• You need to know that your President will calmly and confidently lift you up in a crisis. During the massive emergency of Hurricane Katrina, when local, state, and federal governments were in melt-down, I stepped forward and directed the rescue and relief of 75,000 victims. Our island of success in a sea of failure was one of the reasons Time magazine named me one of America's five best governors.
• I will remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and restore it to Cabinet status, so that the Director reports directly to me. My FEMA Director will have sterling credentials, including extensive, hands-on experience in disaster response.
• I will reassess, tighten, and strengthen the focus and mission of the Department of Homeland Security. When the Department was formed, it brought together 180,000 people from 22 agencies, and its size and structure have proven to be unwieldy and inefficient.
• I will address the many unresolved issues from 9/11, such as the security of our ports and our chemical plants. I will not allow the federal government to pre-empt stricter state standards enacted for your protection.

You need to know that your President will calmly and confidentlylift you up in a crisis. During the sudden and massive emergency ofHurricane Katrina, I conceived and directed the rescue and relief of75,000 people. As Governor, I had dealt with severe ice storms andtornadoes and other emergencies within Arkansas, but Katrina was amajor national disaster, one of the worst in our history. The scale andscope of that undertaking was the type of challenge I will face asPresident, and I met that challenge. Even though these people weredisplaced by a hurricane, the results were the same as if Al Qaeda hadblown up the levees, so it was experience relevant to coping with aterrorist attack as well.

Given the massive incompetence at all levels of government, itdidn't take much for anybody to look good during Katrina, merecompetence would have made me and the people of Arkansas look likeheroes. But I never settle for competence, I demand excellence, andthat's what we achieved. We had plenty of state facilities, likearmories, that we could have used - big, cavernous, impersonal places -but to me that wasn't housing people, that was warehousing them. Inlooking for alternatives, I thought of our church camps and scoutcamps, which had just closed for the season, and I invited theirleaders to my office to ask if they would re-open for us. Not a singleone said no. They gave me the keys to their kingdom.

Over that Labor Day weekend, we raised an army of volunteers, and wehad folks making up beds and sorting clothes and chopping vegetablesand grilling meat. I'll never forget the mountains of toys and diapers,the flats of bottled water as far as the eye could see. The stream ofbuses was endless, but we were ready for them, ready with a hug and ateddy bear, a hot shower, a new wardrobe, an inviting buffet. I had aclear vision of how I wanted to welcome and care for these people: theywere beyond hungry and thirsty and dirty and exhausted, they had beentraumatized and dehumanized, treated like packages bouncing around aUPS truck, and we brought them back to life.

When Congress put FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security, theymoved its Director too far down the food chain. I will restore FEMA toCabinet status, so that the Director reports directly to me. My FEMADirector will have sterling credentials, the leadership and managementskills required by a cabinet-level job, including extensive, hands-onexperience in disaster response.

I will reassess, tighten, and strengthen the focus and mission ofthe Department of Homeland Security. When the Department was formed, itbrought together 180,000 people from 22 agencies, combining tasks asdiverse and unrelated as the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Servicefrom the Agriculture Department and the Nuclear Incident Response Teamfrom the Energy Department. Its size and structure have proven to beunwieldy and inefficient. We need to create a leaner structure with apassionate esprit de corps dedicated to identifying threats and foilingattacks.

I will address the many security issues still unresolved after 9/11,such as the security of our ports and our chemical plants. If stateschoose even tougher standards to protect their people, I will respecttheir authority and not allow the federal government to pre-empt thosestandards. When New Jersey passed standards for its chemical plants,lobbyists for the chemical companies tried to get Congress to pass weakfederal legislation for these plants and to pre-empt New Jersey fromenforcing its stricter standards. I will always fight for you, not thelobbyists.

I have been tested, and I have proven my ability to providecreative, decisive, and effective leadership during a majorcatastrophe. My crisis management ability is one of the reasons Timemagazine named me one of America's five best governors.