So the big political news over the weekend was that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has taken herself out of the running for any possible cabinet position in the Obama administration.
Yawn.
Now Sebelius says she wants to focus on Kansas' massive budget
challenges rather than joining the Obama administration. That's a noble
sentiment. But I'm inclined to believe the state Republicans' theory that she was never in serious consideration. Over the weekend, Kansas party chair Kris Kobach told the Star: "She simply may not have brought enough to the table." (This just in from the Kansas GOP: Kobach won't seek another term as chair. More on that later.)
Actually, I'd be willing to lay down money that she was never a real possibility for vice president, either. She added nothing to the ticket -- no foreign policy experience, no electoral votes -- except for estrogen. That was important back in those days after Hillary lost the nomination, so my guess is that the Obama team was simply making a show out of vetting Sebelius for VP. That might have placated Clinton supporters -- and then, everything changed after Sarah Palin entered the race and it became clear that estrogen wasn't enough.
If she wants to live up to the national political mythology surrounding her, she might also want to focus on building a deep-bench Democratic Party in Kansas. As it stands now, her strongest possible successor may be Lt. Governor Mark Parkinson, a former Republican. He may be a good guy, but I doubt he thrills Kansas Democrats.
And, as my colleague Justin Kendall points out, it might have actually helped Kansas Democrats if Sebelius had gotten out of Dodge -- that would have given Parkinson a couple of years to build up his brand before facing a likely challenge from Sen. Sam Brownback or Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh.
As it stands now, I'm starting to think the secret to Sebelius' supposedly great success as a Democratic governor in a bright red state is simply this: Don't do anything controversial -- such as, say, taking the lead in stopping controversial coal-fired power plants in the western part of the state. Instead, just stand in the middle and look good. -- C.J. Janovy
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I am directly saying that Mrs. Sebelius appears to have properly distanced herself from this neoClintonism and I dig her for it.
I am not sure how the rest of it went down, but one hasta wonder if park bench suicide has been replaced with puppetiziation?
let me get this straight trevor. the clintons arranged for the defeat of hillary so that they could get this puppet of theirs in and rule thru him. brilliant!
What C.J. calls bringing �nothing� to the ticket, some might see as the real across the aisle experience that is required to be a Democrat governor in such a red state. Bringing Mrs. Sebelius to Washington would have been real change to believe in and not just another Clinton retread. Since the former appears to merely have been an election ploy, and the later is the real direction, Mrs. Sebelius simply didn�t meet the requirements.
Anyway, I am hopeful that it was Mrs. Sebelius� wisdom to see that Obama is just a Clinton puppet as her reason for stepping aside from the �opportunity�. It makes me think more highly of her and gives hope that after we gut the next four years of a puppetocracy, that Mrs. Sebelius can have another shot.
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