United States Governors

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Color me unsurprised, the TT is already blaming Gillespie for losing:

So if the Republican from Virginia lost because he didn't "embrace" Trump (EWW!), what's the excuse for the Republican from New Jersey?  No tweets about her....

[47of74]

Illinois Governor Rauner is facing a reich wing primary challenge

Quote

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has so infuriated some far-right members of his Republican party with his actions on abortion, immigration and other issues that he’s now facing a primary challenge as he seeks a second term.

GOP state Rep. Jeanne Ives, a staunch social and fiscal conservative from suburban Chicago, is raising money and circulating petitions to get on the March ballot. She says Rauner pledged during the 2014 campaign to stand up for taxpayers and not press a social agenda but instead “ended up putting in the social and economic agenda of the Chicago Democrat bosses.”

Ives and others from the party’s right flank say Rauner’s greatest offenses were his signing of measures that provide state health insurance and Medicaid coverage for abortions and that limit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. He also supported billions in subsidies for power giant Exelon Corp.

Rauner said in the spring that he would veto the abortion bill, but he signed it months later, saying he believes all women should have the same health care options.

Good. 

[GrumpyGran]

5 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Illinois Governor Rauner is facing a reich wing primary challenge

Good. 

We need a Pacman emoji.

[47of74]

16 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

We need a Pacman emoji.

Complete with the Atari 2600 Pac Man dies sound effect;

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, this is rich. Ed Gillespie, who resoundingly lost the gubernatorial election in Virginia last month, partially because he decided to adopt a "Trumpian" approach, is now all butthurt: "After 9-point loss in Va., Gillespie says he would not encourage others to run for office because of ‘poisonous atmosphere’"

Spoiler

Ed Gillespie, who has been at the forefront of GOP politics for decades, said he wouldn’t encourage others to run for office in his first interview since losing the heated Virginia governor’s race last month.

During an 80-minute appearance on “The Axe Files” podcast with Democratic strategist David Axelrod, Gillespie lamented polarization in politics, the challenges of running with Donald Trump in the White House and how journalists cover campaigns. He lost to Democrat Ralph Northam by nine percentage points in a wave election that also saw significant Democratic gains in the state legislature.

Gillespie said running for governor this year was much more challenging than when he challenged U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) in 2014 — and nearly won.

“It’s a much more poisonous atmosphere. I don’t know if there’s causality or correlation, I leave that for others to determine,” Gillespie said. “But I could not honestly say to someone that I like and think is a halfway decent human being, ‘Yeah, you ought to run for office’.”

Still, Gillespie said the campaign made him a better person after traveling across the commonwealth meeting Virginians.

Gillespie, 56, told Axelrod that he won’t seek elective office again, but was eyeing opportunities in the not-for-profit sector and would help other GOP candidates in Virginia. Before he was a candidate, Gillespie cycled through Republican operative positions — including as chair of the Republican National Committee under George W. Bush, as a lobbyist and as a corporate consultant.

The interview followed Gillespie’s first public appearance since the election at a Virginia GOP retreat, where he praised Republicans for helping drive up turnout.

The interview with Axelrod is streaming online at this link, and available to download as a podcast.

Here are other take-aways from Gillespie’s interview:

Trump was the first president since Richard Nixon who didn’t campaign for his party’s gubernatorial nominee in Virginia.

The Gillespie campaign didn’t ask, and the White House didn’t offer, Gillespie said. The Republican candidate says he concluded that a rally with Trump would nationalize a race he wanted focused on Virginia issues.

In retrospect, he’s not sure if it’s possible to run independently from the president.

“It’s a tough tight rope to walk,” said Gillespie. “And it may not be walkable, to be honest with you.”

Ultimately, Vice President Pence rallied with Gillespie in deep-red southwest Virginia, while Trump limited his involvement to tweets and robo-calls.

Gillespie conceded Trump was a factor in the surge of Democratic turnout in November. Trump took the opposite lesson, blasting Gillespie on election night before all the votes were even counted and blaming him for failing to fully embrace Trump.

Gillespie largely avoided criticizing the president during his podcast appearance — but objected to Trump’s rhetoric on Confederate statues.

Virginia’s memorials to Confederate leaders became a gubernatorial campaign issue after August, when a violent protest by white nationalists in around Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue left one dead. Northam said he would advocate for the removal of Confederate monuments. Although Northam later backtracked, Gillespie seized on those comments for campaign ads.

But he blanched at President Trump’s apparent response to his ads: tweeting that Gillespie “might even save our great statues/heritage!”

“I never talked about defending heritage because that’s not how I see the issue or view it,” said Gillespie. “But when the president tweeted about it himself, he tweeted about heritage and that injected it into the discussion in a way I would not and never did...But that tweet contributed to the, again, it polarized it even more.”

While Gillespie’s public comments on Confederate statues explored the nuances of the debate and encouraged adding historical context, his campaign ads were typically more blunt.

“I’m for keeping them up, and he’s for taking them down,” he said in one ad that aired 211 times in the Roanoke market two weeks before election.

It wasn’t only the president who injected heritage into the debate: The Republican Party of Virginia accused Northam of turning his back on his heritage by supporting the removal of Confederate statues in social media posts that were later deleted.

Gillespie faced a firestorm of criticism during the campaign for ads that critics called racially incendiary and misleading.

