On the same day that President Obama met in Washington with the nation’s new governors earlier this month, he also met privately in the Oval Office with Ohio’s outgoing leader, Democrat Ted Strickland. The special treatment for Strickland — the leader of a large, politically crucial state — originally was interpreted as a way for the president to thank the governor personally for his help on the presidential campaign trail two years ago. But many observers also took the meeting as a hint that Strickland could be joining the Obama team when his tenure in Ohio ends in January.
It’s a familiar speculation game that is reaching a fever pitch in several states these days. Besides Strickland, two other Democratic Great Lakes governors — Michigan’s Jennifer Granholm and Wisconsin’s Jim Doyle — have been bandied about as possible additions to the Obama administration in the new year. (Granholm was term-limited this year, while Doyle chose not to run for reelection.)
Granholm, in particular, fed the speculation last week when she told reporters that she has a “good idea” of what her next job will be, and that she will make an announcement in January.
Loneoak
Hopefully they will form a mega-team of environmental warriors, like Captain Planet, to prevent Las Vegas and SoCal assholes from stealing all our water.
Zifnab
If it positions them well to reenter their home states and clean up the messes of the newly elected governors come 2014, I’m all for it.
I would hate to be a resident of Ohio or Wisconsin right now. Of course, I’m a resident of Texas so the reaming I’m going to get will make the Midwest look like a fairy land by comparison. Maybe I shouldn’t talk.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar puppy.
Kay
@Loneoak:
If you follow the link, you can read a lot about water, and the Great Lakes Water Compact. Browse around!
I now go off-topic even in response to comments on my own posts. I recognize that. Just so you know.
debbie
Well, I would be one of those Ohio residents, and an older, long-term unemployed, to boot. Maybe watching the politics will take my mind off my own misery!
On the bright side, I just qualified for heating assistance this winter. Hopefully, it will be credited to my account before Kasich hacks that program to death.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Zifnab: Yeah, I’m fascinated (and not in a good way) about what the next budget is going to look like. I have three kids in school.
I can’t wait for the Republicans to try to balance the budged by cutting Medicaid. I wonder how many hospitals we’ll lose over the next two years.
A House with a super-majority of Republicans is going to be fun.
AxelFoley
I wouldn’t mind them joining the Obama Administration.
AxelFoley
@Loneoak:
President Obama: “Let our powers combine!”
Jeff
With any luck, their jobs will provide them with plenty of visiblility to their respective states, so that when the inevitable crack-up occurs, they will be well positioned to give their replacements and the voters a middle finger.
artem1s
@Zifnab:
I’d be glad to see Strickland continue in public office. He is enormously competent and could make a substantial salary in any sector he chose. It’s a shame the state Dem party couldn’t get its act together before he was 15 points down in the race.
I feel for ya Zinfab but you all are getting our 2 house seats so forgive me if its a tiny little violin. When TX starts hemorrhaging jobs and people the way OH has…but at least we haven’t completely killed our educational system, YET. Kasich has his sights set on that and killing any chance of developing a high tech sector in the state. In 8 years the whole state will be covered with an asphalt toll road to nowhere.
If he manages to sell our water to CA and CO too then the whole country is truly f*cked sideways.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
Okay, that is just about the cutest puppy I have ever seen.
Ever.
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne:
I fixed a pizza for ya the other night.
Jeff Spender
You know, I didn’t like how just about everyone and their mothers in Michigan piled hatred on Granholm. She literally did the best she could with a pile of shit.
I don’t blame the residents for not electing Virg Bernero–I knew him when I lived in Lansing and he’s–not a good person (although I could be biased as the previous mayor of Lansing, Tony Benevidas, was a close friend of the family–I asked him once if he could engage in a bit of old-fashioned “spoils system” and give me a secretive, yet lucrative, job which required very little in terms of moral values).
I like Granholm. Obama would be wise to bring her into his administration.
tomjones
@Zifnab: If it’s any consolation, at least you’ll have four new (Republican) Congress critters!
dr. bloor
@jeffreyw:
And here I was expecting a picture of a sammich.
He is pretty cute, though.
NobodySpecial
Good. High profile (or at least medium profile) jobs for some outgoing Dems is a key part of advancing to 2012 and afterwards. If this is true, Obama’s hit a home run, especially if he puts them in the right jobs.
catclub
@Zifnab: I keep reading that in ten years Texas will be competitive for the democrats.
Of course, not sure if those predictions are from the same guys who have been predicting practical fusion power in 25 years for the last 50 years.
Here’s hoping.
agrippa
@artem1s:
The recession in TX is not as severe as other states. It is a resource extraction state: oil, cattle, cotton and rice. There was not that much of a housing bubble in TX, either.
But, there is a budget deficit coming on, we wll see how that goes.
The TX state legislature has meltdowns on a fairly regular basis. So, the session may prove interesting.
NonyNony
@artem1s:
My one hope – Kasich is such a smugly arrogant little prick that he’s already pissing off Republicans in the Assembly with his autocratic bullshit. So my one hope is that he acts like such a pompous, arrogant piece of shit that he gets the Republicans in the Assembly pissed off at him to the point where they can’t work together.
The only way Ohio is going to survive 4 years of Kasich and a Republican dominated Assembly is through gridlock. If they work together, they’ll be able to pillage the state for Kasich’s buddies on Wall Street so fast it will make your head spin. (I figure the toll road in already gone – he’ll have that sold off within a few months of taking office. The water he may be in for a fight on, since a lot of Republican farmers don’t like the idea. Ohio State will probably be okay, but the rest of Higher Ed will get the shaft. And even though Kasich professes that he lurves him some Community Colleges, I have doubts that they’ll see any added funding anytime soon).
