Secretary Sebelius?
The AP reports:
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was near the top of President Barack Obama’s list of candidates to head the Health and Human Services Department, a senior administration official said Saturday.
The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private administration deliberations, said no decision was imminent and that other candidates remain in the mix. But the official added the former Kansas insurance commissioner was rising as Obama considers prospective candidates, in no small part on the strength of her close relationship with the president.
Sebelius would be an excellent Secretary. But as with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, I also think she could be an excellent United States Senator. And in Kansas, even more so than in Arizona, the second-best potential candidate is probably a good deal weaker. Of course cabinet positions aren’t inconsistent with Senate runs, but the timing doesn’t look great to me in either of these situations. And one thing we’re learning is that President Obama’s ability to deliver on a progressive agenda depends at least as much on the outlook in the Senate as it does on the quality of his team.
36 Responses to “Secretary Sebelius?”
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February 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I don’t think it’s all that difficult for her to serve as HHS Secretary for 18 months and run for Senate with passing universal healthcare under her belt. There’s no one on the (D) bench who’d be a capable primary challenger so she could effectively sit out the campaign for some time. With her profile in the state the long campaign isn’t so necessary, anyway.
I do think her odds of winning are greatly overstated (although it obviously depends on who gets the nod against her). Despite relatively recent activity in Dem representation in the House, KS is still deep red in terms of who gets sent to DC. She could go from HHS to VP nominee in ‘12 if Biden retires or ‘16 otherwise, which might be more attractive than a likely failed run for Senate.
It would be interesting to see if any progressive Senators give her shit for an apparent disregard for public health allowing her son to market a “Who Dropped the Soap?” board game about prison life.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:57 am
As with Napolitano, I think putting Sebelius in the Cabinet may actually increase her chances of making it to the Senate. The next year will be a terrible, terrible time to be a state governor.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:58 am
NO NO NO. This is retarded of Obama.
He took out the best challenger to John McCain in AZ and put her in DHS.
He took out the incompetent Judd Gregg out of NH and opened it up for the NH GOP to put in a fresh face in 2010.
Now he wants to take out the best the KS Dem’s have in the 2010 election to fill the open senate seat.
That is 3 Senate seats he has put the Dems at a disadvantage for in 2010 – not to mention the CO and NY seats which are now much more open. I mean does he want to give up the Senate?
February 8th, 2009 at 11:01 am
We need 61-63 Senate seats in 2010 if we’re going to sufficiently shock the economy back to life after the initial round of stimulus sputters out.
Also, Zach, recent polls already have Sebelius over 50% in a hypothetical Senate match-up. All politics is local and the Governor has played her hand well.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Dear Gov. Sebelius,
Better check your last few 1040s one more time just to be sure, or we will crucify you.
Signed,
The Right
February 8th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I also disagree with Jimbo’s analysis with respect to Judd Gregg. The biggest Republicans are able to keep winning in New England at all is that the particular Republicans in question (people like Collins and Snowe; Sununu and Shays until recently) are able to make the case that they aren’t like the rest of the Republican Party. They’re able to make that case because they actually have been around since the Republican Party was something other than the insane asylum it is today.
Remove the personal advantages of an old-timer like Gregg, and it becomes much harder for the modern Republican Party to run someone who doesn’t look like the modern Republican Party.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:07 am
He took out the incompetent Judd Gregg out of NH and opened it up for the NH GOP to put in a fresh face in 2010.
This is backwards. Gregg had a much better chance at that seat than the next person off the NH GOP bench. And I suspect Napolitano wasn’t going to run for senate until 2012 anyway unless McCain retires. (But it sucks for Arizona that their government is now run entirely by wingnuts.)
February 8th, 2009 at 11:08 am
First, the SecHHS will have little or nothing to do with health care reform. That’s the “health care czar.” Dashcle was supposed to do both, which was a stupid, stupid idea to begin with, but I haven’t seen where the next nomination for SecHHS was also going to be hc czar. It’s a bad idea. It WAS a bad idea and it remains a bad idea.
