Napolitano Report Card:

PHOENIX (AP) January 3, 2004 - Janet Napolitano says advice from a former legal mentor helps guide her approach to serving as Arizona's governor.

"You may lose things along the way ... (but) you always have to keep your view on the long term and where you want to end," Napolitano recalled the late John P. Frank saying when they worked at the same Phoenix law firm. Frank's photo hangs in her office.

"In some respects, that's how I look at the governorship. You're not going to get everything you want. You don't have a magic wand," she added during a recent interview as she approached the midpoint of her four-year term. "You win some, and you lose some, but you've got to have a set of long-term goals."

An example, she said, was her efforts to phase in state funding for all-day kindergarten.

"It could take many years to do the whole thing and do it right, but let's do the whole thing and do it right," she recently told a Southern Arizona Women's Foundation luncheon in Tucson.

So far, the 47-year-old Democrat has won more than she's lost, especially at the traditional battleground of Arizona governors, the Legislature.

"We changed the debate about that," Napolitano said of state spending priorities in child protection, early education and high-tech research. "We've certainly laid down some markers where we should invest."

The past two years have seen Napolitano win approval of two annual state budgets largely to her liking. GOP conservatives complained the state was spending beyond its means, while supporters hailed her moves to maintain day-care subsidies and launch state funding for all-day kindergarten.

"She was prepared to take the longer look and (to) fight for a constituency that doesn't have a lot of lobbyists," said Children's Action Alliance Executive Director Carol Kamin, referring to the subsidies issue.

Napolitano in late 2004 called a special session, offering prison and Child Protective Services proposals without hammering out a deal with the Legislature beforehand. The special session produced a compromise on prison expansion plans but a clear win for Napolitano on funding to add CPS caseworkers and make other changes.

Republican legislators also complained that Napolitano budget vetoes exceeded her authority - the Arizona Supreme Court let the vetoes stand - and that she failed to deliver on promised savings in state government.

Napolitano also drew criticism in her first year for the heavy-handed way she fought to rename a mountain and highway to honor Lori Piestewa, an Arizonan who was the first American Indian woman killed in combat while fighting for the U.S. military. She was also criticized for her initial assessment that a gasoline pipeline rupture that led to long lines at Phoenix gasoline stations wasn't a crisis.

However, Napolitano evaded possible political damage when a 15-day hostage-taking at the Lewis state prison in Buckeye ended in the prisoners' surrender and a review commissioned by Republican legislators got mired in the courts.

Napolitano said in the AP interview she has no plans to seek another office and is focused on her current job. She said she's inclined to seek re-election in 2006. "We still have a lot to do, so a second term would be very helpful," she said.

Napolitano said her to-do list includes water, forest health, state trust land, school readiness and government efficiency changes.

Kamin and other Napolitano supporters said they expect Napolitano will face serious challenges in the Republican-led Legislature, thanks to both the election of additional GOP conservatives and the approach of the 2006 election.

"She is going to face a lot of challenges as there are people who want to see her stumble," said John Wright, Arizona Education Association's president.

However, "as with everything else she's done, I fully expect her to be successful," Wright added.

Pollster Jim Haynes said Napolitano has a reputation of being a "get-the-job-done governor" who has earned favorable performance ratings that have her well-positioned two years before the 2006 election.

"She's very popular at this stage of the game," said Haynes, president of Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center. "It doesn't seem to me that she's doing anything that steps over the line."

Len Munsil, a leading social conservative who has crossed swords with Napolitano on abortion and gay rights, said Napolitano is beatable, though he acknowledged that she is a "very smart politician."

"Just the way that she has very cleverly constructed this conservative, ex-prosecutor image that most people embrace, given how extreme she is on these values issues, demonstrates her political skills," he said.

Janet Napolitano

Age: 47.

Birthplace: New York City.

Residence: Phoenix.

Education: University of Santa Clara, political science; University of Virginia, law.

Occupation: Governor, attorney (inactive).

Party: Democratic.

Public service/politics: Elected to a four-year term as governor in 2002. Previously served as state attorney general (1998-2002) and U.S. attorney for Arizona (1993-97).

Family: Single.

Religion: Methodist.