Some New Mexicans agreed with a top Republican Party official’s recent assertion that the GOP is the party of reform in New Mexico. Others rejected the idea.
Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net
Gov. Susana Martinez has led the GOP at a time when it’s made significant gains in New Mexico. NMPolitics.net readers disagree about whether the party, as she and the chairwoman claim, is about reform.
In a state where more people are registered as Democrats but Republicans have recently gained significant power, many said they’re disenchanted with both parties.
Debbie Maestas, the state GOP’s chairwoman, asserted in a recent interview with NMPolitics.net that the Republicans won the House in 2014, for the first time in six decades, because “people are tired of Democrats protecting the status quo” and the GOP is focused on reform.
“I think she is spot-on, and I’m a Democrat,” Jerry Glen Wagoner of Las Cruces wrote in a discussion on NMPolitics.net’s Facebook page. “It’s time for change. The Democrats have done nothing but raise my taxes, corruption and inept leadership.”
Andrea Orzoff of Las Cruces had a different explanation for recent GOP gains: the contrast between Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, and her opponents in 2010 and 2014. The last two Democratic gubernatorial candidates have been “really weak,” she said.
Republicans, Orzoff said, “benefited from a strong candidate and poor opposition.”
Discussion about GOP messaging
Martinez, a former district attorney in Las Cruces, has worked to build an image as a strong leader and a reformer, frequently repeating much of the rhetoric about corruption and reform that Maestas also used. It’s messaging that resonates with Jim Wilemon of Albuquerque.
New Mexicans vote for Republicans when they “get tired of corruption,” Wilemon wrote. When they forget why they voted for Republicans they go back to picking Democrats, he said, adding that the latter “is why NM can’t have nice things.”
Wilemon said he was speaking from the experience of living in New Mexico for 45 years during primarily Democratic control of state government.
Mike Smith of Albuquerque, on the other hand, said Maestas appeared to be speaking about reform “not in ethical terms or with any degree of reflection and self-analysis, but quoting polls and talking about it as a matter of political expediency.”
“They don’t care about actual reform… they care about getting votes,” Smith said of Republicans. “They care about their image too, but only where their image can help them in getting votes.”
Marshall P. Maez of Los Alamos, who is no fan of the Republican Party, agreed with Smith that the messaging is key to GOP gains.
“If you say the same lies over and over again, with conviction, they become popular opinion,” he said. “People are (too) busy working and trying to make ends meet to do the research to understand what the real issues are.”
Not happy with either party
Several people responded to Maestas’ interview by expressing frustration with both parties. Buck Courtney of Las Cruces was among them.
“I think R-vs.-D agenda is a farce,” he wrote in a discussion on my Facebook page. “Two sides of the same coin. … As far as compromise (something Maestas claimed the GOP is doing), the recent legislative session showed that neither is willing to work across the aisle in most cases. The system is broken.”
Jennifer Sensiba of Las Cruces was similarly critical of the idea that Republicans are focused on reform while Democrats are trying to protect the status quo.
“The difference between the two big parties is real, but it’s not huge,” Sensiba said. “Having ideas that transcend the narrow range of authoritarian viewpoints isn’t something that particularly impresses me. Sadly, this is politics. They manipulate the population through emotion constantly, so that’s what most people think is normal.”
Mike Blessing of Albuquerque asked what Republicans do “besides conduct the extraction of wealth from the general population and transfer it to themselves and their sponsors?”
“Mind you, I don’t see the Democrats as being the slightest bit better,” he added.
‘Run moderate candidates’
Several on Facebook complained about extremism in the GOP. In a state where Republicans have to earn independent and Democratic votes to win statewide races, Wagoner, the Democrat who wrote that Maestas was “spot-on,” said he had one request of the GOP: “Run moderate candidates.”
Responding to some of the criticisms of Republicans and Martinez, Wyatt Bertsch of Las Cruces urged people to give Republicans a chance.
“It takes time and effort to change entrenched viewpoints,” Bertsch said. “After Democrat control since President Eisenhower, let’s give her and the GOP the chance to do some good.”
New Mexico’s “flirtation” with Republicans will be shortlived, predicted Jon Hendry of Santa Fe, president of the New Mexico Federation of Labor. He predicted that Republicans will be “tripped up by both the Tea Party wing and the social conservatives when they stray from populists ideas.”
Meanwhile, a “talented and deep” Democratic bench will “bring out the disaffected and disillusioned” by 2018, Hendry said. Before that, he predicted, Democrats will have strong turnout in federal races next year.