention and research and also education.  There are probably others that we should be getting into, but those are the two that we have been the most involved in.  My wife has led in board memberships and we have generously supported through donations organizations like the American Friends of Cancer Research where my wife Marlene is president.  She is also on the board of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In the education area, my alma mater is the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and I’ve even named my firm after the founder of the modern West Point – Thayer – Colonel Thayer.  I love going up to West Point, being involved with the cadets, and contributing to their activities.  There is the Malek Tennis Center at West Point and the O’Meara, Malek, Dawkins Strength Development Center at West Point – both of which give me a great source of pride.  We have made a major contribution to Marymount University, which is where my wife graduated, and she is vice chairman of the board of directors there. 

Jim Riley - You recently were tapped as the Finance Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.  Given your background, I can understand why.  What are the biggest challenges you see facing the party from this perspective?  How successful do you think Virginia Democrats have been in trying to remake their image as more business friendly? ­­

Fred Malek - We have taken some real blows here in the state of Virginia in the Republican Party.  We have a state that has drifted, to the left due to an unpopular war, an unfortunate gaffe by our senatorial candidate, Senator Allen, and a fairly popular Democrat in Governor Mark Warner and now Warner II with Tim Kaine.  So, we have a lot of challenges here.  The biggest challenge I think is to rally our people in the face of these setbacks and get the GOP message of smaller government and less taxes across on a consistent basis and to stick to our conservative principles while at the same time ensuring the receptivity to the views of everyone else.  You know, we are the party of Lincoln and we are a party that must be tolerant and take into account all points of view, but by the same token stick to our principles.  It’s a pretty tough thing to do, but if we can do it consistently, then I think that we can bring it back.     

Jim Riley - Along these same lines, what is the RPV planning to do to support those areas that are traditionally Republican in voting habits, but have voted increasingly Democratic in recent statewide elections, especially in the exurbs of Northern Virginia such as Prince William and Stafford counties?  Was it a faulty messenger or a problem with the message itself in those instances? ­­

Fred Malek - Well first, the thing that you need more than anything else is strong candidates.  We have strong candidates for the upcoming elections this November in the state senate and assembly.  But we do need to do a better job of developing and espousing a central message for the party.  Downstate, you’ve got a more conservative bent to the overall electorate whereas Northern Virginia has moderated considerably.  So you need a message that crosses both of these and brings them together.  Traditionally, we have stood for less government and less taxes and more choice by the individual in terms of how they spend their funds.  These are very good themes and if you combine that in ’08 with some strong statewide candidates, a strong candidate for the U.S. Senate as well as a strong person for the top of the ticket, we should do okay.  The reason I’m in there doing this is because I felt that we had a real challenge here unless the Republican Party of Virginia can rebuild, work hard on voter identification and voter registration, and getting our voters to the polls.  Do what we can do to unify and bring a common message to bear.  Unless we can do those things, it can be very tough and we could have a Democrat marching to victory through our state for the presidential, and I along with many others don’t want to see that happen.    

Jim Riley - During recent elections, we have seen the Republican Party here in Virginia fractured over the issue of taxes, usually with the fault line running right between the House and Senate.  This year there appears to be more of a joint effort between Republicans in the two chambers.  Do you see Republican conservatives and moderates currently uniting around any particular issues that will have mass appeal to voters? ­­

Fred Malek – The issues I’ve mentioned are the pivotal issues that rally Republicans.  The Democrats want to spend more, they want to tax more.  They’ve got to tax more in order to spend.  We don’t believe in that as a party.  We believe in less taxes, we believe in smaller government.  Those are two good rallying cries that any Republican would espouse.    I think we need to find those things that we definitely agree on.  I don’t think we should be getting too deeply into the social issues because that does not appeal across the board and cuts against the grain here in Northern Virginia.  We all have our individual points of view and individual races in the assembly and senate can emphasize them, but statewide I think we need to stick to the broader themes that have unified appeal.   

Jim Riley - In just a short time, you have worked with two RPV chairmen, Ed Gillespie and John Hager.  On the surface, these two men seem to be quite different.  Is that in fact the case?  If so, do you see each one fulfilling a separate and distinct role in the growth of the party? ­­

Fred Malek - Well, they are very different personalities and they’re different generations.  Ed Gillespie is 45 years old and John Hager is 70 years old, so obviously they’re different generations, but they share a common view of what needs to be done.  What Ed did was he got people reignited, excited and brought them together.  We have doubled so far this year the amount of fundraising,  we have a good cash balance, and we’re going to go into the fall elections with a good war chest here where we can play a meaningful role in terms of voter identification, registration and get-out-the-vote.  John Hager’s big advantage is he really knows the state, he’s a statewide elected official, he was Lt. Governor and he’s spending full-time on this.  Like Ed, he’s a unifier, somebody who is going to bring people together.  So we’ve had two very able and solid leaders here and the transition is working quite well.  John has given up a lot to do this.  He’s been Assistant Secretary of Education, and he gave up a full-time job and a salary seeking no compensation whatsoever.  He’s doing this because he really believes in it and he has a commitment to getting something done. 

