(http://www.nytimes.com/)
____________________________________ June 11, 2010 In Politics, the Sun Rises in the West By _JENNIFER STEINHAUER_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/jennifer_steinhauer/index.html?inline=nyt-per) LOS ANGELES — The West may not be the geographic center of the country, but these days it sits at the heart of its political culture. Last week, California voters, fed up with primaries that produce polarizing candidates, chose a new system in which the top two vote-getters of a primary race — no matter their party — face off in the general election. In its primary on Tuesday, Nevada set the stage for the ultimate test of what voters can tolerate least — Democratic incumbents or right-of-mainstream upstarts. The national conversation about _immigration_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html? inline=nyt-classifier) — one that had been marginalized nationally and avoided in Washington — has been restarted, and reframed, in Arizona over the last month. The marriage of the region’s political volatility and its historical relationship to some of the toughest issues being pondered nationwide — immigration, natural resources and energy, the appropriate reach of federal government — have made it a mirror held up to the current political psyche. “These states are emerging as the new Missouri,” said Robert Lang, the director of _Brookings Mountain West,_ (http://brookingsmtnwest.unlv.edu/) a research institution at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. Western states, specifically Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico, “read the national mood on issues like energy and other things that are going to matter in the country in the coming years,” Mr. Lang said. “It is just a sensitive spot to register the nation’s fate, the national mood and our leaders.” _Tea Party_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) ? Nevada has that movement’s most quintessential candidate in a Senate contender, _Sharron Angle_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/sharron_angle/ index.html?inline=nyt-per) , and an equally symbolic opponent in the Senate majority leader, _Harry Reid_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/harry_reid/index.html?inline=nyt-per) . Economic crisis? Arizona, Nevada and California were among the hardest-hit states in the country and have yet to recover. Even the boom in female candidates for statewide office is reflected here: California Republicans are trying to make history by electing the state’s first female governor and the state party’s first female senator. As with any exciting stew, the rise of the West’s role in the national political consciousness features many ingredients: history, demographics, physical landscape and local economies. Westerners, schooled in the whims of the federal government, which owns vast amounts of land here, and whose defense industry has historically been tied to the fortunes of California, Arizona and Colorado, have long been suspicious of government intrusions, long before the libertarian _Rand Paul_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/rand_paul/index.h tml?inline=nyt-per) , the Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky, found a microphone. Yet the region has been and remains less fixed in its political traditions than broad regional swaths elsewhere in America. It has many nonpartisan mayors and city managers, and legislatures often take a back seat to direct democracy through ballot initiatives. It generally lacks strong unions that direct races. Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado are true swing states now. It has produced its fair share of political iconoclasts as well — from _Ronald Reagan_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ronald_wilson_reagan/index.html?inline=nyt-per) to Jerry Brown. As such, the region has often been viewed as aberrational by the rest of the country, as both too physically detached and too quirky in its political doings. Western exceptionalism has extended to policy, too. California has often come before the rest of the country on proscriptive policy for health care and other issues. And the West has embraced the outer edges: proposed _marijuana_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/m/marijuana/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) legalization (California), expanded gun rights (Arizona) and legal prostitution (Nevada). In recent years, Democrats and Republicans have sought to lock up the West for their parties to better ensure their own power in presidential elections. The opening for both parties to woo new voters in the region stems in large part from demographics and migration. From 2000 to 2009, the population of Nevada grew 32 percent, according to census figures, largely in the southern half of the state. Arizona grew 28 percent and Colorado, 17 percent, still twice the national average for that time period. “States with static populations tend to have static politically allegiances, ” said Dan Schnur, director of the _Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics_ (http://college.usc.edu/unruh/) at the _University of Southern California_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univers ity_of_southern_california/index.html?inline=nyt-org) . States in the Mountain and Pacific time zones have had some of the greatest population growth of the last 20 years, he said, “and it’s only natural that a newly arrived resident isn’t going to have the same political loyalties as someone whose great-great-grandparents signed the Declaration of Independence.” In Nevada in 2007, Democrats began an attempt to become an early caucus state by constructing massive party infrastructure. The party built field operations statewide, even in places generally hostile to Democrats, and made use of southern Nevada, the one area where unions had begun to amass political power. By the time of the general election, the state had flipped, in terms of voter registration, from red to blue. “Democrats figured they have lost the South so they need the West,” said Jon Ralston, a veteran political columnist for The Las Vegas Sun. “Reid changed the voter registration numbers even beyond what his wildest dreams were. ” But the rural north of the state remains a conservative stronghold, and the state’s politically libertarian culture is offended by the Obama administration’s spending programs. And so it is that Mr. Reid, the architect of Democratic growth in his state, is now vulnerable to Ms. Angle, who has expressed support for the privatization of _Medicare_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) and _Social Security_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) and a desire to eliminate the Department of Education, positions that many independents and disenchanted Democrats may struggle to accept. “In the last election, Nevada really did function as a bellwether,” said Mr. Lang of Brookings Mountain West. “And if you are really a true swing state, you would be going the other way right now. So they are.” If Americans are paying more attention to the West, it may be because many issues on their minds have been pondered here for decades. A position on Arizona’s new immigration law, which requires the police to ask about the immigration status of people stopped for violations of the law, has become the litmus test among many _G.O.P._ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) primary candidates. _President Obama_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) , who has tried not to be dragged into an immigration debate in an election year, was forced to meet with Gov. _Jan Brewer_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/jan_brewer/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Arizona to discuss their disagreement over the law. “If you think about some of the big issues of the day,” said Matthew J. Burbank, associate professor of political science at the _University of Utah_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univers ity_of_utah/index.html?inline=nyt-org) , “energy, the environment, how you deal with population growth and scarce resources, particularly water — those are issues that are really in many ways central to the West. They are really part of the national discussion now, especially what is going on with the gulf. Immigration is another good example.” How long the West will maintain dominance in the political conversation is a matter of some debate. Much of the argument centers on immigration and the economy. Over the last two years, population growth in Arizona and Nevada — migration from other states as well as illegal immigration — has slowed greatly, largely because the dominant industries, construction and tourism, have collapsed. Hispanics constitute more than 25 percent of the population of Arizona, Nevada and California, according to the _Pew Hispanic Center_ (http://pewhispanic.org/) . While they have low voter participation relative to other residents of those states, their potential power is not lost on either party. Republicans have been split over the Arizona law largely because they do not want to alienate Latinos. “One of the big questions in this state is, ‘Are you going to be able to see the voting intensity among Hispanics that you saw in 2008?’ ” said Mr. Ralston of Nevada, who pointed to the eight Hispanic legislative contenders in his state, all favored to win. “This place is absolutely still a work in progress.”
_______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
