In its continuing profile of potential VP selections the New York Times has featured Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. She is from a family steeped in politics, and married into a family with a strong (Republican) tradition. She is an interesting potential candidate, winning handily in Republican Kansas, and then governing in a real bi-partisan fashion. From the Times:

The daughter of a former Democratic governor and congressman, she married the son of a six-term Republican congressman. Running for re-election in 2006, she upended expectations by announcing that her running mate would be a former Kansas Republican chairman. In a state where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 330,000, she then won with 58 percent of the vote, becoming the first Kansas Democrat in 24 years to gain re-election to the governorship.

She has governed from the center, and in cooperation with moderate Republicans in the Kansas legislature.

She and moderate Republicans in the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature have worked together under pressure from the courts to resolve a school financing crisis. She has also earned points as fiscally responsible: Facing a budget shortfall at the onset of her first term, she imposed broad efficiency measures that, by her office’s measure, saved $1 billion. Among other steps, she called for what was apparently the first accounting of the number of cars in the state fleet, then sold hundreds of them.

And since we have been talking about energy on this blog I can’t resist adding this from her story in the Times:

She has vetoed two coal-fired power plants in southwestern Kansas, making her a darling of environmentalists. (She has pledged to draw 10 percent of the state’s energy from alternative sources, particularly wind, by 2010.)

Sebelius has much working against her selection, including the fact that she would not be able to deliver her state for Obama, and her selection could infuriate many Hillary Clinton supporters. Regardless of her fortunes in the VEEP selection process she is someone to watch for a prominent position in a potential Obama cabinet if he passes her over for V.P.

Read the Times story here.