E-mail a friendGov. Janet Napolitano
airdate August 25, 2008
Janet Napolitano is the 21st governor of the state of Arizona. She was selected by Time magazine as one of America's "Top Five Governors" and is touted for her common sense. Napolitano rallies behind quality schools, affordable health care and homeland safety. In recent years she has championed an effort to raise teacher salaries and was the first governor to call for the National Guard at the border at federal expense.
Arizona governor discusses whether Sen. Clinton's supporters will back Sen. Obama. (2:50)
Full interview. (10:21)
Gov. Janet Napolitano
Tavis: A short while ago I sat down with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, one of Barack Obama's early high profile supporters and a feature speaker here at this convention tomorrow night.
Governor, nice to have you on the program.
Gov. Janet Napolitano: Thank you.
Tavis: Let me start by asking how it feels. You were one of two high profile women out early on - White women, I might add - for Obama. You, of course, and Claire McCaskill, senator out of Missouri. So here we are now, and your guy is the guy. And that feels like what?
Napolitano: Well, it feels pretty good. I think he is going to be a great nominee, but more so than that I was persuaded early on that he would be a wonderful leader of our country and kind of the new energy that we need in Washington, D.C.
Tavis: How have you dealt with - how did you - he's the guy now, so how did you deal with any push-back I assume that you might have gotten for supporting a man - never mind his color - over this woman, Hillary Clinton, being that you are a woman?
Napolitano: Well, I did get some, and some people expressed surprise that I would do that. But really the way I looked at it was that at the beginning I really didn't know either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama very well. Over the course of about a year and a half I got to know Senator Obama very well - not so much Senator Clinton.
And more than that, to me it seemed like you had race on one hand, you had gender on the other hand, and Obama was saying race is not the issue and Hillary was saying gender's not the issue. So I said, "Well, I'll take them both at their word and go for the one I feel most comfortable with as the nominee."
Tavis: Tell me more about the personal journey of how you got to know him, to your earlier point, and not her so well. Because I'm assuming - and you tell me - I'm assuming that both of them made an all-out effort to get to know you, to try to get your support, to get your endorsement. How did you end up knowing one better than the other?
Napolitano: Actually, I'm actually speaking at the convention tomorrow night and you've got to pay attention to whoever comes after me, because four years ago the guy who came after me was Barack Obama. (Laughter) I was the lead-in. And who knew? It was before Obama was Obama, right? And that's where I first met him.
And then when I chaired the National Governor's Association, he made a point of coming over to meet with me, have a meal with me, and we just got to talking about our ideas about what our country needs to do and where our politics need to go as well as our policies, and how in a way politics and policy had gotten too divorced from each other.
And you know how it is when sometimes you just sit down with somebody and you know almost immediately that you hit it off? It really was that way.
Tavis: This might be an unfair question so forgive me in advance for asking, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
Napolitano: I know you are. (Laughter)
Tavis: Whether or not there is, in retrospect, anything you think that Hillary Clinton could have done that might have gotten your support, or was there just some organic connection that you and Obama had that she really couldn't do much about, with all due respect to her outreach?
Napolitano: I really can't answer that question. I made my choice and voiced it early in the process, and have been very comfortable with that choice ever since.
Tavis: To your point of a moment ago, four years ago you spoke at this convention, of course, in Boston, just prior to this guy Barack Obama. What do you make of the fact - everybody's talking about it, but I'm curious since given your proximity to him four years ago - what do you make of the fact that he has - and meteoric is the only word I can think of - but what do you make of the fact that he went from there - I mean, the country did not know this guy four years ago at this time.
And four years later, he's poised to become the leader of the nation. What do you make of that journey in four years?
Napolitano: Well, I'll tell you who it reminds me of historically - it's Bill Clinton. In 1988, Bill Clinton gave the introduction for Michael Dukakis and a notoriously bad job, went over his time limit and everything else. And we were all sitting in the audience -
Tavis: The big applause line - "And in closing."
Napolitano: Exactly. And we're all in the audience going "Well, we'll never hear from that guy again." Four years later, he's going to be the nominee. And it was that kind of meteoric rise. And what happens is that somebody of talent and ability gets introduced and makes the most of that opportunity, that talent, and people recognize it and it grows from there. So we've seen it before, we saw it with Bill Clinton, and it's a very similar trajectory for Barack Obama.
Tavis: We keep hearing about Obama that he has to do a better job, Governor, of reaching out, making his case to Americans about who he is, but even more so than that getting to those blue collar workers. In a place like Arizona, a red state, how do you get to blue collar workers in a red state?
Napolitano: There's no magic to it; you just talk with people and you listen. And Obama can do that, and I think some of this is kind of - when you do political commentary there's an effort to kind of check boxes and it's this box here, this box there. But what I have seen with Obama is when he gets into an audience and he talks with people, he connects with them, and we just need to do more of that.
Tavis: There's been a lot of talk, not just in this campaign cycle, but indeed Howard Dean, the chairman, for a couple of years now has been talking about the fact that as he sees it, there has to be a 50-state strategy. I get the sense that Democrats, Mr. Obama specifically, are going to make a real play at some of these western states - Arizona just one of them.
