America's 5 Best Governors

By Amanda Ripley and Karen Tumulty/Washington

Mike Huckabee/Arkansas

The Thin Man Expands Coverage for Kids

Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is tickled by the rampant speculation that he will seek the presidency. Officially, he's "keeping all options open," which is another way of saying he's trying to figure out how much money he could raise. If Huckabee does run, he would have to find a way--as Governor Bill Clinton did in 1992--to divert attention from some of the state's dreary realities, like a high poverty rate, relatively large numbers of unimmunized toddlers and poor ACT scores. Still, like Clinton, Huckabee has approached his state's troubles with energy and innovation, and he has enjoyed some successes. Most notably, he created ARKids First, which offers health insurance to poor children and has helped reduce the percentage of uninsured Arkansans under 18 to 9% in 2003-04, compared with 12% for the nation and 21% for neighboring Texas. Since he became Governor in July 1996, welfare rolls have declined by nearly half, and last year the state's economy grew 4.4%, beating the national average of 4.2%. But Huckabee, 50, is a good Governor, not just for what he has done but also for who he has become, personally and politically. He is literally half the man he used to be, having lost 110 lbs. after learning in 2002 that he has diabetes and suffering chest pains a year later. He now exercises with martial regularity. More important, but less noted, has been Huckabee's political transformation. In his early years as Lieutenant Governor and then in the top job, he offered little more than anti-Clinton resentment and capering populism; in 1996 he warned of "environmental wackos who ... want to tell us what kind of deodorant we can use." Huckabee is now a mature, consensus-building conservative who earns praise from fellow Evangelicals and, occasionally, liberal Democrats.

In 1997 he surprised some Republicans by introducing ARKids First, and a year later he decided that all the state's proceeds from the tobacco industry lawsuit settlement should go to health education, antismoking campaigns and--get this--Medicaid expansion. Partly because of opposition from his own party, Huckabee's tobacco plan got bottled up in the Arkansas house. So he put it before voters, and the referendum passed, 64% to 36%, in 2000. Huckabee also helped persuade voters to increase their own gas taxes to fund long-overdue highway repairs in 1999. The previous Governor, Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton's Democratic successor, had tried and failed to pass a highway program. Spreading the word about his newfound health is Huckabee's top mission now. This summer he began a one-year chairmanship of the National Governors Association, from which he has launched a Healthy America project to encourage fitness. He believes that because his own gourmandise was so legendary--he used to eat entire bowls of buttermilk dressing with his salads--he can persuade fellow bubbas to exercise and eat better. "I cannot completely describe just how contemptuous I was of exercise and those who engaged in it regularly," he writes in his book Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork. In May he ran a marathon.

--By John Cloud. With reporting by Steve Barnes/Little Rock

Kenny Guinn/Nevada

A Gambling Governor Makes a Smart Bet

More often than not, incurring the wrath of your own party is a recipe for failure in politics. But in 2003, when Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn fought for the largest tax increase in state history, he not only infuriated his core Republican supporters but also sparked a bitter legal battle and a short-lived recall campaign against him. So it is a testament to Guinn's savvy and leadership that instead of being wounded in the civil war, he actually came out stronger, eventually broadening his public support and raising his standing among good-government watchdogs. "The state will be better off for years to come," says Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing magazine.

As Guinn enters the final year of his busy two terms in office, his signature achievement remains the $830 million tax hike, a still controversial but realistic step to shore up the overstretched budget of the nation's fastest-growing state. "People say, 'Well, growth ought to pay for growth,' but I'm here to tell you, it doesn't," says Guinn, 69. When he was elected in 1998, little about Guinn's low-key personality or career background indicated he would try to be such a radical reformer or turn out to be such a polarizing figure. Having spent most of his career as an education administrator and corporate executive in banking and energy, he was widely viewed as the handpicked candidate of the state's casinos, a proven consensus builder and skilled manager who could smoothly shepherd Nevada's pro-business agenda.

