Janet Napolitano

It seems like she's out of the running, but my sentimental favorite for VP is Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano who's got a compelling personality and a solid substantive record for a politician who's had success winning statewide three times in a conservative state. Napolitano is well-profiled by The American Prospect's Dana Goldstein who emphasized Napolitano's role as a party-builder in difficult circumstances.

Dana thinks this won't be Napolitano's last high-profile job, and I certainly hope she's write. If the Vice Presidency is out of the question, she seems like she'd be an excellent choice for Attorney-General and also a logical candidate to replace John McCain in the Senate whenever he vacates that seat.

Comments

you hope she's write?

Posted by joe | July 11, 2008 9:08 AM

When you've got a black man running, you aren't going to double down with a pussy basher.

Posted by Ambinder's Fat Beating Heart | July 11, 2008 9:10 AM

Well, we might as well continue the tradition of going butch at AG.

But I'd rather see someone like Rachel Maddow get it.

Posted by lampwick | July 11, 2008 9:11 AM

Being too lazy to check your posts for garden-variety typos is one thing. But writing "write" instead of "right" is on a whole new level, don't ya think?

Posted by Patrick | July 11, 2008 9:16 AM

and I certainly hope she's write.

Now you're just mocking us.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 11, 2008 9:16 AM

I certainly hope she's write.

Do you use speech-recognition software to draft your blog posts? It would explain a lot.

Posted by Just Dropping By | July 11, 2008 9:23 AM

Joe, Patrick, SomeCallMeTim, Just Dropping By,

Get a life guys! Otherwise provide a link to your own 20 daily blog posts so we can be typo trolls, too. Mock MY's ideas if you must but give up the juvenile comment's about his spelling, etc.

Sheeesh!

P.S.: It's also really brave to snipe from behind a pseudonym

Posted by Scott Ferguson | July 11, 2008 9:45 AM

Thanks for the post. As a former AZ-dweller, I thought she should be the Veep choice as well. She's a great consensus-builder, wildly popular even among Republicans, and has loads of experience with the immigration docket. Hopefully, we'll see her in the Senate.
I LUV Janet!

Posted by LIJ | July 11, 2008 9:45 AM

Substituting "write" for "right" is not a typo, Scott.

Posted by Freddie | July 11, 2008 9:51 AM

...and I certainly hope she's write.

Atrocious. I've never commented on your spelling or grammar before, but this is goddamn awful.

You should title a blog post, "Righting about the write".

Posted by Dismayed Liberal | July 11, 2008 9:55 AM

The whining in the comment thread makes me ashamed to be a liberal.

Posted by WillieStyle | July 11, 2008 10:17 AM

I think the killer is that she's from McCain's home state, so really cannot help Obama out there. She might be somewhat attractive in the rest of the Southwest, but if that is what Obama is going for, he's better with Richardson. Not that I don't like Napolitano.

My fav is Sebelius, though.

Posted by Charles | July 11, 2008 10:41 AM

I don't really buy the home-state argument. Is Obama really limited to VPs who would make the difference in their home (swing) state?

Posted by Jonathan Lundell | July 11, 2008 10:55 AM

she's very impressive, but let's not make her AG. we very much need someone to take a look at and to reorder the priorities of our federal criminal justice system, and a former prosecutor isn't going to do that.

Posted by big bad wolf | July 11, 2008 11:04 AM

Get a life guys!

Get a grip. Or tear your eyes from the image of Yglesias's newly bare visage on your monitor and loosen it, as the case may be. People having been teasing Yglesias about his homonym troubles in comments from time immemorial.

P.S.: It's also really brave to snipe from behind a pseudonym

Ah, the search for courage in a comments section. Do I smell the husky musk of Kommando-ism?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 11, 2008 11:05 AM

Ever seen her give a speech? I saw just one, and it was awesomely dull. Maybe that wasn't typical -- anyone know?

Posted by AlanSF | July 11, 2008 11:35 AM

Ever seen her give a speech? I saw just one, and it was awesomely dull. Maybe that wasn't typical -- anyone know?

Posted by AlanSF | July 11, 2008 11:39 AM

I was chatting with AZ AG Terry Goddard a couple of days ago, and he certainly was of the opinion that McCain's being from here had nixed Janet's VP chances. As for her chances at a Cabinet position, one thing nobody's mentioned is that AZ doesn't have a LtGov - if the Gov resigns then SecSt takes over, and the current SecSt is an incompetent partisan conservative Rep.
In response to AlanSF - I would call Janet an interesting rather than inspiring speaker - good command of the issues, but certainly rhetorically underwhelming. She is, however, fascinating in one-on-one conversation.
(Disclaimer - I'm sounding like a partisan dem, but I'm not, I'm waaay left of the Dem party, and don't usually like politicians as people at all. However both JN and TG have impressed me as intelligent, thoughtful folks.)