Several sought to link MS-13 gang violence to Northam’s vote against a ban on sanctuary cities, even though Virginia doesn’t have sanctuary cities that choose not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. And a final ad push highlighted the case of a sex offender whose his rights were temporarily restored under a sweeping voter rights restoration order that Northam supports. Northam, a pediatrician, responded with an ad that said Gillespie’s suggestion that he would tolerate anyone hurting a child “despicable.”

Gillespie told Axelrod he ran those ads because message testing suggested it would help him win. But he said they were not the issues he wanted to focus on.

“Are those the issues I would have chosen to run on as opposed to the tax cuts and frankly even the criminal justice reform innovative proposals I put forward?” said Gillespie. “That’s where I rather the race have been about, but those weren’t what was indicating was going to move numbers and help me win.”

Gillespie said his campaign message about Virginia’s economy lagging behind didn’t resonate as well in the prosperous D.C. suburbs — which is why he had to focus on public safety to sway votes.

“The issue that looked like it was going to move voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia was public safety,” he said. “Clearly, (the MS-13 ads) didn’t work. Did it create a backlash? I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”

Gillespie’s interview came a day before Alabama voters cast ballots in a U.S. Senate race that has turned into something of a referendum on the party’s future.

GOP candidate Roy Moore is one of the party’s most controversial figures after several women said he pursued them while they were teenagers. Moore is opposed by some Republicans in Congress and supported by President Trump.

Gillespie wouldn’t say that Moore should be expelled from the Senate if elected, but said the National Republican Senate Committee had the right approach in severing fundraising ties with him. The Republican National Committee resumed its support after Trump endorsed Moore.

“From a political perspective, I don’t think the long-term pain would be worth the short-term gain of the seat politically,” said Gillespie.

Later in the podcast, Gillespie suggested that the results in Alabama would test the strength of Trump’s ability to tap into voter frustrations.

“There’s a lot of people who feel like they are not just being disagreed with but they are being disdained,” Gillespie said. “People feel like they are being marginalized and demonized for having concerns by an elite that doesn't understand their concerns.”

This jerk had some of the most hateful and ugly ads I've ever seen on TV, and he whines about how the atmosphere is poisonous. Good grief.

[GrumpyGran]

35 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“There’s a lot of people who feel like they are not just being disagreed with but they are being disdained,” Gillespie said. “People feel like they are being marginalized and demonized for having concerns by an elite that doesn't understand their concerns.”

Who is he talking about here? Hmm. This was very interesting. So, he decides to run for governor at a very unfortunate time. This whole article, I think, is a very clear view of how Dumpy has poisoned the well for the Republican party.

But, ya' know, when you guiding principles are making wealthy people wealthier, it's going to be hard. They literally buy other people. Who get in your way. So sad. Bigly sad.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘If we don’t run, then we won’t achieve.’ Why a record number of women are eyeing a run for governor."

Spoiler

EAST LANSING, Mich. — At a time when nearly every aspect of politics feels suffused by issues involving gender, the leading Democratic contender for Michigan governor makes a point of rarely mentioning hers.

“I talk about jobs,” former state Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer says. “I talk about education. I talk about making government work for people. That’s really the dinner-table issues that I hear from Michiganders in every part of our state.”

Whitmer might not bring it up, but she represents what probably will be one of the 2018 elections’ most significant trends: More women than ever are in the mix to potentially lead their states as governor — traditionally one of the hardest reaches for female candidates and a position now held by just half a dozen women.

This year, at least 79 women — 49 Democrats and 30 Republicans — are running for governor or seriously considering it as filing deadlines approach, according to a tally by the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

The numbers are more than double what they were four years ago and on track to surpass the record 34 women who ran for governor in 1994. In Ohio, there are three women running for governor in the Democratic primary and one in the Republican. In Georgia, both Democratic candidates are named Stacey.

Their candidacies are testing long-held attitudes about women and leadership. Voters tended to see women as “well suited for legislatures, where it’s collaborative,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the center. “It runs up against the stereotype to see women as the chief decider, the place where the buck stops.”

The Trump era has seen a new burst of political activism among women, beginning the day after the inauguration, when they turned out by the tens of thousands in cities and towns across the nation, for what is thought to have been among the largest single-day political demonstration in U.S. history.

Female candidates are stepping up at every level of the ballot. Of the 15 seats that Democrats picked up in the Virginia House of Delegates, 11 were won by women — and the number could grow, depending on how the continuing dispute over another race is settled.

There is a real possibility in Michigan that Democrats may offer female nominees for every statewide elected office — something that doesn’t worry Whitmer. In this environment, she said, “people look at that as an asset.”

The 46-year-old attorney declared her candidacy nearly a year ago. Michigan Democrats were still reeling from a presidential election that saw Donald Trump put the state in the GOP column for the first time in 28 years.

In 2015, term limits forced her out of the Michigan Senate after eight years. “I really thought I would go back to the private sector, but I’m looking around at the Michigan my kids are growing up in and I know we deserve better,” Whitmer said.

After seeing Trump win her state, “there is a sense that if we don’t run, then we won’t achieve,” she said. “We won’t have the communities, the states, the nation we want to live in and where we can raise our kids.”

She quickly established herself as the front-runner for the nomination, lining up a raft of establishment endorsements. Among those who took a pass on the race was Rep. Daniel Kildee, a three-term lawmaker from Flint.

Polls have her running about even in a general-election matchup with Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, the likely GOP nominee in the race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

Yet Whitmer remains largely unknown to most Michigan voters, nearly two-thirds of whom did not recognize her name in a recent Detroit Free Press survey.

