What do super blue states NY, CA, MN, & MA have in common? GOP governors.

[Bucky]

The apparent near melt down of the Democrats in California--losing first to a failed Austrian artist who knows how to work a crowd, and now about to lose the San Fran mayor's slot to a Green--has me thinking pessimistically about the party in general.

Why is it that the states that we tell ourselves are the most Democratic in the union--California, New York, Minnesota, Hawaii, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts--have chosen to elect Republican governors? How is it that we're so out of touch with the voters? Is the Democratic approach to governance somehow allergic to success?

I think part of the answer is that the Democrats truly do represent the more chaotic aspects of small-d democracy. This goes to the very reason why the Founding Fathers said that there needs to be a leadership partly insulated from the fickleness of popular passions so that there can be effective leadership. So how come we can represent the people, but tend to buckle more often than not when it comes to getting the people to follow our leadership?

[Snow]

1. And Nebraska, the original red, has this habit of electing democrats -

as governor and following that as senator - truly weird - in the mid 90's, Omaha came within a whisker of electing a very liberal black woman lawyer as mayor. Very strange. You should have seen the voting maps for that one!

[Bucky]

2. Gov of Nebraska's not as important as NY, Cali, or other big states

This is a big deal because governors is where we get our presidents from. This matters. With a very troubling incumbant in the White House desperately in need of beating, the only governor we can muster to run is from Vermont.

The biggest states all have GOP executive--NY, California, Texas, Florida. The only big states with Democratic governors are Pennsylvania and Illinois--and in those two states the incumbent's only been in office since January '03, having replaced long-time discredited Republican regimes.

When it comes time to recruit a big name governor to run for president in a very important election, we got nobody available. That makes our job of beating Bush harder. Plus these states all have enough organizational heft from the governors' offices to make sure that Democrats have to expend resources in states that we should be able to count on winning.

There's a chink in our armor and I get the feeling the DUers all just want to ignore it and hope that it doesn't matter once we go into battle.

[w4rma]

3. What should be done? (n/t)

[hobbes159]

4. MA Democratic party never has good candidates

I think they're pretty corrupt. GWB could learn some lessons from Mass. on how to give jobs to your political cronies -- "patronage" jobs are a dime a dozen here. The Dem candidate last election was a waste of good organ donor parts.

[HawkerHurricane]

5. California suffers

from having its gubertorial election in off years; the fanatics all come out and we get the darndest governors because of it. Pete Wilson, Dukemajion(sp), Ronnie Reagan, Jerry Brown...
Arnie won by being famous with no record for comparison; Davis lost by being backstabbed by Bustamonte, being blamed for things he couldn't help, and having no detectable charisma.