It's Dems who have branding problem

From the political notebook:

It is axiomatic in some circles that the Republican kooks in the Arizona Legislature and, to a lesser extent, the hard-line "tea party" conservatives in Congress, have tarnished and trashed the Republican brand.

The most recent voter-registration figures suggest there is a major political party in Arizona with a brand problem. But it's not the Republicans.

The big story in voter registration in Arizona is, of course, the rise of independents. There are 217,000 more registered independents in the state today than for the presidential election in 2008.

Republicans have increased their ranks very modestly, adding about 11,500 voters since the past presidential election.

Democratic registration has plummeted since then. Today, there are 75,000 fewer Democrats than there were in 2008.

Nor does the trend seem to be abating. Since January of this election year, the Democrats have lost nearly 11,000 voters. Republicans seem to be doing OK, having added roughly as many voters as the Democrats lost. In fact, since January, Republicans have actually outpaced the increase in independent registration.

These numbers provide a reality test for other political claims and suppositions floating about. Every election, we are told that the rise in Latino voters will begin to transform Arizona politics. And, periodically, some organization will issue a press release claiming impressive results from a voter-registration drive among Latinos.

Perhaps all these new Latino voters are registering independent. If so, that also flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds that hard-edged Republican rhetoric and action on immigration is driving Latinos into the arms of the Democratic Party.

Regardless, the hard reality is that Democrats in Arizona are hemorrhaging voters. In 2008, their registration disadvantage to the Republicans was about 96,000 voters. Going into this presidential election, it has nearly doubled to 183,000 voters.

It would appear that Democrats in Arizona have a brand problem.

Democratic prospects in Arizona would dim even further if the top-two primary initiative passed. The initiative aims to dilute the influence of conservative Republicans, and Republicans are the ones organizing the inchoate opposition. But Democrats will be the big losers if it passes.

That's because the Republican registration and turnout advantage means that Democrats face a real risk of their candidates not even making it to the general-election ballot for statewide offices.

In 2010, the last primary for the full array of statewide offices, Republican turnout was 47 percent, Democratic turnout was 29 percent and independent turnout was 12 percent.

In the GOP primary for attorney general, Tom Horne got slightly more than 276,000 votes and Andrew Thomas got slightly fewer than 276,000. The winner of the Democratic primary, Felecia Rotellini, got only about 120,000 votes. In other words, the winner of the Democratic primary got considerably less than half of the votes of the loser of the GOP primary. If independent turnout had doubled and Rotellini got 100 percent of it, she still would have ended up well behind Thomas.

There's little question that under a top-two primary system, in which the two candidates with the most votes go on to the general election irrespective of party, the general election would have been a rematch between Horne and Thomas. (And wouldn't that have been a treat.)

The high point of recent Democratic politics was the governorship of Janet Napolitano. Under the top-two primary system, it might never have happened. Napolitano might not have made it to the general election in 2002.

In that election, there were three Republican candidates for governor in the primary (Matt Salmon, Betsey Bayless and Carol Springer) and four Democratic candidates (Napolitano, Alfredo Gutierrez, Mike Newcomb and Mark Osterloh). In the primary, Napolitano received a comfortable margin of 36,000 votes more than the second-place Republican, Bayless.

However, there was an independent in the race who wasn't on the primary-election ballot, Richard Mahoney. Mahoney was a former elected secretary of state and came within an eyelash of winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 1994. He wasn't a political lightweight.

Under the current system, independents go directly to the general-election ballot. Mahoney imploded during the general-election campaign and ended up not being much of a factor. Napolitano defeated GOP nominee Salmon by about 12,000 votes.

Under the top-two primary system, independents are on the primary-election ballot, along with everyone else. Mahoney would have been less likely to implode during a primary election. He very well could have attracted enough Democratic votes, and Bayless enough independent votes, to erase Napolitano's lead over Bayless. The general election could very well have been Salmon vs. Bayless.

Something for Democrats to ponder. Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy isn't your friend.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

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