… In the weeks since Gov. Jan Brewer announced that she would not run for re-election, the already crowded field of Republicans looking to replace her has grown noisy, with nine candidates of widely varying interests and experiences vying for attention. The very definition of “Republican” in this state of traditional social conservatism and a booming Latino population is up for grabs — perhaps a harbinger of a national identity crisis as the 2014 elections approach. …
Some campaigns have been struggling to strike the right tone: conservative enough to entice the party’s reliable base of conservative voters, but not too conservative to alienate the more moderate independents. Voters in the latter group could easily have the power to decide the election for governor, unless apathy, frustration or other factors keep them from the polls. …
“It’s very hard to motivate independents, because they don’t have this ideological zeal that motivates the right-wing extremists,” Bruce Merrill, a senior research fellow at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, said in an interview. CONT.
Fernanda Santos, New York Times