Her campaign, though ahead in Democratic primary polls, still feels like a shoestring operation. It is headquartered over her dentist husband’s office in Lansing, and one recent day on the trail found Whitmer’s 15-year-old daughter chalking up driver’s education hours by ferrying the candidate to campaign events.

She sets aside 20 hours a week for “call time,” which is a nicer way to describe raising money, an aspect of campaigning in which many female candidates lag behind their male counterparts. She used to hate it, but “I’ve gotten more comfortable,” said Whitmer, who is being outraised by Schuette, as she hung up from collecting an additional $500. “If you don’t ask for money, people don’t think you are a serious candidate.”

Her candidacy comes at a moment of existential crisis for Democrats in Michigan. Some worry that Whitmer is too cautious and that she has not spelled out a detailed rationale for her candidacy. Those fears, too, draw comparisons to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost Michigan’s 2016 Democratic primary to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

To win, Whitmer will have to motivate African American voters in a way that Clinton failed to.

A recent listening session she held with several dozen grass-roots organizers in western Detroit erupted into a raucous argument over whether it is practical to push hard for liberal causes such as single-payer health care, a $15 minimum wage and racial justice. Some vented their anger over tainted drinking water in Flint and the crime that every year puts their city at or near the top of the FBI’s list of the nation’s most violent cities.

“We don’t have a backbone. We don’t have an agenda. We don’t have anything that people can stand on and say at least Democrats are for these three things, and we are allowing Republicans to wipe us out,” said Brenda Hill, whose 22-year-old son was killed in a 2009 shooting that remains unsolved.

“You’ve got to win first!” community activist Martin Tutwiler shouted from the back.

Whitmer tried to mediate with a warning: “If we don’t pull this together, we won’t be sitting here next cycle, because we’re going to be going extinct.”

Female candidates have also moved to the forefront in other statewide races there. In addition to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is running for reelection, candidates vying to be chosen by their party at an April convention include former Wayne State University law school dean Jocelyn Benson, thus far unopposed for Democratic nomination to be secretary of state, and lawyer Dana Nessel, who is running for attorney general.

Nessel created a provocative video that went viral as new sexual abuse scandals were making the headlines on a near-daily basis in November. She asked into the camera: “When you’re choosing Michigan’s next attorney general, ask yourself this: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis? I’d say so.”

Four years before there was such a movement, Whitmer had her own #MeToo moment. Arguing against a bill that would prevent insurance companies from making coverage of abortion a standard benefit on their policies, the Senate Democratic leader stood on the floor of the chamber and revealed something she had never told even her father — that she had been raped when she was a freshman at Michigan State University.

“The thought and the memory of that still haunts me. If this were law then and I had become pregnant I would not be able to have coverage because of this,” she told her colleagues. “How extreme, how extreme does this measure need to be?”

Her argument did not change a single vote, and the bill became law. But Whitmer said she heard from thousands of other women expressing support for her decision to make her story public.

But the politics of sexual misconduct may be tricky for Whitmer. Her Democratic opponents say that when Whitmer was working as an Ingham County prosecutor for six months in 2016, she was not aggressive enough in pursuing charges against former Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar for sexually abusing patients, including female gymnasts.

Whitmer insists the investigation was handled properly. Schuette, the attorney general who may well be Whitmer’s GOP opponent in November, prosecuted the state case. Nassar has also been sentenced to 60 years on federal child pornography charges.

But wealthy businessman Shri Thanedar, one of her three Democratic opponents, said Whitmer is vulnerable on the issue in the current climate, adding: “She should do a favor to the Democratic Party by withdrawing from the governor’s race because the Democrats cannot afford to lose the governorship in 2018.”

“There are really some big questions about whether she was willing to take a politically difficult stand that would have put a predator behind bars,” added physician Abdul El-Sayed, another Democratic contender.

Meanwhile, the battle lines are also being drawn for the fall election. Schuette rarely says Whitmer’s name but regularly blasts the state’s last Democratic governor. Jennifer Granholm’s popularity plummeted as she presided over the economic crisis that began a decade ago and hit Michigan as hard as any state in the country.

“We can’t go back to the Gran­holm era, which was a failed era,” Schuette said in an interview.

Whitmer often hears their names linked. “Lots of women candidates get compared to one another because there’s so few women in office and positions in corporate America,” she said.

At a fundraiser in Grand Rapids, she compared herself instead to former governor John Engler, a Republican, who like Whitmer led his party in the state Senate before running to be the state’s top official.

“Governor Granholm had all the right values but didn’t have the right background,” Whitmer said.

The small number of female governors currently in office reflects the additional hurdles faced by women seeking a state’s executive office, advocates for more female representation said.

“When a woman is running to be the CEO of her state, our research shows that voters need more evidence to believe that she is prepared to do the job than it takes for them to believe that of a man,” said Barbara Lee, a liberal philanthropist whose family foundation promotes women in politics. “People have become more comfortable with a woman at the table. They’re still not as comfortable having a woman in charge.”

Former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, noted that although she had run for other offices, “there was nowhere near the kind of spotlight and critique and constant coverage you get when you are running for governor. It was a constant revalidation of your credentials.”

Sebelius recalled a 2002 debate in which she was onstage with a half-dozen male candidates. Though she was one of only two who had experience in statewide office, an Associated Press report chose to focus on Sebelius’s open-toe shoes and the color of her nail polish.

The former Kansas governor said she is heartened by the number of women she sees running for the job in 2018 — including in her own state, where veteran state Sen. Laura Kelly jumped into the Democratic primary in mid-December and immediately became the favorite.