Jim Riley - Turning to the larger national political scene, how do Republicans hold onto the White House and recapture Congress in 2008?  What are the key messages that our candidates need to be hitting upon? ­­

Fred Malek - When you think about this in generic terms and you look at the situation today, look at the polls of the number of people around the country who call themselves or favor Democrats versus Republicans and you look at the popularity of the president and the war, one would generally conclude that it should be a Democratic year.  However, there’s a couple of things we have going for us, which makes this a very even race in my opinion.  One, when you get two people in a race, get two people in a ring, the best person is going to come out and be recognized by the American people.  I think that we have, by far, the better candidates.  Of the three leading Democratic candidates, not a one has had a single day of executive leadership experience – they’ve not had one day of any kind of leadership experience.  Serving in the senate is not a leadership position.  Our people have.  We have very strong experience and very strong candidates.  What we’re going to need more than anything else to ensure that we do well in the House and Senate races in ’08 is to have a very strong person at the top of the ticket.  We have to do well at the top of the ticket to bring home the Senate and the House. 

There are two key issues, Jim.  The two issues are terrorism and the economy.  Now, not too many people are talking about the economy right now because it has been good and they perceive it to be continuing strong.  But we’ve seen a few little cracks here with the housing market debacle that we’ve seen occurring over the past several months.  We saw today that the unemployment numbers came up in the job creation numbers.  We actually lost 4,000 jobs in the month of August as opposed to a projected gain.  So the economy is going to need some attention and some work, and I think that is going to be a key issue.  The second issue is the war, but not the war in Iraq, it’s the War on Terror.  We had a seminal issue in the 20^th century and it was the battle with communism and totalitarianism.  Thanks to leaders like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, we prevailed in that war – the Berlin Wall came down, communism collapsed around the world, and the Soviet Union disintegrated. Now we have another overriding issue, and it is the overriding issue of the 21^st century – the battle against Islamic fundamentalism and extremism whose members are dedicated to destroying our way of life.  Our candidate needs to establish this larger predicate, outline this larger vision and spell out more clearly the consequences of failure.  Iraq is but one component, an important component, but one component in this overall battle.  I think that if we frame it in that way the American people have to decide who is best able to prevail in this battle with Islamic extremism.  I think that leads to the Republicans. 

Jim Riley - Switching gears a bit, you recently started blogging yourself.  What inspired you to join the blogosphere?  Do you have any blogs that you like to read? ­­

Fred Malek - Well, I enjoy writing.  I’m very late to the party in being competent in the use of a computer frankly, but even being late to the party you can’t help but realize the power and reach of the blogosphere.  At the same time I’ve got a few things on my mind that I wanted to share and invite reaction to.  I’m not sure that anyone cares, but writing these few blogs, every couple of weeks – helps to crystallize my thoughts on various issues and is helpful to me.  Occasionally I get some reactions that are useful.  I read an awful lot of political blogs because it is kind of fun and interesting to see what people are saying, what their thoughts are and I learn a lot from them, but am not sure there are any favorites except yours. 

Jim Riley - Obviously the big news of the past week here in Virginia politics has been the announcement by Senator Warner to not seek reelection next year.  What are your thoughts on this race?  Do you have a preferred candidate?  Would you ever consider throwing your own hat in the ring for this or any other race? ­­

Fred Malek - Well, I’ll answer the last first.  No, I would not throw my hat in the race.  It is something I love supporting but I think I’m better as a supporter than I am as a candidate and would have no desire to go through that process frankly.  But the Warner decision is a real blow.  It is not unexpected.  A lot of us thought that it was more likely than not to happen, and it is going to make it tougher to hold that seat.  But we have some very strong qualified candidates who are expected to run, particularly former Gov. Gilmore and Congressman Davis.  Both of them have superb records and are highly qualified and can win.  So yes, Warner’s decision is a blow, but we can hold that seat. 

Jim Riley - Finally, given that you once co-owned the Texas Rangers with President Bush and were part of a group that bid on the Washington Nationals, I couldn’t let this interview end without a question on baseball.  As we wrap up the final few weeks of the regular season, which two teams do you think will make it to the World Series?  Who do you like to win it all? 

­­Fred Malek - I’d have to pick the two teams with the best records in baseball right now – the Red Sox in the American League and the New York Mets in the National League.  The Red Sox have a slightly better record, but both teams have very good records and if that is who emerges it could be a great Series.  The Mets have wonderful balance – look at the tables of the leaders in hits and RBIs and homeruns and pitching, you don’t see any Mets on there.  They’ve got great balance, they’ve got across the board good players and good pitching.  The Red Sox also have good balance with a few more superstars, but I think that the advantage goes to the Red Sox because they have more consistent pitching.  If I had to make a pick right now, and of course anything can happen in baseball, which makes it such a great sport, I’d say the Red Sox in seven over the Mets. 

Jim Riley - Thank you again for joining us here today, Mr. Malek.  We appreciate you taking time out from your busy schedule to share with us your thoughts on politics, business and most importantly, baseball. ­­

Fred Malek - My distinct pleasure.

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