.
Second, “Sebelius would be an excellent [HHS] Secretary.” On what grounds do you make that statement? Because she was insurance commissioner? I’m not saying she wouldn’t, I just want to know what you think she would bring to the job to merit that statement.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:11 am
@Stroszek
She’s definitely got the best chance, but I think 2 more years of budget crises will damage her popularity (although she’s done really well dealing with budget problems and remaining popular — KS has faced these problems longer than most states). I can’t see the Dem high getting much better than it is now in 2010, either, and while their campaigns were less serious than a hypothetical Sebelius candidacy, the total plastering of Slatterly and Kleeb this cycle doesn’t bode well for any Dem in the region in ‘10.
There’s definitely a risk in going for HHS and having that tarnish her reputation somehow, but if it works (and I definitely want the person there with the best shot at making it work) she’ll be able to run on it against someone who’ll probably be a hardcore small government conservative… I think that’s an argument she wins with most Kansans.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:22 am
mubarack, you beat me to the main point, but I’ve got to disagree with you about the specifics of NH. (Though I don’t claim any special expertise about it.) Until recently NH was different from the rest of New England; their Republicans were often pretty conservative, and they elected Republicans who weren’t long entrenched like Shays or Snowe (or Jeffords). Sununu Jr. was a one-term senator, who got in by primarying the total loony Bob Smith (who was very conservative, and who actually briefly left the Republican Party); that was a case where shedding the incumbent actually helped the Republicans keep the seat. But I don’t think anyone was under the illusion that Sununu Jr. wasn’t a conservative guy, even if he had the reputation of being smarter than the average Republican.
What happened was that in 2006 New Hampshire started voting more like the rest of New England — knocked out both Republican reps, saw an incredible D tidal wave in the state lege, and then in 2008 Sununu Jr. never really had a chance. But Gregg has an undeserved reputation as a moderate, so he really had a much better chance at becoming a Shays-style legacy R. Meaning that on the important point you’re exactly right; the actual Republican nominee is likely to be well to the right of where the state is now (especially since Newman isn’t going to run), and is more likely to lose than Gregg would’ve been.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:24 am
It’s all well and good for you to say ‘leave Sebelius in Kansas so she can run for Senator’ but the odds against her are stupendous–Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932 (a Democrat who had been elected in 1930 to fill a vacancy was reeelected that year then lost in 1938). With that track record, do you really think it would be better to pass over Sebelius for HHS for a long-shot Senate race?
February 8th, 2009 at 11:24 am
The only way I can see this working is if they actually pass a health care bill this year, at which point she doesn’t need a full year of campaigning and fundraising (she may not need it anyway). But, then, shouldn’t she be around to run the agency that passed the bill she advocated for?
Otherwise I agree; this is a bad idea.
Budget crises can often work in favor of governors if they are perceived as treating people fairly and implementing their agenda as opposed to getting in spats with the legislature. See Warner, Mark; compare Schwarzenegger, Arnold.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I live in KC (MO), and sorry, but I just don’t see Kansas electing a democratic senator. Yes, she did outstanding to get the Governor gig, but the Senate is a different animal, and the wingnuts go far more party-line then. They’ve got all their crazy religious leaders railing about activist judges and whatnot, and how could they possibly put a Dem into the Senate and continue the terrible American holocaust against the unborn, wankery, etc.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Why would Sebelius want to run for Senate? The president seems to only care about what Republican senators want.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:56 am
O ye of little faith:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/5/145250/8955/1003/693618
Sebelius crushes the competition in a head to head matchup already.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Why would Sebelius want to run for Senate? The president seems to only care about what Republican senators want.