Talk to me about this western state strategy, what it ought to be, how it should work, whether or not it can work - you tell me.
Napolitano: Well, the demographics of the West have changed dramatically in the last decade. Ten years ago there were no Democratic governors in the eight western states of the intermountain West. Now, five of the eight are Democrats. We've picked up Senate seats, congressional districts, state legislatures. So the whole thing is at play because it's an area of great transition in our country.
And the Democrats really have a voice here. There's an historical tradition in the West of progressivity that has been kind of lost a little bit lately, but it's there - progressiveness, pragmatism - all things that Democrats really represent now. And that's why the Democrats are going to do so well here in November.
Tavis: Let me go back to the woman issue. Earlier today I was on C-Span and part of a panel with Dr. Cornel West and Doug Wilder and Jesse Jackson Jr. and some others, and one of the issues that came up, specifically raised by Governor Wilder, was the cover of today's "USA Today," which really talks about these disaffected Clinton supporters.
What's your sense of - you're speaking tomorrow night, as we've already established. What's your sense of what's going to happen at this convention, and what will become of those disaffected, if I can use that word - "USA Today did -" those disaffected Clinton supporters? Those 18 million cracks in that ceiling we heard so much about?
Napolitano: Well, I'll tell you, I know a lot of those 18 million, and in the end they are, some of them, still disappointed. But in the end they're going to be Obama supporters and voters, and -
Tavis: Do you believe that?
Napolitano: I absolutely believe it, because it's already happening. I see it in my own state, in our own delegation. I was chair of the platform drafting committee; we had Hillary delegates on there and Obama delegates. We came out of the platform totally with consensus on what the platform needs to be.
So I've seen the process work, and the process is still working. I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that by Thursday night, this convention is going to culminate in just a remarkably unified show.
Tavis: Even if you're right about this, and I suspect you probably are, even if on Thursday it culminates, as you've suggested now, in this unity effort that we're moving toward between now and Thursday, even if you're right about that, the question for me at least is whether or not that holds between now and November. That is to say, will those Clinton supporters, those Clinton backers do what needs to be done? She's speaking tomorrow night; her husband, President Clinton, former president, speaking on Wednesday night. So the Clintons are going to behave, they're going to do what they're supposed to do this week. The question is whether or not that holds till November.
Will those women disappointed in how this thing turned out actually show up to support Obama in November?
Napolitano: Oh, absolutely, and I'll tell you, the number one assistant on that - or assistance is going to be given by John McCain, because the more they learn about John McCain and what he supports and doesn't support, the more they're going to understand that if you are a Hillary supporter, you need to support Barack Obama.
Tavis: Tell me more about your view of John McCain. You have an interesting view because you are the governor of his state. So tell me about your views of John McCain.
Napolitano: Well, we've always had a very good professional relationship, I can't doubt that. But he is very, very conservative, and that doesn't come across, I think, sometimes. He wears the label "maverick" as if it has meaning to it, and most of the time it doesn't. He votes with Bush 95 percent of the time.
And really when you listen to what he's saying about what he would do, particularly in the area of domestic policy, particularly in the area of our economy and the area of energy and energy production, it really is just a continuation of what we've heard the last seven years.
And so to me, the last seven years have not been a success, and I think most Americans would agree with me. At least the polling suggests they do. Common sense would teach us that they do. So that's where John McCain and I have to go different ways. I just don't think we need more of the same.
Tavis: We're going to hear later this week, of course, from Joe Biden, the running mate. Your take on the pick - was it a good pick, the right pick?
Napolitano: I think it was a very good pick. I actually think Obama had a lot of good picks - a lot of different ways he could have gone. Democrats have a very deep bench in a lot of different respects. But I think Senator Biden, with what he brings to the table, he has a particular affinity with blue collar voters, you mentioned those earlier.
The foreign policy issues, of course, an area of particular expertise that he shares.
Tavis: Is Obama going to get beat up for that? Is he going to get beat up for the fact that the reason why - much has been made, much ado, quite frankly, about nothing, from my perspective, by that Freudian slip, if you want to call it that, of him saying, "The next president - I mean, vice president of the United -"
Napolitano: Oh, please.
Tavis: That's been played over and over again. That's crazy. But what's real for me, though, is whether or not he's going to take a beating from the McCain forces about having to pick a guy who has foreign policy experience, because he has none in this world that we're living in.
Napolitano: Oh, no. This is the way the McCain forces would play it. If he'd picked somebody that didn't have a lot of foreign policy experience, they'd beat him up for that. If he picked somebody younger, they'd beat him up for that. If he picked somebody that was a female but wasn't Hillary, they'd beat him up for that. If he picked somebody who'd only been a governor, they'd beat him up for that. It really didn't matter. It just mattered what kind of attack they would use - they were always going to attack.
Tavis: And quickly, what do we expect from your speech tomorrow night?
Napolitano: Oh, I think a little punch, a little humor, and a little bit about Barack Obama and the economy.
Tavis: Governor, nice to have you on. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
Napolitano: Thank you.
Back to August 25, 2008