Johnson Touts New McClatchy-Marist Poll

Gary Johnson just tweeted about some new poll results.

The good news for Gary: He's tied with Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty, and he's got TWICE the support of Jon Huntsman among Republican voters.

The bad news: Johnson, Newt and T-Paw, as well as former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer are all at 2 percent. Huntsman has 1 percent.

Scroll way down to the bottom of the document below to see those results.

One screwy thing I noticed about some other numbers in the poll: 18 percent of those who say they are "Tea Party Supporters" say they will "definitely vote for President Obama" in 2012.

The Obama wing of the Tea Party. There's a feature story waiting to happen!

MARISTPOLL8-11

Why the Cervantes Challenge Fizzled

Rep. Joe Cervantes said that only two words explain the reason he couldn't get enough votes to topple House Speaker Ben Lujan: "Tea Party."

Lujan was re-elected with 36 votes. House Republican Leader Tom Taylor of Farmington, nominated symbolically as is the usual practice for the minority party, got 33 votes. Rep. Andy Nunez, D-Hatch, a Cervantes supporter, voted "present."

Many last week were predicting that Cervantes would have enough votes from Republicans and southern Democrats to win the speakership. But most of that talked stopped yesterday when news broke that several tea party organizations were urging Republicans not to back a coalition effort for Cervantes.

Taylor, talking to reporters after the vote, said he didn't believe the tea party opposition was the main reason for the failure of the coalition was that more Republicans were thinking of the political advantage of keeping Lujan in the position rather than the "policy' advantages.

"He's the status quo," Taylor said of Lujan. "There was a risk with Cervantes that we could have passed some great legislation and there'd be a lovefest in the Legislature. ... It would be harder to run a negative campaign."

If it wasn't obvious from his statement, Taylor acknowledged that he had been leaning toward supporting Cervantes.

New House Republican Don Bratton agreed with Taylor's analysis. "I look at things from a policy standpoint," he said.

Jerry Clark of the Las Cruces Sons of Liberty, a group that split off from the Las Cruces Tea Party last year, said his group agreed with the tea party opposition to Cervantes.

"We're from Las Cruces and we know Jose as a progressive," he said of Cervantes. "We thought Republicans should stand their ground. Even if Jose is an improvement over Ben Lujan, he's not really an improvement." He noted that Cervantes has voted for the "motor voter" law which makes it easier to get driver's licenses and against requiring picture identification for voting.

"We want Republicans to draw a line in the sand," he said.

Lujan, in his speech after the winning re-election, didn't mention the Cervantes challenge.

Has The Tea Party Saved Ben Lujan?

That's what some people think. "Tea Parties" from several New Mexico communities have been contacting Republican Legislators telling them not to get behind Rep. Joe Cervantes for House Speaker.

I spoke with Rep. Andy Nunez, D-Hatch this morning. He wasn't sounding nearly as optimistic as he has in the last couple of weeks.

Ironically, former Gov. Gary Johnson, who spoke at the Tea Party rally outside the Roundhouse this morning, told reporters he thinks that backing Cervantes would be good for "change." He recalled how in 2001 Senate Republicans united with a handful fo Democrats to oust Manny Aragon as Senate president pro tem.

We should know in a couple of hours.

Johnson's speech to the Tea Party was well received, especially his talk about tax cuts and shrinking government. But not everyone there was enthusiastic what Johnson had to say about issues such as immigration (Johnson favors work permits for Mexicans and opposes building a border fence), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, marijuana legalization.

One audience member came up and had a short and heated -- though ultimately civil -- discussion with Johnson about the issue. Whatever you think of the issue or Johnson, I find it refreshing to see politicians facing their critics and debating like this.

SF Tea Party

Apparently April 15 is destined to be a national day of protest over taxes -- at least until the day they abolish the IRS, and you know what Buddy Holly would say about that.

Maybe it's just because it's Santa Fe and so many people know each other, but I really don't sense the intense anger here that I've read about and seen on TV coverage of the Tea Party elsewhere. Yes there's serious disagreement with the Obama administration and other Democrats in power. And yes, there's lots of passion expressed.

But hateful? I didn't hear it. Racist? I didn't see it.

Nobody spit on or cursed state Rep. Brian Egolf -- a Santa Fe Democrat -- as he walked through the crowd. Nobody screamed at him when they were discussing his position on Voter ID bills. The worst thing said there was "you're so full of bluster!" by a woman who stalked off toward the end of that conversation.

To the right is a photo of Egolf meeting for the first time Brigitte Russell, his Republican opponent in November.

At the risk of sounding too namby-pamby in these divisive times, I actually think it's healthy in these divisive times for people to go down to the Plaza on a sunny day and talk about politics, protest things you don't like. I also think it's healthy for politicians to hear directly from folks who disagree with them and have good, civil exchanges of ideas.

(Gotta run now. Time to feed the unicorns.)

Here's my story in today's paper about Thursday's Tea Party event. CLICK HERE

And here's a link to the Associated Press story about taxes I refer to in the story. CLICK HERE.