Increasingly, female candidates are citing their gender as an asset.

“I don’t back down,” Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), the first woman to chair the House Budget Committee, said in announcing her gubernatorial candidacy in August. “Maybe it’s because I grew up in a family where we had nothing, or maybe it’s because I was a single mom working the night shift as a nurse. It’s just how I’m wired.”

If female candidates are seeing new opportunity to reach for the top job in 2018, Whitmer said, they have other women to thank for it.

“In this cycle, the most surprising thing is how sustained the energy is, and the enthusiasm,” Whitmer said. “I was always a little concerned that maybe we’d get numbed to everything that’s happening, the enthusiasm would wane, and it hasn’t for a second. A lot of it is being organized by and sustained by women.”

Whether these efforts will translate into victories this year remains to be seen.

On a recent visit to a training center run by the Michigan Council of Carpenters and Millrights in Ferndale, union member Missy Kooiker told Whitmer that she knows a thing or two about breaking gender barriers. The first time Kooiker showed up at a meeting of her carpenters union local, one of the other members greeted her by saying, “Hi, Sunshine. Are you lost?”

Yet last fall, despite her union’s endorsement for another barrier-busting woman at the top of the ballot, Kooiker veered — and voted for Trump. This time around, she said, neither party can yet count on her vote: “I think I’m untrusting of the government as a whole.”

I hope we do end up with more female governors.

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘If we don’t run, then we won’t achieve.’ Why a record number of women are eyeing a run for governor."

  Reveal hidden contents

EAST LANSING, Mich. — At a time when nearly every aspect of politics feels suffused by issues involving gender, the leading Democratic contender for Michigan governor makes a point of rarely mentioning hers.

“I talk about jobs,” former state Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer says. “I talk about education. I talk about making government work for people. That’s really the dinner-table issues that I hear from Michiganders in every part of our state.”

Whitmer might not bring it up, but she represents what probably will be one of the 2018 elections’ most significant trends: More women than ever are in the mix to potentially lead their states as governor — traditionally one of the hardest reaches for female candidates and a position now held by just half a dozen women.

This year, at least 79 women — 49 Democrats and 30 Republicans — are running for governor or seriously considering it as filing deadlines approach, according to a tally by the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

The numbers are more than double what they were four years ago and on track to surpass the record 34 women who ran for governor in 1994. In Ohio, there are three women running for governor in the Democratic primary and one in the Republican. In Georgia, both Democratic candidates are named Stacey.

Their candidacies are testing long-held attitudes about women and leadership. Voters tended to see women as “well suited for legislatures, where it’s collaborative,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the center. “It runs up against the stereotype to see women as the chief decider, the place where the buck stops.”

The Trump era has seen a new burst of political activism among women, beginning the day after the inauguration, when they turned out by the tens of thousands in cities and towns across the nation, for what is thought to have been among the largest single-day political demonstration in U.S. history.

Female candidates are stepping up at every level of the ballot. Of the 15 seats that Democrats picked up in the Virginia House of Delegates, 11 were won by women — and the number could grow, depending on how the continuing dispute over another race is settled.

There is a real possibility in Michigan that Democrats may offer female nominees for every statewide elected office — something that doesn’t worry Whitmer. In this environment, she said, “people look at that as an asset.”

The 46-year-old attorney declared her candidacy nearly a year ago. Michigan Democrats were still reeling from a presidential election that saw Donald Trump put the state in the GOP column for the first time in 28 years.

In 2015, term limits forced her out of the Michigan Senate after eight years. “I really thought I would go back to the private sector, but I’m looking around at the Michigan my kids are growing up in and I know we deserve better,” Whitmer said.

After seeing Trump win her state, “there is a sense that if we don’t run, then we won’t achieve,” she said. “We won’t have the communities, the states, the nation we want to live in and where we can raise our kids.”

She quickly established herself as the front-runner for the nomination, lining up a raft of establishment endorsements. Among those who took a pass on the race was Rep. Daniel Kildee, a three-term lawmaker from Flint.

Polls have her running about even in a general-election matchup with Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, the likely GOP nominee in the race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

Yet Whitmer remains largely unknown to most Michigan voters, nearly two-thirds of whom did not recognize her name in a recent Detroit Free Press survey.

Her campaign, though ahead in Democratic primary polls, still feels like a shoestring operation. It is headquartered over her dentist husband’s office in Lansing, and one recent day on the trail found Whitmer’s 15-year-old daughter chalking up driver’s education hours by ferrying the candidate to campaign events.

She sets aside 20 hours a week for “call time,” which is a nicer way to describe raising money, an aspect of campaigning in which many female candidates lag behind their male counterparts. She used to hate it, but “I’ve gotten more comfortable,” said Whitmer, who is being outraised by Schuette, as she hung up from collecting an additional $500. “If you don’t ask for money, people don’t think you are a serious candidate.”

Her candidacy comes at a moment of existential crisis for Democrats in Michigan. Some worry that Whitmer is too cautious and that she has not spelled out a detailed rationale for her candidacy. Those fears, too, draw comparisons to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost Michigan’s 2016 Democratic primary to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

To win, Whitmer will have to motivate African American voters in a way that Clinton failed to.

A recent listening session she held with several dozen grass-roots organizers in western Detroit erupted into a raucous argument over whether it is practical to push hard for liberal causes such as single-payer health care, a $15 minimum wage and racial justice. Some vented their anger over tainted drinking water in Flint and the crime that every year puts their city at or near the top of the FBI’s list of the nation’s most violent cities.

