You know who the Republicans really ought to be running for governor? Pierce County Executive Doug Sutherland.

OK, so he’s an announced candidate for Commissioner of Public Lands, for which he is way overqualified, but better over than under. This guy is short on pizzazz but long on credentials for the experience it takes to manage a business like the state of Washington. If we were hiring a governor, instead of electing one, we’d leap at the prospect.

At 62, he’s put in nearly eight years running one of the biggest counties in the state, eight years before that as mayor of Tacoma, three years as city manager of SeaTac. He has experience in business both as employee (Boeing’s industrial engineering section) and employer (Tacoma Tent and Awning Co.), one of the few politicians who knows what it means to meet a payroll.

As one of his onetime peers, an ex-mayor himself, told me when I asked what he thought of Doug Sutherland, “I never met him, but he must have been doing something right. They elected him every time he ran.”

The something he did right included helping broker the historic land settlement with the Puyallup Indian tribe, restoration of the Union Station and the Pantages Theatre, construction of the Tacoma Dome and establishment of the University of Washington Tacoma branch.

His politics are moderate — he’s a former state president of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, the faction that broke off from the regular party when it was taken over by the Christian Right. Mainstreamers emphasize the big tent. They don’t care about your sexual orientation or your stand on abortion, believing those are concerns for individuals, not party platforms.

So if Sutherland is such a hot prospect, why hasn’t he made the state scene before now? He has. He just didn’t go the distance. In 1996, he was in the early pack of Republicans panting after Gov. Mike Lowry’s job, but he took a look at the crowd, which included House Majority Leader Dale Foreman, Senate Minority Leader Dan McDonald, Sen. Pam Roach of Auburn and former Sen. Ellen Craswell of Poulsbo, and pulled out.

In 1997, when the national GOP was frantically trying to persuade U.S. Reps. Jennifer Dunn, George Nethercutt or Rick White to take on Sen. Patty Murray in 1998 to avoid fielding Rep. Linda Smith as the Republican nominee, Sutherland announced he had a better chance of beating Murray than Smith did. The nationals ignored him. He sank back out of sight.

As desperate as they were, why didn’t they glom onto him? I don’t know, unless they felt he didn’t have the glamour of an incumbent congress member. He’s not colorful, to be sure. just one of those solid, stolid, no-monkey-business, local government guys who doesn’t pop any sweat when the state Auditor comes around.

When he surfaced this year as a public lands commissioner candidate, I asked him if he was serious this time. I was tired of writing about his candidacies only to have him among the missing at filing time. “DAMNED serious!” he said. I believe him. He’s term limited out of the executive job in December.

“I could go back into the private sector, have a little fun and make some money,” he said, “or take on the challenge of this individual,” this individual being the formidable Jennifer Belcher, who is charged with managing state lands to produce revenue for school construction but who is considered more partial to tree huggers than would-be school builders.

“I have been told incredible tales of the arrogance and attitude of the Department of Natural Resources and the Commissioner,” Sutherland said. “I went to a lunch on how to deal with the Endangered Species Act in Puget Sound where we were told that, regardless of what we do, any decision has to be acceptable to DNR and the Commissioner. That’s not the way to negotiate.”

I’ve heard those tales too. Sutherland probably has a good shot at her. He’ll be OK in the job. I just think his talents could be put to better use a little higher on the ballot.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.).