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.
ALBUQUERQUE — On a gloomy election evening, North Valley state Sen. John Ryan was one of the Republican Party’s few bright spots. Considering many of his colleagues (today it’s Mr. Leonard Lee Rawson) in the Legislature are still feeling the aftershocks of last week’s landslide, it’s no wonder Ryan plainly described his victory as “fortunate.”
Ryan, a past executive director for the New Mexico Republican Party and former staffer for U.S. Rep. Joe Skeen, attributed the pervasive Democratic victory to several factors. He said across the state, paper ballots made it easier for folks to vote straight party in a year when President-elect Barack Obama, at the top of the ticket, “had big coattails.”
Ryan said the unpopularity of the Iraq War, combined with public perception that the Republicans were more culpable than Democrats for the current economic crisis, posed an insurmountable challenge.
“The president in power takes it on the chin, even though Congress has the lowest approval in history,” said Ryan. “To have open seats for Congress with a wave of Democratic support also made the situation worse.”
Greg Payne, a former Republican state representative and former Albuquerque city councilor, said it will take a couple of election cycles for the GOP to rebound.
“We are where the Dems were in 1980,” Payne said. “You have a charismatic leader now like Ronald Reagan who pretty much set the political tone for the next 20 years. I suspect Barack Obama will have that kind of impact as well.”
Now that the Democrats can put to rest concerns of the Bradley effect, Payne said the GOP had best be mindful of the Mondale effect.
“The Democrats came back with Mondale in ’84, an ultra-liberal, and got shellacked. If the GOP makes similar moves and becomes even more far-right, we could be facing a similar fate in 2012.”
Unlike some Republicans, Payne did not fear that Obama would take his guns and bibles and raise his taxes the first day in office. “I’m also going to make a prediction,” he said. “I think people will be surprised how conservative Obama will be on some of the issues in the culture wars. I think he will be someone in the middle of the road.”
Payne said the Republican Party leaders, at all levels of government, need to get back to “core values” — the importance of limited government, fiscal conservatism and protecting individual freedom. He said in the past eight years Republican elected officials didn’t live up to those values and the party suffered.
“We had profligate spending in the Bush administration,” said Payne. As for individual freedom, he said: “I’m not referring to the Patriot Act. True individual freedom — the belief that people have a right to be left alone and be responsible to themselves and family, and not look to the government.”
As for the Iraq War, Payne said, it’s clear that young voters, a growing force in the electorate, do not want to see the United States in wars in foreign lands.
“Overall, as a nation, Iraq is taking more out of us than we are taking out of it. I think we need to get back to the Republicanism under Teddy Roosevelt — pro-environment, not anti-government, a strong foreign policy that meant being prepared for war but seeking peace.”
Looking forward, John Ryan suggested a political strategy could be drawn, at least partly, from the “messages that prevailed in races we won and see if there’s a model for future elections.”
Ryan said his message was his legislative record over the past four years, namely “reaching across the aisle” and advocating for education reform. Although he’s a staunch conservative, Ryan was not calling for creationism in lieu of biology, but instead he sponsored legislation to audit the Albuquerque Public Schools in an effort to reduce administrative costs and “put more money in the classroom.” He called for a “new scholarship program for those not eligible for the lottery scholarship” and also sponsored water conservation legislation.
When I joked that he was sounding like a liberal, Ryan turned the discussion to the Democrats, implying there will be tough times ahead.
“I’ve been in the minority ever since I worked in Congress with Rep. Skeen,” said Ryan. “It’s harder to govern as majority and much easier to caucus with smaller numbers. The Democrats have a mandate. The question is — can they get things done, and how quickly?”
Still, Republicans aren’t known for defensive tactics when it comes to fighting for power. It’s not likely party supporters are going to sit back and wait for the Democrats to stumble. Consider what happened just two years after Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992: The GOP aggressively campaigned around its Contract with America, the strategic cornerstone to winning back a majority of seats in Congress in 1994.
Payne said that’s not the answer.
“The Democrats increased numbers this year without a Contract with America,” he said. “I think people are looking for a Republican Party that means what it says. You can’t talk about fiscal conservatism when you are overseeing the largest expansion of the federal bureaucracy.”