“We don’t have a backbone. We don’t have an agenda. We don’t have anything that people can stand on and say at least Democrats are for these three things, and we are allowing Republicans to wipe us out,” said Brenda Hill, whose 22-year-old son was killed in a 2009 shooting that remains unsolved.

“You’ve got to win first!” community activist Martin Tutwiler shouted from the back.

Whitmer tried to mediate with a warning: “If we don’t pull this together, we won’t be sitting here next cycle, because we’re going to be going extinct.”

Female candidates have also moved to the forefront in other statewide races there. In addition to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is running for reelection, candidates vying to be chosen by their party at an April convention include former Wayne State University law school dean Jocelyn Benson, thus far unopposed for Democratic nomination to be secretary of state, and lawyer Dana Nessel, who is running for attorney general.

Nessel created a provocative video that went viral as new sexual abuse scandals were making the headlines on a near-daily basis in November. She asked into the camera: “When you’re choosing Michigan’s next attorney general, ask yourself this: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis? I’d say so.”

Four years before there was such a movement, Whitmer had her own #MeToo moment. Arguing against a bill that would prevent insurance companies from making coverage of abortion a standard benefit on their policies, the Senate Democratic leader stood on the floor of the chamber and revealed something she had never told even her father — that she had been raped when she was a freshman at Michigan State University.

“The thought and the memory of that still haunts me. If this were law then and I had become pregnant I would not be able to have coverage because of this,” she told her colleagues. “How extreme, how extreme does this measure need to be?”

Her argument did not change a single vote, and the bill became law. But Whitmer said she heard from thousands of other women expressing support for her decision to make her story public.

But the politics of sexual misconduct may be tricky for Whitmer. Her Democratic opponents say that when Whitmer was working as an Ingham County prosecutor for six months in 2016, she was not aggressive enough in pursuing charges against former Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar for sexually abusing patients, including female gymnasts.

Whitmer insists the investigation was handled properly. Schuette, the attorney general who may well be Whitmer’s GOP opponent in November, prosecuted the state case. Nassar has also been sentenced to 60 years on federal child pornography charges.

But wealthy businessman Shri Thanedar, one of her three Democratic opponents, said Whitmer is vulnerable on the issue in the current climate, adding: “She should do a favor to the Democratic Party by withdrawing from the governor’s race because the Democrats cannot afford to lose the governorship in 2018.”

“There are really some big questions about whether she was willing to take a politically difficult stand that would have put a predator behind bars,” added physician Abdul El-Sayed, another Democratic contender.

Meanwhile, the battle lines are also being drawn for the fall election. Schuette rarely says Whitmer’s name but regularly blasts the state’s last Democratic governor. Jennifer Granholm’s popularity plummeted as she presided over the economic crisis that began a decade ago and hit Michigan as hard as any state in the country.

“We can’t go back to the Gran­holm era, which was a failed era,” Schuette said in an interview.

Whitmer often hears their names linked. “Lots of women candidates get compared to one another because there’s so few women in office and positions in corporate America,” she said.

At a fundraiser in Grand Rapids, she compared herself instead to former governor John Engler, a Republican, who like Whitmer led his party in the state Senate before running to be the state’s top official.

“Governor Granholm had all the right values but didn’t have the right background,” Whitmer said.

The small number of female governors currently in office reflects the additional hurdles faced by women seeking a state’s executive office, advocates for more female representation said.

“When a woman is running to be the CEO of her state, our research shows that voters need more evidence to believe that she is prepared to do the job than it takes for them to believe that of a man,” said Barbara Lee, a liberal philanthropist whose family foundation promotes women in politics. “People have become more comfortable with a woman at the table. They’re still not as comfortable having a woman in charge.”

Former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, noted that although she had run for other offices, “there was nowhere near the kind of spotlight and critique and constant coverage you get when you are running for governor. It was a constant revalidation of your credentials.”

Sebelius recalled a 2002 debate in which she was onstage with a half-dozen male candidates. Though she was one of only two who had experience in statewide office, an Associated Press report chose to focus on Sebelius’s open-toe shoes and the color of her nail polish.

The former Kansas governor said she is heartened by the number of women she sees running for the job in 2018 — including in her own state, where veteran state Sen. Laura Kelly jumped into the Democratic primary in mid-December and immediately became the favorite.

Increasingly, female candidates are citing their gender as an asset.

“I don’t back down,” Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), the first woman to chair the House Budget Committee, said in announcing her gubernatorial candidacy in August. “Maybe it’s because I grew up in a family where we had nothing, or maybe it’s because I was a single mom working the night shift as a nurse. It’s just how I’m wired.”

If female candidates are seeing new opportunity to reach for the top job in 2018, Whitmer said, they have other women to thank for it.

“In this cycle, the most surprising thing is how sustained the energy is, and the enthusiasm,” Whitmer said. “I was always a little concerned that maybe we’d get numbed to everything that’s happening, the enthusiasm would wane, and it hasn’t for a second. A lot of it is being organized by and sustained by women.”

Whether these efforts will translate into victories this year remains to be seen.

On a recent visit to a training center run by the Michigan Council of Carpenters and Millrights in Ferndale, union member Missy Kooiker told Whitmer that she knows a thing or two about breaking gender barriers. The first time Kooiker showed up at a meeting of her carpenters union local, one of the other members greeted her by saying, “Hi, Sunshine. Are you lost?”

