Sunday, March 09, 2014

The Road Ahead

The pothole that is the pre primary nominating convention for the Democrats is behind us.  The road ahead is pretty much wide open for the candidates that got their 20% of the delegate votes.  However, for Gary King the road ended up in a brick wall.  The well known Attorney General son of Governor Bruce King is finished after a dismal showing at the convention.  If the convention is nothing more than an insider game then he really should have done better.  His laid back approach to campaigning and carrying out his official duties just isn't working and it might be time to bow gracefully out and support a candidate after the primary.  Senator Linda Lopez is also a candidate for that graceful effort and she can be content with the fact that she did better than Gary.

State Senator Howie Morales proved himself the insider at the convention.  He out organized the other candidates but now every thing will shift out of convention mode into real world mode.  Both Lawrence Rael and the anointed outside candidate Alan Webber eked out their ballot counts to get into the game .  Now, once again, the real campaign to get people to listen will begin.  Morales is an unknown to the average voter as is Webber.  Rael has some name i.d. of those left standing.  Really, anything can happen.

After a winner is announced following the primary election in June the realities of this race will settle in.  Just how much money can a Democrat raise in New Mexico for the Governor's race?  Probably no more than a million dollars.  Which means the democrat is going to have to show national appeal in trying to bring down the Corporate Queen Susana Martinez.  Her oil and coal boys and right wingers will fund her with what ever it takes to win.

I am thinking they will raise her more than 10 million if needed.  And that is the problem with politics today.  It is all money.

Some people think that you can point back to the infamous race of Phil Maloof for Congress, saying that money isn't everything.  He outspent his opponent greatly but still lost.  Mostly because he knew nothing about issues and the job of being a congressman.  It showed.  So his expenditure of money didn't really mean much.

But, this was all before our U.S. Supreme Court turned corporations into people with unlimited power to funnel money into campaigns.  They know how to use that money and that is what is at work in this Governor's race.  Meanwhile, the people sleep, oblivious to their being squashed by the 1 per centers.


3 comments:

Latina from Nuevo Mexico said...

Blogs are where the "real news" is. If you wait for corporate media and all of the editors who rely on their corporate jobs to get the real news out, you will keep your head in the sand. Ergo, the voters of the state of New Mexico.

Voters who want to know the truth must read Joe Monahan's blog, the eye on albuquerque, and only in new mexico to list a few.

The eye on albuquerque has a segment on the connections between David Tourek and his brother in law, Stephen French. In the same segment, it has shows that the city is paying the Albuquerque Journal over $1.2 million a year for various advertising and misc fees. That is up 2 times from the fees paid by the city to the Journal in 2010.

Gary King seems to be a decent man and he did help the family of Mary Han and shed some light on the curious way that Ms. Han was found in her home. Mr. King was the first to publicly question the conclusion of "suicide" from the police department. The next logical step would have been to convene a grand jury but that didn't happen. It is this lack of action that makes at least this Democrat decide that Mr. King would not be an affective candidate against the corporate machine known as Susana Martinez.

Anonymous said...

I agree with NM Latina. The blogs are weeks ahead of mainstream and the follow through is 10x deeper. I also liked what Gary King did last summer with the Han case but there was little follow through. If you're in, act like it.

Donald F Schiff said...

Howie Morales took home virtually all the votes from the south, plus the teachers the union turned out. That's favorite son-ism plus professional identity politics. A win is a win, but it's not as impressive as it seems at first blush.

Gary King managed to alienate almost every Democratic constituency over the past 7 years. His lack of effective response to Susana's malfeasance vis-a-vis the Downs lease and Mental Health providers displayed no leadership whatsoever. No wonder the delegates looked elsewhere.