Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Ross Douthat on DHS Secretary and Former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano:
Now pause a moment and consider: Why on earth did she ever take this job?

Foreclosures in the US:




This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

I say this as someone who was hopping mad at the decision to make Napolitano DHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius HHS Secretary, and, to a lesser extent, Tom Vilsack Ag Secretary. At the time it all seemed crazy. But right now, incumbent governors across the country are in a tremendous state of flux because of the terrible state of the economy. The Obama administration is a big fan of not getting their knickers in a twist over the latest ginned up controversy, so I expect that this, too, shall pass.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Other than a few states (TN and some of New England) if you reverse the colors that could be the electoral map. I wouldn't want to draw too broad a conclusion, but having your neighbors lose their home (or losing your own) probably doesn't make people too fond of keeping the president.

Blue said...

Great post!

It's silly to think that, for the forseeable future, any elections will be determined by orthoganol conditions in deep red or deep blue states. Anything strong enough to make California vote for a republican, is a world in which OH, FL, and other swing states already chose Republican long ago.

I would note your post doesn't say that Janet was governor of Arizona. A number of people I tried to show this clever post to as an illustration, were confused without this information.

Nick Beaudrot said...

Good point! I usually try to put that sort of information in the post. It's there now.

matt w said...

Extremely late post, but while I completely agree about Sebelius and the Concrete Blonde, the logic doesn't apply to Vilsack -- he stopped being governor in 2006 so wasn't going to be vulnerable to the backlash against incumbent governors.