Human Services News

Brookings Institution:

There's another place to look for clues about the direction of American politics, and that is in a group of not-so-tight gubernatorial races.

Less covered than the tensest, most partisan congressional fights, the likely blowout wins of popular governors in both parties, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger's race in California and Janet Napolitano's in Arizona, propose a story line as suggestive and deserving of note as the high-profile Iraq referendums and party-line slugfests.

In these gubernatorial blowouts, the easy re-election of nimble, energetic and pragmatic governors in key states marks the success of nonideological problem solving in an era that may be growing tired of ideological partisanship.

In Arizona, Democrat Janet Napolitano is up by more than 30 points in her re-election bid, having appealed broadly in her first term with an eclectic set of pragmatic, nonideological, sometimes bold stances.

Thanks to her, all-day kindergarten is a reality, as are collaborative efforts to promote the state's competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy.

And yet, Napolitano has also balanced the budget without raising taxes; favored smaller, targeted tax cuts rather than broad, budget-busting ones; and attacked government waste and inefficiency.

Schwarzenegger has risen in popularity by setting aside more doctrinaire Republican initiatives and instead joining eight Northeastern governors in a greenhouse-gas-reduction initiative; winning approval for a $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to conduct stem-cell research; increasing the minimum wage; joining Democratic legislative leaders in supporting four infrastructure-development initiatives to rebuild California's roads, schools and communities; and continuing to push for redistricting reform.

True, the pragmatists' cakewalks lack the excitement and hoopla of the congressional horse races.