While the economy has continued to thrive on his watch, Guinn has tried to leave Nevada with a broader and more solid foundation for the long-term future. Most notably, he established a Millennium Scholarship program to help high school graduates pay for college, and privatized the state's underfunded workers' compensation program--a move that took the $2 billion shortfall off Nevada's books and helped lower the insurance rates companies pay into the system. Along the way, Guinn helped fight the Federal Government's plan for a nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain; moved to diversify Nevada's gambling-dependent economy; and worked to address its many social ills, which include some of the nation's highest rates for suicide, teen pregnancy, youth violence and high school dropouts.

Guinn's critics say he has failed to fulfill many of his goals--especially to improve health care--and that he has been inconsistent in his plans to finance them. Long-term funding for the scholarships, for instance, is still up in the air. And during his seven years in the Governor's mansion, Guinn initially ruled out raising taxes, then embraced the idea, and most recently has, of all things, pushed through a one-time $300 million tax rebate. Still, no matter how he went about it, Guinn managed to put Nevada's long-term fiscal health above his own or his party's political considerations. That's a risky gamble for any politician. But with his approval numbers back near 60%, Guinn has gone a long way in showing that it can pay off in the end. --By Daniel Eisenberg. Reported by Stacy J. Willis/Las Vegas and Amanda Bower/San Francisco

Janet Napolitano/Arizona

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.

In her first week on the job, Napolitano took on the state's budget-deficit crisis. She presented a proposal that eliminated the $1 billion deficit without any tax increases. She persuaded moderate Republicans to vote the bill through with the minority Democrats. Now Arizona's economy is booming, with a projected budget surplus of more than $300 million and 4% job growth, the second highest in the nation after Nevada.

Napolitano has promoted social benefits like all-day kindergartens, a prescription-drug card for seniors and an innovative education policy that focuses on developing skills to ensure that students are better prepared for jobs. She has co-opted Republicans to support her agenda through several lures, including cutting business property taxes. And when she wanted to give a children's book to every first-grader in the state, she bypassed the system completely and over three years has solicited the $445,000 needed from private donors.

The one issue Republicans think they can use against the popular Napolitano is illegal immigration, because the huge number of border crossings have left many Arizonans feeling overwhelmed and powerless. Her critics claim she came to the problem late, but she seems to have navigated it deftly. Last November angry voters passed Proposition 200, which in part provides that undocumented aliens receive no state welfare benefits that they are not entitled to. Napolitano opposed it, as well as several bills that targeted illegal immigrants.

Instead, she looked to the systems and people that make illegal immigration possible: she ordered state contractors to ensure that their employees are legal, set up an undercover unit to catch forgers of identity documents and demanded the Federal Government, which is responsible for immigration, reimburse the $217 million Arizona has spent since 2003 on imprisoning undocumented aliens convicted of crimes. In mid-August she declared a state of emergency in Arizona to direct more funds to protecting border areas from illegal crossings.

Even as she runs a state of 5.7 million people, Napolitano has traveled extensively to strengthen her political connections around the country. A lawyer, she first attracted national attention in 1991, when she represented Anita Hill in her sexual-harassment case against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. In 2000, just three weeks after mastectomy surgery, Napolitano addressed the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. The pain was so bad, she says, she could barely stand up, but she knew the nation was watching. Four years later she was being mentioned as a potential running mate for John Kerry and was given a prime-time spot to address the party's convention in Boston. This summer Napolitano was picked as vice chair of the National Governors Association, the first woman to occupy that position in the group's 97-year history. "I don't think ambition is a bad thing," she says. Like all mountaineers, she knows that the view from the top is the best. --By Terry McCarthy. Reported by David Schwartz/Phoenix

Kathleen Sebelius/Kansas

For Kansas governor kathleen Sebelius, the problem was simple. "There were too many cars in the parking lot," she says. 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. A commission that Sebelius appointed to find government waste discovered that the state owned hundreds of cars it didn't use. So she sold 700 of them and forbade state agencies to buy more. The money earned from the car sale was small, but it showed that the new Governor was determined to find savings anywhere she could, from having all state agencies join together to bid for computers to asking state housekeeping workers to wear their own pants instead of government-issued ones. 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.

