Having recently retired after serving as California’s secretary of education with the Schwarzenegger administration, Riordan now focuses on philanthropy—the Riordan Foundation has, to date, made more than $30 million in grants to schools across the nation. He also remains defiantly committed to moderate conservatism, an increasingly embattled stance in today’s right-leaning GOP. At his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, Riordan sat down with

For their part, urban Republicans aren’t going to waste their money on somebody who is really conservative because they know those candidates don’t stand a chance. So essentially, Republican voters who live in places like Los Angeles and New York get more pragmatic and they support the person who is less liberal. It’s kind of strange, but when Republicans finally decide they are going to support me, they suddenly see only my conservative side. I’ve attended fund-raisers with Republican groups and there were introductions made in which people said, “He won’t raise taxes a penny!” and “He’ll lower the cost of government!”

You criticize union power, yet you supported Antonio Villaraigosa [current mayor of L.A.] in the recent mayoral election. He is an unapologetic liberal and a former union organizer.

Well, he is somewhat apologetic because now he has ambitions for higher office. I didn’t support him in the primaries, but you have to pick somebody in the final race, and his opponent [incumbent James Hahn] was in the pockets of the liberals and the unions. Villaraigosa has surrounded himself with some strong conservatives, among others. Plus, he has energy and magnetism, and he realizes that if he wants to go far politically, he will have to come back toward the middle. Hopefully, he is getting the message that the middle road is fiscally, socially and morally the best for everybody.

Are American voters more moderate than the extremes that are currently shouting at each other?

I think they are. Roger Ailes, who is now the head of Fox News, was President Reagan’s image maker. He once wrote that making an audience like you is the most important thing a politician can achieve when giving a speech. The voters in this country don’t want someone who is going to beat up on the opposition all the time; they want a father, and a father is not going to beat up his children. Ailes’ theory works. And, by the way, Ronald Reagan was not an arch conservative.

Yet arch conservatism has worked well for the GOP in recent years. How will party moderates contribute to this success in the future?

Again, I wish we could use some word other than moderate. When it comes to actually governing, I was a lot tougher fiscally than almost any other Republican I have seen in California, or Washington for that matter. They may be more conservative than I am on social or ideological issues, but not on the tough matter of actually going in and cutting down the budget.

In light of soaring trade and budget deficits, has the Republican Party abandoned the hard work of fiscal conservatism?

That’s a very good question. We’re going to be trillions in debt, mostly to the Chinese, and someday they are going to call in that debt, stop buying our bonds and move on to a stronger currency. Something has to be done to address the trade imbalance, but you can’t do it by restricting imports. That would be devastating. You would probably have to do it by lowering the standard of living within a reasonable range. But what politician is going to do that?

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, former Republican Senator John C. Danforth wrote, “As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.”

We’re spending much more time talking about any number of trivial issues than we are discussing the balance of trade, the budget deficit, etc. [C. Northcote] Parkinson, the English economist—and my favorite writer—said something to the effect that the amount of time spent by a large group talking about a matter is inverse to the importance of the matter.

Which is more pressing to you, as a Republican and an affluent individual: tax relief or budget deficits?

I think that’s a Hobson’s choice, or [laughs] maybe a Sophie’s choice, but I’m against both. I’m not an ideologue on taxes. I’m wealthy, and when people raise taxes, they hit me first. But if that money were going to be well used, then fine, I would be in favor of it. For instance, in education, I would support much higher taxes if the system weren’t so dysfunctional.

When you ran for governor, certain conservative Republicans attacked you as being a liberal, which certainly is not your record.

I’ve been pro death penalty for a long time. I ran the criminal justice initiative in the state, which should have marked me as an arch conservative. However, somebody found a quote from me saying, “If I were a judge, I think I’d have a hard time condemning somebody to death,” which I had said casually, long before I was in politics. All of a sudden, I was branded as a liberal who opposed the death penalty. The arch conservatives make up around 10 percent of Republicans, but they control the primaries, and everything is ideology with them.

Is there any way to bridge the ideological chasms among all groups—conservatives, moderates and liberals—on hot-button social issues?

G.K. Chesterton said that all theology can be wrapped up in two sentences: The first is, “In God’s eyes, I’m extremely important.” The second is, “In God’s eyes, everyone else is just as important as I am.” So whether you are saint or sinner, gay, straight or whatever, in God’s eyes you are important. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with you, it just means that I have to respect the fact that you are important.

Some liberals say that Bill Clinton was the greatest moderate Republican president the country ever had.

I think they are right. It is intriguing that two people who were more-or-less disgraced in office—Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton—were very good presidents. Say what you want about character, but what Clinton did with welfare was great for the country, and he was the only Democrat who could have pulled that off. People who are off welfare now are much more likely to be happy and successful. Who wants to be a victim the rest of their lives?

Have you ever considered becoming a Clinton-type Democrat?

No. The liberal Democrats who control the primaries don’t want me. For that matter, the ultra-conservative Republicans who control their primaries don’t really want me, either.

Photograph by Gary Moss.