Yet last fall, despite her union’s endorsement for another barrier-busting woman at the top of the ballot, Kooiker veered — and voted for Trump. This time around, she said, neither party can yet count on her vote: “I think I’m untrusting of the government as a whole.”

I hope we do end up with more female governors.

This is exactly what we need- More women in governor's mansions. I hope at least one is successful enough as governor that she becomes a strong candidate for the White House and, hopefully, its future inhabitant.

[VixenToast]

43 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

This is exactly what we need- More women in governor's mansions. I hope at least one is successful enough as governor that she becomes a strong candidate for the White House and, hopefully, its future inhabitant.

There may be hope fore Nebraska. Here in this beautiful state of mine, almost everything is Republican. But especially the Governor. Bleck. But there is hope, a small one, and let me explain how difficult the task shall be:

I am volunteering for Krystal Gabel, who is 32 years old, normally an Independent, running for Governor as a Republican against Dicketts (because that's what he is here). She wasn't far left enough for the Democratic Party of Nebraska so they wouldn't endorse her, even though she is slightly left of center and left on social matters. So, she is running as a Republican, and apparently they don't have any hoops they are making her jump through. The hardest part is getting her name out there. She is funding this grassroots style, her Daddy isnt a millionaire, nor is she. And the other hard part is getting her more votes than Dicketts in the Republican Primary. We have to convince Democrats to change to Republicans just to vote in the Republican primary. Then Ricketts will be ousted, people can change back to their original parties, and Nebraska will vote between Democrat or a Left of center, Pro-choice Republican. Win-win right? Only if the Democrats enter a solo candidate. I doubt anyone would switch over if they wanted to vote in the  Democratic primary. How is the best way to do this? What do you suggest, my friends? 

Ricketts doesn't even take her seriously, which is a great detriment to him, as she has been active in local politics for a few years now. Last year she was a few hundred votes shy of being elected onto the board of MUD (I have no idea how to describe what that is, I'm really sorry, but it's a big thing in Omaha, it's like the power and gas company that is public and not private....y'all have that?). She is known by people throughout the state, just by the recreation/medicinal cannabis legalization petitions she has been gathering signatures for. Yes, petitions. Ricketts threw out our last. She spent the last half of 2017 campaigning in Nebraska for Governor, and has gained a small following. Hell, she is renting a tiny office she opened up today, still gathering sigs for the petition as well as campaign information, mostly geared toward showing people how easy it is to register to vote online and how easy it is to change party's affiliation as well, and how easy it is to switch back lol. 

I believe in this, I believe in her. I want change, she can do it, we can do it, yes we can. We will outsmart the Republicans, we will, if things fall into place. I hate hoping since 2016, but I hope nonetheless.

 

TL;DR Running an Indy as a Repub to try to beat Trumper Ricketts as Repub candidate and force Neb. into the choice of a Democrat or a Moderate for Governor in 2018. 

Edited January 3, 2018 by VixenToast
Damned ancient IPad onscreen keypad and it's love for the name Andy and its infuriating habit of putting periods in all the wrong places.

[GreyhoundFan]

8 hours ago, VixenToast said:

We have to convince Democrats to change to Republicans just to vote in the Republican primary. 

We're lucky in Virginia, we don't register by party. You can vote in either primary, but can only vote in one. Many of my Dem friends voted in the Repug primary to vote against Agent Orange. They then voted for Hillary in the general election.

[fraurosena]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

We're lucky in Virginia, we don't register by party. You can vote in either primary, but can only vote in one. Many of my Dem friends voted in the Repug primary to vote against Agent Orange. They then voted for Hillary in the general election.

I can’t wrap my head around the convoluted way you guys have to vote. Damn sight easier over here. You get your voter registration card in the mail, you go to your assigned voting place, give them the card, show your ID (passport, ID card or drivers licence), step into the booth, color the circle next to your candidate of choice, place your ballot in the box, and your done. No primaries, no party registration, no electoral college, and most importantly no voter suppression. I highly recommend it!

Edited January 4, 2018 by fraurosena

[VixenToast]

On 1/3/2018 at 7:32 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

We're lucky in Virginia, we don't register by party. You can vote in either primary, but can only vote in one. Many of my Dem friends voted in the Repug primary to vote against Agent Orange. They then voted for Hillary in the general election.

You've given me a glimmer of hope. One of my former teachers is uber democrat, she was even a Clinton delegate for the primary. If I can convince her of the necessity, perhaps she could help sway other big, deep pocketed die hard Democrats into changing party affiliation for just the primary. Gonna be hard, but I've convinced my mom, who had said she would become Republican over her dead body. It can sooooooo be done, I know it. Baby steps, though. Last day to change party and still vote in the Republican primary is April 28th, not much time, but enough.

Rufus bless this endeavor of tricking the Republicans. If she can supplant Dicketts (actually, feeling kinda Pricketts today), it could go either way. Either Repubs will vote party and unknowingly elect a progressive moderate, or they will splinter between her and a write-in and thus enable an unencumbered win for a Democrat. Can you imagine it?! 

[onekidanddone]

See I want to hate Hogan, but then he goes and does something like this and I start liking him.

https://wtop.com/maryland/2018/01/md-governor-lays-out-legislative-agenda-to-protect-crime-victims/

[onekidanddone]

Yo Lawrence, either switch parties or pack up and get the fuck out of Annapolis.

