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Three Democrats named to TIME Magazine's Five "Best Governors" List

TIME Magazine
By Amanda Ripley and Karen Tumulty/Washington
Sunday, November 13, 2005

Napolitano: A Mountaineer on the Political Rise: Governing a hard-core republican state like Arizona is a steep proposition for a Democrat. Janet Napolitano likes the steeps. A former mountain climber who has hiked the Himalayas and summited Mount Kilimanjaro, Napolitano, 47, has pulled herself to the top job in Arizona—and many think she hasn’t stopped climbing yet. Positioning herself as a no-nonsense, pro-business centrist, she has worked outside party lines since coming to office in January 2003 to re-energize a state that, under her predecessors, was marked by recession and scandal.

Sebelius: A Practical Reformer: Right after the Democrat surprised political experts in 2002 by winning the Governor’s race in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats almost 2 to 1, she needed to erase a budget deficit estimated at $1.1 billion. Through spending cuts, fee increases and some borrowing, Sebelius was able to balance Kansas’ budget in her first year in office without raising taxes or cutting funding for education.

Warner: Democrats’ New Southern Hope: Democrats are starting to think that outgoing Virginia Governor Mark Warner may finally have figured out what it will take for their party to start winning in the South again. All sides agreed the morning after the election that what carried Lieutenant Governor Tim Kaine to victory-in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat for President since L.B.J.-was Warner’s popularity.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1129494,00.html

TIME Magazine

By Amanda Ripley and Karen Tumulty/Washington

Sunday, November 13, 2005

TIME Magazine this week gave an example of the Democratic Party’s strength in governorships when it named three Democratic Governors among the five best Governors in the nation: Arizona’s Governor Janet Napolitano, Kansas’ Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Virginia’s Governor Mark Warner.

Copyright & Paid for by The Democratic Governors Association

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