This is incredibly wrong. He just doesn’t like to publicize the fact that Democratic Senators disagree with him. So the last 2 weeks were about “bipartisanship” not trying to get Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu aboard.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Thank you for proving my point for me by pointing out that Sununu and Shays lost in 2008. You will also remember that Chafee is no longer in the Senate.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Another point about Gregg versus any Republican who might run to replace him in 2010: Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Bush, Bush, Bush, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. None of that will be able to be thrown at the new Republican candidate because they didn’t vote with George W. Bush like Gregg did, and they certainly didn’t vote for the Iraq War. So the Repubs are basically trading the name recognition that Gregg had for lifting the giant stone of Iraq off their necks.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
If she has any regard for the people of Kansas, she’ll stay where she is.
Napolitano’s departure from Arizona has left us at the tender mercies of the most right-wing government in America.
We’re looking at $2.6 billion shortfall next year and the republican dominiate legislature and governor are going to take it pretty much entirely out of the education budget.
Their attitude is “Fuck ‘em; keep ‘em ignorant and scared, they’ll vote Republican.”
Yes, I’m pretty pissed off that Napolitano fucked us all over *hard* by going to DC.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Zach, take a look at the 1934 mid-term elections. If you think the GOP has hit rock bottom because the Democrats already swept into power, you haven’t seen anything yet. When the marginal results of the initial stimulus wave come in, the opinion of the public will be nearly unanimous: “DO MORE!”
In fact, Sebelius will have a very strong platform to run on in 2012: “As governor, I saw first-hand the damage that Senate Republicans did to state governments by denying us support.”
And what do you think will resonate more?
“I’ll fight for more support for our state.”
or
“Tighten your belts, Kansas, it’s time for more budget cuts!”
Republican ideology is at an inherent disadvantage in this situation. If Sebelius runs for the seat, I predict she will win it by double digits.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
None of that will be able to be thrown at the new Republican candidate because they didn’t vote with George W. Bush like Gregg did, and they certainly didn’t vote for the Iraq War.
Right, it’s not like the GOP’s biggest name is a former Congressman who lost his seat over the Iraq War or anything.
It took two tries to defeat Shays. Collins is still in. Snowe is still in. Do you think any other Republican had any chance at all at any of those seats, or any of the others you’ve mentioned? The Democrats will have a much easier time against Generic Republican than they would against Gregg.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
corrected link. And according to this the biggest name is probably Sununu Jr., who has the distinction of having got his ass kicked a lot worse than Bradley.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
If you want health care reform, then you need people who know the Senate Finance Committee. That’s arguably the main reason they went with Daschle in the first place. My sense is that rather than spend time trying to bring a Washington neophyte like Sebelius up to speed (and despite the good job she’s done in KS, she’d be awfully green at HHS), they want somebody who will know how to deal with Baucus, Grassley, Conrad, Bingaman, Snowe, Kyl, et al in order to shepherd the legislation through. That means Bill Bradley or (God help us) John Breaux.
February 8th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
@Stroszek – As an ex-Kansas I hope you’re right. Given the KS GOP’s propensity for propping up morons Phill Kline will probably win the primary anyway. More seriously, Moran and Tiarht are dopes, so if that’s representative of the KS GOP bench right now than anything’s possible. Haven’t paid too much attention to KS politics recently — maybe someone’s going to come out of media or business to go for the seat? I could see that working.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The whole HHS nomination problem pisses me off. I’ve never been a Howard Dean fan, but with his medical and political background, clearly he’s the most qualified candidate for the job of HHS secretary. Heck, the Justice Department is always run by a lawyer, the Attorney General, I’d throw the AMA a bone and mandate that the head of HHS always be a doctor, say, the Surgeon General.
Has there ever been a winning party chairman who wasn’t rewarded by a patronage job– Bill Brock got Trade Representative in 1980 (and later Labor Secretary), Ron Brown got Commerce Secretary in 1992, Jim Nicholson got an ambassadorship in 2000 (and later VA Secretary)?
If Dean is being blackballed because of a political dispute with Rahm that reflects poorly on both Rahm and the President.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
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