 Maryland’s election-year session shaping up to be ‘pretty volatile’

Quote

 

Maryland’s legislative session opens Wednesday with Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and the Democrats who control the General Assembly aiming to address federal policies that affect the state and lay the groundwork for what they hope will be big victories in November.

Key themes include tempering Baltimore City’s crime wave, battling over paid time off for sick workers, responding to changes in the U.S. tax code, creating a dedicated revenue source for Metro and possibly addressing what many women feel is a pervasive culture of sexual misconduct in Annapolis.

Maryland lawmakers historically have tried to avoid major conflicts during election years. But experts say 2018 will be an exception, with a popular Republican governor seeking reelection and Democrats, who hold strong majorities in both chambers, eager to chip away at Hogan’s approval ratings and resist the policies of President Trump.

“We have a divided state government and pretty unified opposition to Trump in the assembly,” said Todd Eberly, a political-science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “I suspect it’ll be a pretty volatile session.”

The partisan bickering could start early, with the legislature’s first major action expected to be a vote on whether to override Hogan’s 2017 veto of a measure that would require employers with at least 15 workers to offer five paid sick days a year.

During the Maryland Democratic Party’s pre-session luncheon Tuesday, House Economic Matters Committee Chair Dereck E. Davis (D-Prince George’s) said that lawmakers should override the veto and move on.

“There is nothing else to say,” he said. “We’ve had all the conversations, all the debates . . . it’s time to get it done.”

Hogan and his fellow Republicans call the bill a job-killer and say that a verification provision requested by businesses could violate employee rights. The governor has proposed an alternate plan that would apply to businesses with at least 25 employees, be phased in over three years and drop the verification provision.

A second veto fight will involve the governor’s rejection of a 2017 bill to prohibit the state’s colleges and universities from asking about criminal history on applications. Overriding Hogan’s veto of the measure is a top priority of Maryland’s powerful Legislative Black Caucus; Republicans say the proposal is too restrictive and would jeopardize campus safety.

Democrats and Republicans may also find themselves at odds over how to address crime in Baltimore, a top priority for both parties. Hogan has pushed stricter sentencing guidelines for repeat violent offenders and those who commit felonies using firearms, while Democrats in the Baltimore delegation have focused on closing loopholes that allow legally purchased guns to flow into the hands of criminals, as well as on providing additional services for high-risk youths and ex-offenders, and boosting police resources.

“Using law enforcement alone will never solve the problem of violence,” said Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City). “It’s a necessary, but not sufficient, part of a plan. We’re trying to take a comprehensive look.”

Taxes will loom large over the legislature this year, with many Maryland residents expected to see higher state and federal bills because Congress recently scaled back personal exemptions and deductions — including for state, local and property taxes. State fiscal analysts are still calculating how much additional revenue the changes will provide for Maryland’s government.

Hogan, estimating that the amount will be “hundreds of millions of dollars” a year, has promised legislation to return all of the money to taxpayers, but Democrats say the state may need the revenue if Congress and Trump trim support for health care and other programs.

“Before you start returning money to taxpayers, you have to make sure your fiscal house is in order,” said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert).

Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery), vice chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee and the only lawmaker running for governor in a crowded Democratic primary, expressed similar concerns. He said Hogan is “trying to make it look as though he’s doing something to help average Marylanders” but is actually taking part in “a Republican game to give more money to corporations and the wealthiest people.”

Democratic leaders are talking about setting aside an extra $100 million in the state budget in case Congress does not extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers low-income youth and is due to run out of money in April.

“We’re not going to leave here without funding for the CHIP program,” said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel).

Madaleno and the six other Democrats seeking to run against Hogan will seek every opportunity during the 90-day session to tie him to Trump and paint his positions as extreme.

“Democrats look to Virginia and see what happens when their base is motivated, and they’ll want to make sure their base is motivated in Maryland,” Eberly said, referring to the party’s sweeping victories in November.

In Annapolis, both parties are looking for ways to stabilize the state’s individual health insurance market, which has seen premiums increase by double-digit percentages in recent years and could be severely undermined by Congress’s decision to halt enforcement of the federal penalty for not obtaining coverage.

Advocates will push legislation to create a state mandate for purchasing insurance, but Hogan said that he would be reluctant to embrace such a plan unless the legislature agrees to shield Marylanders from higher taxes under the recent federal changes.

“What it basically means is a tax increase — it means penalizing hard-working people,” he said. “We’re going to have to take a look at the whole picture.”

Health advocates and the Black Caucus also want to pass legislation to rein in the cost of brand-name drugs, which would build on a 2017 law that authorized the state to sue drug companies that dramatically increase the price of off-patent and generic drugs.

“It’s a huge economic issue,” said Del. Cheryl D. Glenn (D-Baltimore City), who chairs the Black Caucus. “We have to move the ball down the field.”

Also on the legislative agenda is a bill to address a lack of racial diversity in Maryland’s new medical-marijuana industry, another top priority of the Black Caucus. Lawmakers are anticipating the results of a study on racial disparities in the business and have scheduled a hearing on a bill next week. An effort to set aside new cultivation licenses for minority-owned businesses fell apart during the final moments of the 2017 session.

With every seat in the legislature on the ballot in November, lawmakers — especially in swing districts — will be wary of taking unpopular stances on bills.

Miller said Tuesday that he and Busch plan to set up a commission to examine the issue of sexual harassment in the Maryland State House. The women’s caucus has also created a panel with the goal of preventing sexual misconduct, encouraging victims to report alleged misbehavior and developing appropriate responses to allegations.

