Local Politics
‘It’s official- Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is President-Elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of Homeland Security. I’ve only been living in Arizona for about 5 years now and have been consistently impressed with Napolitano. She’s a Democratic gove or in a mostly-red state and well respected by everyone except the extreme end of the GOP. Very pragmatic, organized, and level headed. I realize most of you readers aren’t very familiar with her, but as a local constituent she’s a strong choice, known for teaming up with California, New Mexico, and the great nation of Texas to work on plugging some of the federal failures in managing border security. The only loser is Arizona- our Secretary of State will be taking over, switching the state government to single party control with a governor who isn’t really known as a strong leader. Hopefully she’ll rise to the occasion. It’s always an open question how much even the president and cabinet-level positions can change the bureaucracy of our government, but I have high expectations that some of the silliness we’ve seen in DHS- from FEMA to TSA- will slowly be weeded out of the system. As for cybersecurity, it’s still a big question mark. She has experience with border security, law enforcement, and disaster management, but I haven’t noticed IT security to be the biggest priority here in AZ. Can’t win them all… Share: