Napolitano’s mojo: You can’t lose what you never had
The news story begins, "Has Janet Napolitano lost her mojo?" And I am thinking about how the older core readers, loyal but constantly abused by the newspaper, are wondering, "What the hell is a mojo?" In any event, it continues:
Unthinkable even a year ago, the question is circulating among some of
the governor’s watchers at the Capitol. They’re struck by an
administration seemingly put on its heels by a stumbling state economy,
rash of key staff departures and, most recently, the disqualification
from the November ballot of her two most favored initiatives.
What was unthinkable until Monday was that the Arizona Republic would ever print anything even mildly critical of the governor, aside from the dreary sameness of the protected Republican political op on the editorial page. Napolitano was close friends with former publisher Sue Clark-Johnson. This, along with the Republic’s war against having experienced journalists consistently cover state government (or any beat), ensured that the governor would be treated with something like uninformed reverence.
The reality is that Napolitano never stood astride state government like a colossus. The faded "glory days" mentioned in the story were neither glorious nor had much to do with her. Nor did she have "absolute dominance" over the Legislature. The reality is more complex, and more interesting.
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