The Smithian

Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico, didn't start out Republican. She and her husband...had always been Democrats. But she'd long dreamed of running for office, and when word got out that she had her eyes on the district attorney's seat, two local Republican activists asked her to lunch. At the meeting, the story goes, her suitors didn't talk about party affiliation or ideology. They zeroed in on issues—taxes, welfare, gun rights, the death penalty. Afterward, Martinez got into the car, turned to her husband, and said, "I'll be damned, we're Republicans."

...feverish speculation that [New York Governor Andrew] Cuomo is now the leading Democratic presidential contender in 2016.

Four decades before Obama’s ACA, Hawaii enacted its own health-care mandate...the state has poured billions...into rebuilding highways and infrastructure, bringing the unemployment rate down to an enviable 4.4 percent. Gay marriage is legal, immigrants are welcomed, labor unions are strong and—if the governor gets his way this year—universal pre-kindergarten will be the law of the land...there are no tea party stars to bicker with and no Congress to stand in the way. There’s hardly a viable GOP...The Aloha State, with its liberal governor and overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, has succeeded in achieving much of the vision Obama has yet to accomplish on the mainland.

...the media's hastily-crafted image of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as a "different" type of politician is cracking...

…a major metropolitan area run by armed teenagers with no access to jobs or healthy food, and…while the rest of America was ranting about debt ceilings and Obamacares, Camden quietly got pushed off the map. That was three years ago, when new governor and presumptive future presidential candidate Chris Christie abruptly cut back on the state subsidies that kept Camden on life support. The move left the city almost completely ungoverned—a graphic preview of what might lie ahead for communities that don’t generate enough of their own tax revenue to keep their lights on. Over three years, fires raged, violent crime spiked and the murder rate soared so high that on a per-capita basis, it “put us somewhere between Honduras and Somalia,” says Police Chief J. Scott Thomson.

Republican leaders in Virginia fear that their nominee...is on his way to losing the governor’s race and that the party will squander command of a state that is key to their quest to dominate next year’s midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race. Distressed over a flurry of recent polls showing Democrat Terry McAuliffe (above, with President Clinton) with a solid lead, Virginia Republicans are talking about rebuilding their organization, which is suffering from deep internal rifts similar to those roiling the national party.

What if Nikki Haley decides to run for president? In the lead-up to 2012, the name of the...conservative daughter of Sikh immigrants from India graced many a vice-presidential short list.

on Thursday offered a clear broadside against Republicans drifting toward a more libertarian view of foreign policy...suggesting they explain their position to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The House earlier this week narrowly voted against a reduction in funding for the National Security Agency, as libertarian-leaning members from both sides joined together to vote for the amendment.

Former New York Gov. David Paterson...said yesterday...he might be open to running for Charlie Rangel’s Congressional seat in Harlem if Rangel, 83, decides not to run again...“I’m definitely looking at it,” Paterson said Monday about the idea.

Women in Ohio didn't see this coming. The state’s new two-year budget, approved by Governor John Kasich on June 30, includes several...restrictions on abortion and reproductive health clinics, and stands to strip funding from many rape crisis centers...it passed so quickly that many Ohioans only found out about the anti-choice measures after they had taken effect.

[Martin] O’Malley, who is fifty and handsome in a Kennedy sort of way, has made a career out of all the politician stuff, chomping his way up the political food chain like a man hungry for more than a deli sandwich. After serving as a Baltimore city councilman in the 1990s, he was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and then governor of Maryland seven years later, where he’ll remain until 2015. Because of term limits, he can’t run again. Every pundit in America has predicted he’s going to run for president in 2016, and O’Malley has done everything he can to encourage that speculation, short of outright admitting it’s true.

“Our climate is changing, the weather is becoming more intense...It’s going to cost a lot of money and a lot of lives...The big issue (is) how do we adapt...because it doesn’t look like the people who are in charge are going to do what it takes to really slow down this climate change, so we are going to have to adapt. And adapting is going to be very, very expensive.”

...in an airplane hangar filled with trucks, airplanes and helicopters used by the state to fight fires.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey...underwent secret weight-loss surgery three months ago...

...the governor's decision to shut down an entire city will undeniably influence how the next mayor or governor will respond to a major threat. To lock down or not to lock down is now the yardstick against which the public will measure their leaders in a crisis.