{"id":56273,"date":"2015-07-21T00:15:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T06:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=56273"},"modified":"2015-07-22T00:40:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T06:40:21","slug":"opinions-are-mixed-on-whether-the-gop-is-the-party-of-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/07\/opinions-are-mixed-on-whether-the-gop-is-the-party-of-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinions are mixed on whether the GOP is the party of reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some New Mexicans\u00a0agreed with a top\u00a0Republican Party official’s\u00a0recent assertion that the GOP\u00a0is the party of reform in New Mexico. Others\u00a0rejected the idea.<\/p>\n

\"Gov.

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

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.<\/p><\/div>\n

In a state where more people are registered as Democrats<\/a> but Republicans have recently gained significant power, many\u00a0said they’re disenchanted with\u00a0both parties.<\/p>\n

Debbie Maestas, the state GOP’s chairwoman, asserted in a recent interview with NMPolitics.net<\/a> that the Republicans won the House in 2014<\/a>, for the first time in six decades, because\u00a0\u201cpeople are tired of Democrats protecting the status quo\u201d and the GOP is\u00a0focused on\u00a0reform.<\/p>\n

“I think she is spot-on, and I’m a Democrat,” Jerry Glen Wagoner of Las Cruces wrote\u00a0in a discussion on NMPolitics.net’s\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>. “It’s time for change. The Democrats have done nothing but raise my taxes, corruption and inept leadership.”<\/p>\n

Andrea Orzoff of Las Cruces had a different\u00a0explanation for recent GOP gains: the contrast between\u00a0Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, and her opponents in 2010 and 2014. The last two\u00a0Democratic gubernatorial candidates have been “really weak,” she said.<\/p>\n

Republicans, Orzoff\u00a0said, “benefited from a strong candidate and poor opposition.”<\/p>\n

Discussion about GOP messaging<\/h3>\n

Martinez, a former district attorney in Las Cruces, has worked to build\u00a0an image as a strong leader and a reformer, frequently\u00a0repeating\u00a0much of the rhetoric about corruption and reform that Maestas also used. It’s messaging that resonates with Jim Wilemon of Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

New Mexicans vote for Republicans when they “get tired of corruption,” Wilemon wrote.\u00a0When they\u00a0forget why they voted for Republicans they\u00a0go back to picking\u00a0Democrats, he said, adding that the latter\u00a0“is why NM can’t have nice things.”<\/p>\n

Wilemon said he was speaking from the experience of living in New Mexico for 45 years during primarily\u00a0Democratic control of state government.<\/p>\n

Mike Smith of Albuquerque, on the other hand, said\u00a0Maestas appeared to be speaking\u00a0about reform “not in ethical terms or with any degree of reflection\u00a0and self-analysis, but quoting polls and talking about it as a matter of political expediency.”<\/p>\n

“They don’t care about actual reform…\u00a0they care about getting votes,” Smith\u00a0said of Republicans. “They care about their image too, but only where their image can help them in getting votes.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Not happy with either party<\/h3>\n

Several people responded to Maestas’ interview by expressing frustration with both parties. Buck Courtney of Las Cruces was among them.<\/p>\n

“I think R-vs.-D agenda is a farce,” he wrote in a discussion on\u00a0my Facebook page<\/a>. “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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.\u00a0Sadly, this is politics. They manipulate the population through emotion constantly, so that’s what most people think is normal.”<\/p>\n

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?”<\/p>\n

“Mind you, I don’t see the Democrats as being the slightest bit better,” he added.<\/p>\n

‘Run moderate candidates’<\/h3>\n

Several on Facebook complained about extremism in the GOP. In a state where Republicans have to earn\u00a0independent and Democratic votes to win statewide races, Wagoner, the Democrat who wrote that Maestas was “spot-on,”\u00a0said he had one request of the GOP: “Run moderate candidates.”<\/p>\n

Responding to some of the criticisms of Republicans and Martinez, Wyatt Bertsch of Las Cruces urged people to give Republicans a chance.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

New Mexico’s “flirtation” with Republicans will be shortlived, predicted Jon Hendry of Santa Fe, president of the New Mexico Federation of Labor.\u00a0He\u00a0predicted that Republicans will be “tripped up\u00a0by both the Tea Party wing and the social conservatives when they stray from populists ideas.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a “talented and deep” Democratic bench will “bring out the disaffected and disillusioned” by 2018, Hendry\u00a0said. Before that, he\u00a0predicted, Democrats will have strong turnout in\u00a0federal races next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[705,194,107],"class_list":["post-56273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-money-in-politics","tag-republican-party","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}