Q: Pundits are suggesting your book is a prelude to a 2008 presidential race? Is that true? And if you were president, what national health goals or strategies would you endorse?
A: I haven't made any decisions about my future plans. I still have a year and half left in my term and this summer I begin serving as the chairman of the National Governors Assn., where our theme over the next year is improving the nation's health. From a policy standpoint, I think it's important to give people incentives to choose good behavior rather than penalize anyone.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
