Repainting Statehouses Blue (Page 2)

But whatever their politics, governors have proven to be good bets when voters are perceived to be looking for change. Since FDR, former governors Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have been the only Democrats who have defeated Republican Presidents.

Governors are not merely potential presidential contenders, however. They also have a hand in determining how federal electoral contests turn out. Control of statehouses gives a party organizational and structural advantages in everything from the drawing of district lines for Congressional seats to presidential politics, as was illustrated to the dismay of Democrats by Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2000 and Ohio Governor Bob Taft in 2004. That's one of the reasons Democrats have been frustrated by their relatively weak position in the states in recent years.

In the early 1990s the Democrats controlled thirty governorships, but after the Republican landslide of 1994, they were down to just nineteen. The comeback has been slow, hindered in particular by the party's weakening position in the formerly "solid" South. Today, Democrats control only twenty-two governorships. But most of this fall's thirty-six gubernatorial elections appear to be trending Democratic. Polls suggest that disenchantment with Bush in particular and Republican rule in general, along with ethics scandals in Ohio and several other states, has soured voters on Republican incumbents and candidates in open seats outside the South. In addition to Spitzer's expected win in New York, a state that fell to the Republicans in 1994, Democratic prospects appear to be good in the currently Republican-led states of Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio. Even with Democratic incumbents looking vulnerable in a couple of Midwestern states that have been rocked by the auto industry's decline--Michigan and Wisconsin--the November 7 elections could well give the Democrats the upper hand in the states for the first time in a dozen years.

If that happens, the party will not merely have a better balance sheet; it will have a list of fresh new leaders. While Spitzer, as Governor of New York, will get more attention than most, he may have to share it with the likes of Massachusetts's Deval Patrick, the former NAACP attorney who ran the Justice Department's civil rights division under President Clinton, and Nevada's Dina Titus, a college professor and author turned legislator, both of whom are serious contenders for the top jobs in their states. Patrick, who entered the Democratic primary contest as a virtual unknown, secured the backing of progressives with his strong support for the marriage rights of lesbians and gays, his ardent opposition to the death penalty, his sympathy for immigrants and his backing of a minimum-wage hike and healthcare for all. He then built a highly effective field operation, run by veteran civil rights and social justice activists, that easily beat the campaigns of the state attorney general and a free-spending millionaire in the September 19 primary. Titus, who appears on her campaign website holding a Save Red Rock Canyon picket sign, is an environmentalist who has led fights for smart-growth solutions in the booming Las Vegas area. She highlights her pro-choice position. And she welcomes support from the increasingly powerful labor unions in one of several Western states where changing demographics and shifting moods are creating openings for Democrats.

Titus is in a nasty contest with Republican Congressman Jim Gibbons, who decries her liberal legislative record and dismisses her as "Dina Taxes." But Gibbons, like other GOP House members seeking governorships this year, has been hampered by his ties to Bush. And the Nevada Republican has had a tough time uniting his own partisans: So far, outgoing Republican Governor Kenny Guinn has refused to endorse Gibbons over Titus, while Guinn's son, a prominent businessman, is backing the Democrat.

Republican divisions are also on display in the President's home state of Texas, where Bush's successor as governor, Rick Perry, finds himself challenged not just by Democrat Chris Bell but by a prominent Republican. State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the mother of former White House spokesman Scott McClellan, recently jumped party lines to run as an independent. The most colorful candidate in the Texas contest is another independent, country singer and author Kinky Friedman, who is radical enough to propose committing the oil state to a renewable-energy future. Friedman's "clean energy and clean government" campaign has caught fire; he's at 23 percent in the polls to Perry's 35 percent, and a televised debate in which the wisecracking Friedman is likely to shine is yet to come. Friedman's a long way from the statehouse, but he's running better in the polls than wrestler turned Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura was at the same point in 1998. In the still unlikely event that Friedman wins, the spotlight will be his. But the better bet is that, come November, attention will turn to the headline-friendly Spitzer--and, if the voting favors them, Patrick and Titus--along with the prospect that Democratic governors will again have both the authority and the star power to play a critical role in defining the policies and the politics of their party and the nation.

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