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Some govs succeed with softer touch
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| Contributor | Jason |
| Last Edited | Jason Aug 03, 2011 06:21am |
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| Category | Perspective |
| News Date | Wednesday, August 3, 2011 12:20:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | To judge from the headlines, the 2010 class of GOP governors - as in Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Ohio’s John Kasich and Florida’s Rick Scott - ushered in an era of radical changes achieved through confrontational politics that have also resulted in startlingly low poll ratings and civil wars with their state legislatures.
But a look toward the West finds some rookie GOP state leaders - New Mexico’s Susana Martinez and Nevada’s Brian Sandoval in particular - who have accomplished some of the same conservative policy goals as their higher-profile counterparts with a fraction of the backlash, and it is their example that may prove more useful to 2012 Republican gubernatorial hopefuls.
There are extenuating circumstances; Martinez and Sandoval were forced by Democratic legislatures into the sorts of compromises of principle and practices that are anathema to the conservative movement that energized last November’s midterms. After an adverse court ruling, Sandoval even raised taxes.
But the two governors also won, to different degrees, dramatic victories on the core issue of education reform, infuriating teachers’ unions and cutting spending without alienating parents. And while governors like Walker and Kasich have emerged as national conservative and Republican celebrities – and are, according to public polling, three of the four least popular of the new class of governors — Sandoval and Martinez have fought to keep their heads down and the ideological stakes low. In a nation clamoring for compromise and political civility, theirs is a model to watch. |
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