economically she has been a real disaster. Economically, she has no long term plan, and she has alienated herself from her own party through the budget nightmare.
You see the same thing in many states, and to be quite honest it is not the fault of the most recent politicians most of the time. The nation has been in a recession, and many governments had created a budget that just barely balanced itself with the tax dollars coming in during the economic boom.
What this means is that they don't have enough revenue to support the excessive fat government propped up during an economic boom.
They either have to make drastic cuts, which pisses off all the unions representing government jobs since government jobs are the prime expense of state governments, or they have to raise taxes.
So jobs cut, and services reduced or taxes raised.
It really is as simple as that, and either one is going to piss off large mobilized groups of voters.
For example the OP works in corrections. Corrections is represented by large unions most places. Unions most often aligned with Democrats and their candidates.
Strong budget cuts will likely reduce the number of corrections employees, and he could find himself out of a job if they balance the budget. As a result the Unions will use scare tactics and remind everyone of all the dangerous criminals that might have to be released if there is any fewer guards (even if it is mainly non-violent offenders that would be released). Along with other tactics that will make the person making the decision look bad.
Police, fire, nurses, school teachers, they all do the same thing and use similar scare tactics, and belong to powerful unions that are effective at getting the point across.
While raising taxes is going to upset everyone, but especially a lot of the conservative base, often the base that is more inclined to support gun rights and that she represents. Also when taxes are raised for a shortfall in bad times, they almost never are reduced later. The new revenue from good times is just used to prop up some new government programs or employees, leading to the exact same problem some years in the future, while everyone will still be paying more taxes.
Either is going to be a political loss and give the talking heads something to cite to make the politician in charge look like something the people did not want to elect to office and do not want around in the future.
What it means is most who have been unfortunate enough to be a politician in charge of a state budget in the last year or two are going to receive a bad review which will hurt their career.
The leader is also a figurehead, and while it may take many people in a legislator to make things happen irregardless of what the leader wants to do, it is the leader that takes the blame and becomes the scapegoat when things don't happen.
So if the legislator refuses to play ball not wishing to upset various local constituents and hurt their own career, or does not like working with the leader, the leader will be blamed for it in the end and be unlikely to see another term.
But the truth is often that it is not really their fault, but the fault of the people who created such a bloated government that requires more revenue than a less booming economy can support.