Republicans dominate both houses of the Kansas legislature, but the divide between the party's conservatives and its moderates is so stark that Kansas effectively has three political parties. Sebelius, 57, has deftly exploited that. After a court ordered the state to increase its spending on education by about $150 million this year, she persuaded moderates to join her in a compromise plan to comply with the decision. That deal left conservatives without the votes to push through a constitutional amendment they sought to effectively overrule the court's edict. To get g.o.p. backing for her proposals, she has appointed several Republicans to her cabinet, including former Governor Mike Hayden, who serves as secretary of wildlife and parks.

Her bipartisan credentials have long been burnished by her relationship with Keith Sebelius, a veteran Kansas Republican Congressman; she is married to his son Gary, a federal magistrate judge. Her father John Gilligan was Governor of Ohio in the 1970s, making the pair the first ever father-daughter combination of Governors. But it was her married name that helped Sebelius rise from state legislator to insurance commissioner and then Governor. With an approval rating near 60%, she is now popular in her own right--so popular that a number of high-profile Kansas Republicans have decided against challenging her when she runs for re-election next year.

--By Perry Bacon Jr. With reporting by Karen Tumulty

Mark Warner/Virginia

A Cell-Phone King's Fine Reception

The man who was the biggest factor in the closely watched Virginia Governor's race last week wasn't even on the ballot. And that's why 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. Part of it is style: Warner won narrowly in 2001 by courting gun owners and working the nascar circuit, even though he grew up in the New England state of Connecticut and is worth some $200 million. But the real political miracle is the fact that Virginians have only grown to love him more as he has slashed popular programs and raised taxes. Even Warner, 50, a telecommunications tycoon, admits he had a lot to learn when he arrived in Richmond. At first, the Republican-controlled legislature turned down everything he put forward. Voters rejected his proposal for new taxes to solve the state's traffic congestion. Worst of all, the Governor, who had run promising to help generate high-tech jobs, saw the technology bubble burst, just as he discovered that he had a deficit of more than $3 billion to close. Warner has never been one to be discouraged by a stumble or two. A Harvard Law grad, he started out as a fund raiser for the Democratic National Committee, a job that left him so broke he was reduced to sleeping on friends' couches, he recalls, and that he finally gave up to make some money. In the beginning, business didn't work out any better than politics. His initial venture, in energy, failed in six weeks; his second one, in real estate, took six months to fold. But in the early 1980s, Warner saw possibility in the far-out idea of cellular telephones and organized investor groups to apply for the free licenses then available. In return he got a stake in the new companies, one of which was Nextel. His friends, Warner recalls, thought he was crazy. Now he jokes, Anytime you're around me, please don't turn off your cell phone. You hear an annoying sound. I hear ka-ching! ka-ching! Warner brought the same long view to his state's fiscal problems. He slashed spending for everything but education, cutting $6 billion in costs, eliminating 3,000 state jobs and even shutting down driver's-license offices one day a week. That gave him credibility as a fiscal conservative, which became important when he discovered that spending cuts were not enough to put the state on sound financial footing for the rest of the decade. Given his one-term limit, it would have been tempting for Warner to simply paper over the problem and pass it on to his successor, as other Governors had done before him. Instead, he pulled together an unlikely coalition that won enough g.o.p. votes to pass a $1.4 billion tax hike, the largest in Virginia history--and put the state on the road to fiscal stability. This year Virginia tied with Utah as the best-managed state in the country, as rated by the Government Performance Project, an academic group. With the Democratic Party looking for a fresh face and a new direction, there is more than a little interest in what Warner plans to do when he leaves office in January. Shouts of '08! greeted his entrance at Kaine's victory party last week. Warner has begun traveling the country to test whether his brand of bipartisan pragmatism has any place in the polarized arena of national politics, saying, Americans want somebody who is going to be straight with them, even if the truth may not be what they want to hear. --By Karen Tumulty