At the Politico today, Ben Adler has an article assessing the three women (all governors) most frequently mentioned as possible running-mates for Barack Obama: Janet Napolitano of AZ, Kathleen Sebelius of KS, and Claire McCaskill of MO. As the headline and lede suggest, Adler's hypothesis is that these three women differ from Hillary Clinton in that they are not "polarizing," as though this is somehow a typical gender problem. That annoying detail aside, the piece is interesting in that Adler chooses to assess the governors through the eyes of Republicans in their states. And while it's obvious from the tone of their comments that there's not a lot of genuine bipartisan affection in play in any of the three states, the governors do get high marks from their opponents for having world-class political skills. It's worth a read.

UPDATE: As commenter NFreeman pointed out, Claire McCaskill is, of course, a senator, not a governor. Apologies for an egregrious factual error, though perhaps give us a mulligan for wanting to retroactively award McCaskill a victory in her 2004 gubernatorial campaign.