Unbridled Speculation

So here's the news:

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), a border-state governor whose handling of immigration and homeland security issues brought her accolades from fellow governors, is President-elect Barack Obama's choice to serve as secretary of homeland security, Democratic sources said yesterday.

Now, here's the tea leaves:

1. Napolitano would beat McCain in 2010.
2. Obama met with McCain on Monday.
3. McCain indicated he plans to run for re-election yesteday.
4. And now Napolitano is apparently joining the cabinet -- taking her out of 2010 contention, making McCain's path easier.

And here's my speculation: on Monday, Obama and McCain may have struck some sort of a deal involving McCain offering his support on a key legislative initiative in exchange for Obama taking Napalitano out of the running for McCain's senate seat. The most likely policy area for such a deal would be energy. Despite his election year conversion to drill, drill, drill, McCain has been among the more progressive GOPers on energy policy, so it's possible that he actually would be in favor of geting something done.

If I'm right (and again, this is just total speculation), my only hope was that it was a damn good deal, because Obama had tremendous leverage in this situation, and if he can get McCain to assemble a between five and ten GOP colleagues to support progressive energy and global warming legislation, we may actually finally get something done. But it has to be something good -- it can't be a watered down half-measure. It nees to be the real thing.

In the end, Obama will be measured on what he gets accomplished, not whether he cut this deal or that deal. Hopefully, this was a step towards getting something done for America and the world.