Monday, October 30, 2006

Life Outside

I know there is a life outside the current political campaigns. All of the candidates know that and frankly, they are looking forward to the year long gauntlet to end. I see young guys like Democratic State Auditor Candidate Hector Balderas of Wagon Mound yearning to be with his young family. He had been on the road for us with days and got to see his wife and kids in Las Vegas this weekend. He visibly brightened with them there at his side.

These campaigns in New Mexico take a whole year to conduct and are akin to 'running the guantlet'. You must start collecting signature petitions in October of the year before the general election. Those are filed in Marchof the next year. Then you have to endure the questionable effectiveness of the Pre Primary Nominating Convention which has a mediocre record of picking the eventual Primary winner. Then the Primary campaign starts. That is the most lonely part of the whole campaign because your party members are automatically split and many are unwilling to commit for fear of losing friends. Then the Primary in June and it starts all over for the General Election. The General Election is more fun because then you run as a team and the candidates attempt to help each other out. Even so, you can see the strain in the last three weeks on every ones faces. Everyone is sort of at the point of saying, "Be over."

Well, we are one week away of this being over and then we an our families can get back to our lives outside the modern day equivalent of 'running the gauntlet.'

Win or lose next week Bobbi and I will travel for a week to Puerto Vallarte for a rest.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Funny Jim how you would say how exhausted Balderas is and how he longs to see his family after a weekend bus trip because he did not have to do any of the "exhausting" activities that all of the other candidates had to do like collect petition signatures, knock on doors, actually raise money (he received reward money), call every registered voter, garner any votes at the pre primary convention or the NM Primary Election. No, he just had to sit back and wait for the Diane Denish intern to accuse Jeff Armijo of sexual misconduct at the behest of the possible Lt. Gov candidate Eric Griego (noted Armijo/Marty Chavez political foe) and who also has close ties to the alleged victim (actress in which she has a reputation of accusing men of the very same alleged acts - 3 other times to be exact none of which have resulted in charges) and dear friend of Balderas (south valley resident, not Wagon Mound). End the political madness and show that negativity actually depresses voter turnout. Make a statement that you will hold Gov. Richardson to his word and vote for a QUALIFIED, EXPERIENCED, CPA for Auditor - LORENZO GARCIA!