News that the former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, is considering a run for governor of New York is a positive development for the Republican Party in the state. Not that New York lacks for other well-qualified candidates already in the Republican camp. Both John Faso and Randy Daniels would make fine governors, in our view. And not that the Democrats lack for potential nominees. The Nassau County executive, Thomas Suozzi, is a promising politician, and even Eliot Spitzer might be tolerable were he only to turn his energy and intelligence to restoring growth-oriented policies to his party’s platform, rather than harassing successful businessmen.

Yet none has what Mr. Weld brings, actual, on-the-job executive experience as the successful governor of a high-tax state that was lagging in job creation until he took over and cut taxes. Even a 1996 City Journal article by Jeff Jacoby, a largely negative appraisal of Mr. Weld’s tenure in Massachusetts, gave Mr. Weld grudging credit for controlling health-care costs, privatizing and contracting out some state services, and cutting the capital gains tax. Wrote Mr. Jacoby, “Weld has reined in Medicaid spending, the biggest line-item in the budget, to an annual growth rate of less than 3 percent – a phenomenal change from Dukakis’s last term, when it was skyrocketing 20 percent a year.”

He continued: “In essence, the Weld administration transformed Medicaid into a giant HMO, using the state’s financial clout to win lower prices from hospitals and nursing homes. A private firm took over mental health care and drug treatment. For the first time, the system concentrated on treating Medicaid patients in the right setting – steering them away from gold-plated teaching hospitals, for example, when a community hospital would be more appropriate.”

New York is facing runaway Medicaid costs that consume huge portions of the state and local budgets. Partly as a consequence of this, New York is saddled with state and local taxes that are among the nation’s highest and therefore most deadly to job creation. So a governor with a mind for controlling health-care costs and cutting tax rates might be just what’s needed.

It’s a long time until the 2006 election. It may be that Mr. Weld decides that he’d prefer the lifestyle of a private equity investor and sometime novelist to that of a politician. And it may be that in the end Mr. Suozzi or Mr. Daniels or Mr. Faso is the more appealing candidate. But it’s hard to imagine that Mr. Weld’s presence wouldn’t enliven the debate over the issues. Immigrants from Massachusetts have a way succeeding in New York, as attested by Charles A. Dana, who came in to take over The New York Sun after the Civil War, not to mention Sumner Redstone, Michael Bloomberg, Robert F. Kennedy and, of course, Babe Ruth.