TomG
Any truth to the rumors that Arnold Schwarzenegger is willing to join the Obama administration when his term is up ? I saw one unconfirmed story about him the other day.
jeffreyw
@dr. bloor:
How about some eggs?
The Moar You Know
@TomG: Please God no. He has utterly destroyed California. The last thing anyone needs to do is to give him a national platform to do yet more damage to the nation he purports to like so much.
AxelFoley
Oh, and this thread is worthless without pics of Gov. Granholm.
Pontious Pilates
Doyle is a scumbag. Granholm seems by most accounts of my Michigan friends really really good. Did I mention Doyle is scumbag. Lets hope Obama doesn’t invite that oily bastard in…….
Allan
I’d pay to hear a phone conversation between Cabinet Secretary Jennifer Granholm and say, Governor Rick Perry, when he calls to complain that Texas isn’t getting enough of the federal dollars her department doles out.
Continental Op
The Great Lakes states decide the election.
In a normal year, the South, the inland West, and the “inland midwest” go Republican. The Northeast and West Coast go Democratic. This leaves the North Coast to choose the president.
Gus
I wonder if that means that Tim Pawlenty will be offered a job?
Chat Noir
I was wondering what Gov. Granholm’s next career move was going to be. Would be nice to see her serving the Obama Administration in some capacity. Remember, she “played” the role of Sarah Palin in Joe Biden’s debate prep before the VP debate in ’08. Goodness, how does an honors graduate from Cal-Berkeley and Harvard Law play stupid?
@Jeff Spender:
I wasn’t that impressed with Bernerno’s campaign during the general.
handy
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t know if he’s destroyed it as much as looked at the barely breathing beast lying in a grave and pooring concrete over it.
artem1s
@NonyNony:
from you straight to the FSM noodley ears. Given his press conference a couple of days ago on transparency, blowing off $400M in construction stimulus just to kill the rail line, and the fact he is moving his offices out of the state house and into some high rise (I’m assuming Bank One?) I’m hoping he continues making a complete patoot of himself in public on a regular basis. He already, weirdly has that GWB cluelessness about him. As if he doesn’t even recognize when he has said something magnificently stupid.
The wingnutters in this state might push for a recall themselves if he blows them off regularly, which I think he may be inclined to do.
martha
@Pontious Pilates: I’m not sure I’d say scumbag. I’ve just always said useless. Just useless and spineless. Minimal leadership on anything that mattered. Ugh.
Legalize
Gov. Strickland is good, smart, and capable person – and an actually committed public servant. He would be a great addition to team Obama at the federal level.
Zifnab
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
As a guy who works health care IT, I’ve been revisiting my resume. *sigh*
@catclub:
Texas has decided it will elected Republicans and is gearing itself to elect Republicans almost exclusively. There’s a political machine down here that just doesn’t allow for Democrats to compete.
Bill White – the Dem’s nominee for governor – won Houston with 91% of the vote when he first got elected to mayor and 86% when he ran for reelection. He polled in at around 50% when he ran for governor. Explain that?
We lost Dallas, we lost San Antonio, we lost chunks of Austin… AUSTIN! We were breaking even on state House seats in ’08. Now we’re looking at a Republican super majority. And just in time for Gerrymandering season.
Martin
@The Moar You Know: Well, I’d be okay with Arnold in a very narrow role dealing with energy policy – his one decent area. Of course, we’ve got a fucking nobel laureate in that job now, but having Arnold along as green energy/climate/cap and trade cheerleader would be beneficial.
But yeah, anything with dollar signs attached would be disastrous.
Andy K
@Chat Noir:
The guy had no money. And it was going to be tough to get those DLCers and independents after he’d been out there painting hisself as a populist lefty for a couple of years. It would have been one thing if the typical Republican candidate had emerged from their primary, but he got the guy for whom Bill Milliken broke his streak of non-endorsement- that there was the kiss of death.
daverave
What, no room for Russ F.??
joe from Lowell
@daverave: Can you seriously see Russ Feingold running a department? Taking orders from the White House? Being a team guy?
It’s just not who he is. He should take a job at a college, then run for governor in four years.
urbanmeemaw
I thought I read recently that Strickland said the 2010 campaign was his last. But he did not indicate his plans. He is a very smart, dedicated public servant and the administration and the country would be lucky to have him.
Regarding Kasich, I was shocked that the local GOP Talking Point Daily Rag (Cincinnati Enquirer) took him to task for not providing resumes of his prospective apointees. The editorial board even praised Strickland, whom they did not endorse, for his transparency. People in this state get what they deserve. I hope we keep Sherrod Brown, who will be running in 2012.
Chris G
@joe from Lowell: Any chance of Feingold running if Kohl opts not to run in 2012?
joe from Lowell
@Chris G: I have no idea. Is is really a possibility that Kohl might not run? I hope not – that would immediately put the seat in danger.
Sko Hayes
@Zifnab: I moved out here to western Kansas from the east coast in 1999, and soon after that the gerrymandering debacle in Texas was heating up, Democrats leaving the state so they wouldn’t have to vote on the redistricting, Republicans wanting to issue arrest warrants, it was something to behold for this east coast woman, I’ll tell you!
The tiny little town I live in had a sheriff’s election a few years back, and after the election, the losing candidate was arrested for blackmailing people into voting for him.
Holy shit, y’all sure do things differently in red land.
Chris G
@joe from Lowell: I ask only based on Kohl’s age — he’ll be 77 in 2012, I think, but that’s nothing for the Senate…