Well, let us not ignore the upcoming election cycle simply because the Obama administration has decided to go utterly mad this week*. Below for your dubious delectation is a video from the New Mexico Republican party on one Tim Keller, who is being pushed out as a stealth liberal challenger to Governor Susana Martinez next year. I say “stealth” because – well, watch:

[youtube]z5OxEQ01GoI[/youtube]

Short version of the video: Keller is trying out the moderate pro-business line, which is clashing horribly with his tendency to see anti-union conspiracies under the bed that he’s made with Moveon.org (and the zombie remnants of the Occupy movement). Couple that with the fact that Keller’s an anti-digital education Luddite who hates school choice…

House Bill 460 takes aim at New Mexico’s online schools because they are operated by private companies/have out-of-staters on their governing boards.

Not because they don’t educate their students. Or because they aren’t based on best practices. Or because they lack sufficient accountability measures. But because of who manages/administers them, and where they are from.

[snip]

Sponsors Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, and Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, would essentially shut down the New Mexico Virtual Academy, chartered by the Farmington school board and run primarily by the for-profit K-12 Inc., and keep a second fully online school, which will contract with Connections Academy, from opening its virtual doors. Larry Palmer of the Farmington academy governing council says to date only private vendors have expertise to run such schools.

…and you have to ask yourself: was this actually supposed to work? And I haven’t even brought up anything involving immigration.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: it’s May of 2013, not May of 2014. And this Keller guy isn’t the Democratic nominee yet, and may not be. He’s also not really favored against Martinez, who is quite high in the polls right now and unlikely to shift downward, absent of course some sort of scandal. Still… our political opponents are not all licking their wounds and nervously telling each other that real populists reflexively defend large government agencies. Some of them are actually operating under a long-term strategy.

So do ye the same. Only without the deception, of course. We’re not the ones who need to hide what we are.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Seriously, Mr. President: Bullworth? Most of your predecessors went with either Dave, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or Independence Day.