A consensus may be emerging on funding the Washington area’s Metro system, with Busch, Miller and Hogan signaling support for dedicated funding for Metro if Virginia and the District agree to do the same. Hogan says the federal government must contribute, too.

The legislature will consider a plan from Democratic lawmakers to increase Maryland’s contribution to Metro by $125 million a year, with the money coming from the state’s transportation trust fund.

Democrats and Republicans may also find common ground on the issue of allowing women who have been raped to terminate the parental rights of their attackers. Similar bills failed nine times in recent years — including during the final hours of the 2017 legislative session, when the measure stalled in part because of concerns about due process for the accused. Women’s groups reacted with outrage, noting that the panel of senators who failed to resolve differences over the bill did not include any female lawmakers.

This year, Miller and Busch are sponsoring bills to terminate rapists’ parental rights, a clear sign that passage is a top priority. Hogan said Friday that he would sign that legislation as soon as it reaches his desk.

 

 

[hoipolloi]

The furor over Missouri Governor Eric Greitens' extramarital affair w/ alleged blackmail is quite something.

Greitens himself was actually raised Jewish but as a Rethug, has clearly chosen to run with fundie "pro-life" position. He's also embraced other RW shite, like right to work.

He was a Rhodes scholar, completed a PhD at Oxord, became a decorated Navy Seal officer.

Friends in MO don't think this will get Greitens turfed out of the gov's office but a local NPR reporter thinks he's in trouble. 

[VelociRapture]

Just popping in briefly to say this -

If you live in Connecticut and Tim Herbst is nominated as the Republican nominee for Governor DO NOT VOTE FOR HIM. I know people from his area who have stated he’s been an absolute nightmare to have as First Selectman. A lot of people there were relieved when he didn’t run for re-election last year. 

Also, Democrats, don’t vote for Joe Ganim in the primary. How he was allowed to run for Mayor of Bridgeport again after being convicted of corruption while in office is beside me. 

[Howl]

6 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Friends in MO don't think this will get Greitens turfed out of the gov's office but a local NPR reporter thinks he's in trouble. 

He's basically saying, I made up with my wife, it's now a personal matter so everybody fuck off. Or at least that's what whoever has been hired for damage control and image management has recommended. 

However, campaigning on a family values platform while having an affair is never a good look for a politician, so he's vulnerable there. 

Edited January 12, 2018 by Howl

[onekidanddone]

12 minutes ago, Howl said:

He's basically saying, I made up with my wife, it's now a personal matter so everybody fuck off. Or at least that's what whoever has been hired for damage control and image management has recommended. 

However, campaigning on a family values platform while having an affair is never a good look for a politician, so he's vulnerable there. 

I would hope so, but then there is Mark, I was hiking the Appalachia Trail, Sanford. On 'Hike Naked Day" no less. The TDs have short memories accept when it comes to a Clinton.

Short memories as well as being a sack of hypocritical vipers 

Edited January 12, 2018 by onekidanddone

[AmazonGrace]

In medical news, governor John Kasich suffers from a serious case of lack of spine.

 

[GrumpyGran]

15 hours ago, Howl said:

He's basically saying, I made up with my wife, it's now a personal matter so everybody fuck off. Or at least that's what whoever has been hired for damage control and image management has recommended. 

However, campaigning on a family values platform while having an affair is never a good look for a politician, so he's vulnerable there. 

But he's a new type of Christian! You know the kind. They sing hymns like "Jesus Loves the Little White Children", "How Fucking Great Thou Art", and "Damn Amazing Grace". After services, the adults have a spouse-swapping get-together while the children go to Youth Camp.

[candygirl200413]

Still can't believe people thought Kaisch was the "moderate" republican, like come on.

[fraurosena]

Mortal Again: Christie Blocked at VIP Entrance to Newark Airport     

Quote

Meet Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and current nobody at Newark Liberty International Airport.

The two-term Republican, who left office on Jan. 16, was blocked from a VIP entrance he had used for eight years, and directed to stand in Transportation Security Administration screening lines at Terminal B like anyone else, according to a person familiar with the incident.

The order came from police for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about security matters. The Port Authority also operates the George Washington Bridge, the target of a plot by Christie aides and allies to tie up traffic for political punishment in 2013.

Christie, and the state trooper who accompanied him for his security detail, complied with the instructions, the person said.

The former governor used the entrance, reserved for some airport employees and flyers who need extra security, for his two terms. He spent more than half of 2015 out of New Jersey traveling and campaigning for his failed White House bid.

New Jersey ex-governors are allowed one state trooper to accompany them, at their request, for six months, according to Lieutenant Ted Schafer, a state police spokesman. Two former governors in addition to Christie have used the service, Schafer said. State police declined to comment on the airport incident.

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Mortal Again: Christie Blocked at VIP Entrance to Newark Airport     

 

[47of74]

4 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

 

Yeah I was just coming here to post about Crispy Creme getting blocked from the VIP entrance. 

I wonder if he was going on a trip to Washington to get on his knees (yes, a very pleasant mental image) to beg His Orangeness for a job in the Fourth Reich admin.

[onekidanddone]

I'm wondering when he is going to get sucked up into Muller's web. Think about it. New Jersey, casinos, Trump, shady business deals. Smells rotten to me.

6 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Yeah I was just coming here to post about Crispy Creme getting blocked from the VIP entrance. 

I wonder if he was going on a trip to Washington to get on his knees (yes, a very pleasant mental image) to beg His Orangeness for a job in the Fourth Reich admin.