Posted by The Sophist | July 11, 2008 11:46 AM

Ever seen her give a speech? I saw just one, and it was awesomely dull. Maybe that wasn't typical -- anyone know?

Posted by AlanSF | July 11, 2008 11:56 AM

As an Arizonan, I wouldn't say she's 'wildly popular' with Republicans. But she is popular and she does a good job. She's always come across to me as honest, pragmatic and realistic. She isn't an inspiring speaker, unless you're inspired by a politician who speaks plainly, honestly and knows what they're talking about.

That said, the big knock on her, and I have no idea if it's true nor do I personally care, is that she's a lesbian. That's the big joke among the Napolitano-haters out here.

So, you won't get a Black candidate with a Lesbian VP running for the White House anytime soon. And the fact that she's from AZ, same as McCain, also kills that plan. AND... as someone already mentioned, the job of GUV in AZ would then be taken by an incompetent GOP party hack, as we have in our current Sec of State.

Posted by Adam | July 11, 2008 12:07 PM

Why wait for McCain to vacate? She consistently beats him in the "most popular Arizona politician" poll. McCain v. Napolitano would be a heck of a Senate race in 2010, and my money's on Janet.

Posted by Adam | July 11, 2008 12:11 PM

Um, I'm the Adam that posted about 2010, not the Adam that posted about Janet's alleged lesbianism. (Can't a single lady have a butch haircut these days?)

Posted by Adam (Pittsburgh) | July 11, 2008 12:16 PM

Um, I'm the Adam that posted about the Lesbian thing. And yeah a single lady can have a butch haircut these days.

But not if she's a politician on the national stage and expects the Republicans to not smear her in every way possible. Perhaps the GOP wouldn't make up lies about her if she was a VP candidate. I don't know, maybe they'd turn over a new leaf, you can ask Obama about that the next time you see him at your local Madrassa or Al Qaeda meeting. Or even as McCain if you see him running around with his illegitimate children in S. Carolina. If I recall correctly, the whole GAY thing is a big mobilizer for the wacko religious right and they just love to believe anything that helps them feel superior to us mortals and right with God. Hence, no VP slot for Janet, though she'd be good at the job, in my opinion.

As for running for Senate and ousting McCain.... that sounds like just the right idea for her.

Posted by Adam (Mesa) | July 11, 2008 12:30 PM

I suppose she's now missed her chance to marry Charlie Crist.

Posted by jlw | July 11, 2008 1:56 PM

I must say Matt, the fact that you don't proofread your posts is starting to get very annoying. The post are generally not very long and if you let them set for 10 minutes and then re-read them before posting I bet you could catch the vast majority of the mistakes. You are, afterall, getting paid to be a writer.

Posted by Bajsa | July 11, 2008 2:50 PM

Hey, fucktards! I post under my real name, unlike most of you punks.

Yglesias, I'm through fooling around with you!

FIX THE GODDAMN SERVER!

I don't give a shit about your typos and bad grammar, even though I know it reflects both your poor education and your total lack of interest in this blog except as a way to get paid for doing nothing.

But having to scroll through fifteen duplicate posts in every fucking thread just makes you look like a moron as well as an uneducated loser.

Get off your fat ass and call your bosses and complain about the fucking server. The Atlantic as a media organization should be utterly embarrassed about running this blog the way it does, even if you are too stupid to be.

Christ, what a lame...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 11, 2008 6:20 PM

She was pro-war, she was pro-surge.

Posted by Luke | July 12, 2008 9:06 AM

Thanks for the post. As a former AZ-dweller, I thought she should be the Veep choice as well. She's a great consensus-builder, wildly popular even among Republicans, and has loads of experience with the immigration docket. Hopefully, we'll see her in the Senate.
I LUV Janet!

This isn't true. First, she beat Matt Salmon, the Republican candidate for Governor in 2002 by 10,000 votes. That was after 8 years of corrupt Republican Fife Symington and ineffective/moderate Republican Janet Hull, mind you, that should've demoralized the Republican base.

She won in 2006 in any easy victory over a terrible Republican candidate, Len Munsil, on the strength of two things: first, the Arizona economy was going gangbusters, with a strong housing market. And, second, the Arizona Republican Party is a joke, and horribly split between anti-immigration social conservatives and pro-immigration fiscal conservative/business conservatives. They put up Munsil, who was a joke of a candidate, and only previous experience was running a far right social conservative lobbying group.

Napolitano is now facing the largest budget deficit in part because she has grown spending by 50 percent, twice the rate of population growth in Arizona, since being in office, and in part because the Arizona economy has been hard hit from a terrible housing market.

Second, Napolitano is regarded in-state by people who see her on television regularly as having virtually no charisma.

That said, she is very effective as a day-to-day politician who commands a strong position in her party, and has been able to force a very conservative legislature into accepting her budget proposals and her legislative agenda.

I just don't get what her appeal is on a national level. She's got Janet Reno level of personality.

Posted by Joe Strummer | July 12, 2008 5:17 PM