I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Jonathan Rauch over at the National Journal takes a look at the Tea Party and what it means for the 2010 elections.
His findings: The increase in Republican-leaning voters — de-branded Republicans, he calls them, who make up most of the Tea Party movement — likely will help to propel the GOP into winner column this election cycle, as opposed to 2008. But beyond 2010 they might force the GOP into a strategic dilemma.
Using various polls, Rauch notes that conservative constituencies like the Tea Party movement is mostly made up of white, working-class, Christian voters, all groups that are on a trajectory to lose a share of the electorate over the long run. Center-left constituencies, meanwhile, are made up of minorities, left-leaning women, professionals and socially liberal Millennials, all growing constituencies, he writes.
If the debranded Republicans help the GOP win in November they likely will see it as a result of their votes and seize on the potential for growing influence.
“… debranded Republicans, unlike ordinary partisans, demand purity in exchange for their votes,” Rauch writes. “They want to move the party to the right, at least on economic issues, and as of now they appear to be succeeding.”
They also have demonstrated that they are willing to split the Republican party “and overthrow Republican incumbents they deem insufficiently conservative,” he adds.
Rauch notes that the Republican party already is “well to the right of the country’s center” and that “Even without debranded Republicans to consider, this is not a party well positioned to reach out to the middle.”
There’s a lot to ponder over in Rauch’s essay, and its premise is based on many assumptions, some that might be dead on and others that aren’t. Also it isn’t too difficult to see 2010 as a potential mirror image of 2008, when voters at the other end of the philosophical spectrum — voters identifying themselves as more liberal than other Americans — came out strong for Barack Obama, as did many political independents.
Whether you agree with Rauch or not, his essay is an interesting read.
