Alan Webber

A Santa Fe liberal with deep pockets is poised to enter what is shaping up to be a crowded race for the 2014 Dem Guv nomination.

Alan Webber, a onetime speechwriter for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, was one of the founders of Fast Company magazine which in 2000 was sold for a reported $350 million.

Webber, an author of several business related books and a former editor of the Harvard Business Review, made Santa Fe his home in 2003.

One of our Democratic insiders games it out:

Webber has hired a campaign consultant and is talking to pollsters in D.C. He has potential to be a self funder in the primary and outspend the other current candidates. Webber is a supporter of investment in early childhood programs and spoke positively about the proposed Constitutional Amendment to fund such programs at the recent conference on Kids Count data. Webber has little or no Democratic Party support and may not know his way from Santa Fe to Lordsburg, but money gets attention.

Here's a NM interview Webber conducted earlier this year. Here is his website where he does some blogging. Here is his Twitter feed. And here is more bio info.

If Webber pulls the trigger he would be the fourth contender in the race. Attorney General King and State Senators Howie Morales and Linda Lopez are already out on the campaign trail.

Veteran government administrator Lawrence Rael told me he is still weighing a possible Guv run.

Governor Martinez is unopposed for the GOP primary nomination.

TESTY OVER TESTS

We broke the news Thursday about that mass mailer sent out in support of the controversial  new teacher evaluation system. It was sent out by NM Competes--the dark money group run by a former Martinez administration staffer. Dem Guv candidate Gary King's campaign came with a response:

A secretly-funded arm of Gov. Martinez’ re-election campaign attacked public school teachers directly and distorts the facts about students’ and teachers’ success in order to prop up her harsh, unpopular “reform” agenda. The Martinez education plan demonizes teachers and harms the learning experience of children on behalf of big corporations, some of whom are her donors, seeking to privatize a growing portion of public school systems for their own profit. “These false, mean-spirited attacks on teachers and students do not improve the education of a single child in New Mexico,” said Gary King. 

The Governor's campaign says NM Competes does not coordinate its activities with it which is prohibited by IRS regulations.

THE CHAVEZ LEGACY

This is quite the portrait of NM Senator Dennis Chavez by Francisco Passalacqua. This month it wast put on display in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. From the Gallery's blog:

Dionisio “Dennis” Chavez (1888–1962) was the first native-born Hispanic elected to the United States Senate, where he served from 1935 to 1962. A strong advocate for civil rights and education, he sought to represent the diversity within minority communities....

The image influenced the design of a United State Postal Service stamp representing Chavez, part of the Great American Series. Given to the National Portrait Gallery by Chavez’s daughter, Gloria Chavez Tristani, this work is displayed in the “Twentieth-Century Americans” exhibition on the museum’s third floor.

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