Jan Donatelli is a private citizen but has made her way into the google-sphere more than one might expect. She of course has a website where she spells out her views on a variety of issues.
Conclusion
Ms. Donatelli earns a "So Far So Good" joining the ranks of Dr. Paul Bryar. It will be nice to see her at the DFA forum if she comes. But ultimately she looks like a stand up citizen, someone who dedicated time and effort to the presidential election campaign
Analysis
As far as her stance on issues goes, she's what I'd expect from a Democrat. There are some positions or stances she takes that I could do without (all the pro-union crap) but overall I think she's solid. There was an ommission on her issues page which may or may not mean anything. She talked specifically about Gays and LGBT rights, but ommitted any mention of gay marriage or civil unions. She does say that she "is opposed to recent state legislative measures that have restricted gay rights." But that is woefully vague. She's either playing it politically safe or she is against gay marriage. The first is fine (although in a field of 25 I don't think playing it safe- unless your the establishment candidate- gets you anywhere), the second is not. I also didn't like her advocacy of eliminating the pre-existing conditions clauses of insurance companies.
As I said, those are the pieces I disagree with, most Democrats may or may not. The rest of the stuff looked ok. But that was just it, it just looked ok. Nothing in her stances on issues says, "no way no how." But I'm not really impressed either. Although, this may be more information than I've seen so far by the candidates I've reviewed up until now.
As far as her background is concerned, she seems fine. She seems genuinely motivated to do this, the effrot is there. She has started the groups online (not very succesfully yet, but Rome wasn't built in a day). LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr. She's a veteran and an airline pilot. She worked with the Obama campaingn in some capacity. She founded Airline Pilots for Obama. She doesn't tout that she founded it, at least on her website, which is good because the link will show you that it's a group on the Obama-Biden site. Nothing wrong with that but the way "founding" something sounds overdoes it a bit. Not unlike a previous candidate who inflated his resume. She does claim to have helped on a policy paper (a link or an example would have been nice) and canvassed in New Hampshire and Nevada (among other places) for Obama. She's a pilot, it was probably easy for her to "jump" to those locations. But, it's more effort than I put in. I just donated money.
As far as competence goes, I think you have to give her the benefit of the doubt. That actually goes for most candidates unless they prove you otherwise (Capparelli, O'Connor). As far as the campaign goes, she's held up her end. She's held an event (in San Francisco), she's made herself available on LinkedIn and Facebook, she has the best website I've seen so far, and she was promoted in the military in service to her country and doesn't seem to be a bad pilot. I don't knock her for not being a native Illinoisian/ Chicagoan (she's conspicuously silent on the issue) but adults shouldn't care about petty stuff like that, nor do I hold the San Francisco fundraiser against her (I will run for office someday- for something- and my donations will be solicited from business school associates. Hopefully they'll be rich by then).
