FOXNews.com - April 30, 2010 Arizona Legislature Passes Bill Banning Ethnic Studies Programs
^^^^^ CB: Any polls on what Tea Partiers think of these moves in Arizona ?
There is real left/right polarizing of the electorate across the country with the right jumping to their poll first. Here's one take on Michigan
FIRST OF TWO PARTS In governor's race, can any candidate still standing unify Michigan? BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF and DAWSON BELL FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU
"East Lansing pollster Mitchell said his polling last fall revealed a sharpening of public opinion on both the right and left, but especially on the right, with hardly any middle ground left."
This year’s wide-open race for governor, which officially kicks off with Tuesday’s filing deadline, is churned by voter anger over national health care reform and Wall Street bailouts, state budget paralysis and Michigan having the nation’s highest unemployment rate.
For the five Republicans, the aggressive Tea Party movement brings both benefits and peril: It has galvanized conservatives who give the GOP nominee a stronger base, but candidates who take hard-line positions to make their appeal to win a primary could put off critical independent voters they’ll need in November.
The three Democrats, on the other hand, must overcome the drag of an unpopular Democratic governor and a dismal state economy. Still, they must appeal in a primary to a liberal, union-dominated party base while promising to get businesses hiring again.
Veteran pollster Steve Mitchell said candidates almost always tailor campaigns to ideological voters for primaries. That may be especially true in 2010, with an increasingly polarized electorate.
“To a pretty substantial degree, they’re following the voters,” Mitchell said.
Whipping up base support Last month, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero attacked his main Democratic rival for governor, House Speaker Andy Dillon, for not supporting President Barack Obama's health care reform.
In fact, Dillon does support it, but Bernero scored points with Democrats as he put Dillon on the defensive (and probably irked voters who oppose the health care reforms).
Republican gubernatorial candidate Michael Bouchard appealed to conservatives when he called for a Michigan law similar to Arizona's controversial law allowing police to question suspected illegal immigrants.
The Oakland County sheriff also said as governor he would have blocked the new statewide smoking ban, a view not shared by most voters.
Whipping up base support is a timeworn strategy, and Republicans could especially have force in this year's gubernatorial primary.
East Lansing pollster Mitchell said his polling last fall revealed a sharpening of public opinion on both the right and left, but especially on the right, with hardly any middle ground left.
On issue after issue, the percentage of voters with no opinions shrank from a usual 10%-12% down to 1%-1.5%, Mitchell said. Unless that changes, don't expect primary election winners to be as concerned about charting a course back to the middle for the general election.
But candidates must be careful when they navigate such issues as taxes and state government spending, said another pollster, Bernie Porn of Lansing's EPIC-MRA. Porn polls for the Free Press and several Michigan TV stations.
Republican gubernatorial candidates have talked of billion-dollar tax cuts, especially for businesses. Porn said polls don't show much support for cutting business taxes alone.
An EPIC poll in April showed voters favor a mix of budget cuts and higher taxes or fees to balance the state budget.
Bill Ballenger, publisher of the political newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, said Republicans in a crowded field are trying harder to appeal to the right than Democrats are appealing to the left.
"The candidates are trying to out-conservative each other on certain key issues," Ballenger said. "I can't recall a time in a primary when I've heard this much conservative talk."
The Republicans Michigan Republicans won't have a shortage of conservatives to choose from in the Aug. 3 primary.
Each of the leading candidates -- Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, Attorney General Mike Cox, state Sen. Tom George, U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder -- is a self-described conservative.
Although Snyder doesn't really like to self-describe with political labels at all, spokesman Jake Suski said, "He's as conservative as the next guy, but he's moderate in tone."
On the other hand, Snyder -- a past supporter of a group that thinks the anti-abortion-rights plank in the Republican Party's national platform should be removed -- penned an opinion piece for the Grand Rapids Press recently touting his pro-life credentials.
So look for each of them -- whether out of principle or politics -- to run on the conservative side of the street in 2010.
Mitchell, the pollster, said it's some of both.
Voters, especially Republican primary voters, have steered to the right since the 2008 presidential election in reaction to what they believe is an overreach by Democrats in Washington, he said.
"There is a real feeling among Republicans that (Democrats) are running things as far left liberals, even socialists," Mitchell said.
A significant number of self-identified independents share that view, he said, and in many respects, the politicians are following the voters' lead.
Some of the candidates insist they've been there all along.
Attorney General Cox has grabbed headlines during the last year for all manner of actions and assertions aimed to appeal to the right side of the political spectrum. He's pledged to slash taxes and downsize government, led chants at Tea Party rallies and sued President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over federal health care legislation.
None of that means he's moved an inch to the right, campaign spokesman Nick DeLeeuw said.
"Mike Cox has always been a conservative," DeLeeuw said. "He took the no-tax pledge years ago. He was the only statewide politician to oppose racial preferences" by supporting the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in 2006.
"He hasn't changed."
Sheriff Bouchard also has been emphasizing his libertarian-conservative bona fides, siding with Arizona on the enforcement of a controversial immigration law and saying he wouldn't have signed legislation banning smoking in bars and restaurants.
And barely a week goes by that Rep. Hoekstra of Holland doesn't send out an announcement proclaiming his certification as a true conservative by one conservative activist group or the other.
Bill Rustem, a Michigan Republican from the era of former Gov. William Milliken (for whom he once worked), said that for whatever reason, the GOP candidates of 2010 are miles right of the party's former mainstream.
Former Republican governors like Milliken and George Romney would have trouble winning the nomination today, he said.
Of former Gov. John Engler, Rustem said: "I never heard Engler talk about immigration or take the no-tax pledge."
Mitchell, the pollster, however, said if Engler were a candidate today he might well be taking a harder line on immigration and taxes.
Engler knew that "you need to give voters a clear choice between the conservative agenda and the liberal agenda," Mitchell said.