The governor is working to reform and improve education because it is the key to lift people and their families out of poverty. And we are working to make our economy less dependent on the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. by attracting more job creators and creating more private sector employment. She encourages all those who have simply embraced the decades-long failed status quo to choose reform instead.
The Governor may be "working" but is she delivering? A court just recently stopped her major education policy in its tracks, finding the teacher evaluation tests the administration so vigorously pursued are deeply flawed. Meantime, her major education triumph in the Legislature has been approval of a symbolic bill that gives A to F grades to the public schools. How's that working out for you?
For five years Martinez has claimed our state's status of being last in the nation in reading proficiency is because we don't hold back third graders who don't test well. Never mind the merits of the argument, how about realizing that after five years you might need to craft a different policy that could win legislative approval?
But what good would that do? A bipartisan bill to solve the state's driver's license problem with undocumented immigrants passed the Senate this year with major Republican support (it was co-sponsored by Senate GOP Leader Ingle) only to be rejected by the Governor.
And then there is the "Washington dysfunction" the administration blames for all the state's economic woes. What about the five long years the administration has had to attract "job creators" and still come up empty handed? Is that all Washington's fault as well?
In the end, the Governor and her political machine revert to their default setting--that the state is the worst run because it has always been that way--the "decades-long failed status quo" as her office puts it. The solution, she avers, is too simply "embrace" her inchoate economic and educational policies and all will be well.
Instead of imagination, innovation, negotiation and results in education policy and policy across the board we get rancor, bullying, defensiveness, heated political attacks, vendettas and the passing of the buck to leaders of the past. But you would never know it if all you see is the pseudo-smiling governor posing with third graders as a compliant media eggs her on.
That, my friends, is a political strategy, not a governing strategy. And that's why you live in the worst run state in the United States.
(The ABQ Journal has our permission to run all or part of that commentary).
TEARING UP TERRELL
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| Steve Terrell |
Terrell, a respected reporter on both sides of the aisle, has carved out a middle ground in his coverage of the administration, preserving both his credibility and access. But that was then and this is now. He now joins other New Mexican reporters and its editor in being eviscerated by the machine in the aftermath of their reporting on the McCleskey revelations.
Terrell is being accused by the machine (in the guise of their operative and former GOP State Senator Rod Adair) of failing to mention in a 2014 election article critical of ABQ GOP State Representative Conrad James that Terrell's son worked for James' foe--Democrat Elizabeth Thomson. The problem with that? The James article was authored by another New Mexican reporter--not Terrell--who recently disclosed his son's involvement with Thomson when he authored a piece on James' retirement announcement.
The Adair attack on Terrell was tweeted out by McCleskey BFF and former Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, even though until now White and Terrell have been friendly with each other on social media. But now that White's longtime benefactor is under the gun, Terrell goes under the bus. We won't say we told you so, Steve. But we told you so.
The bottom line is that the Guv's machine continues to feverishly work to keep any aggressive reporting at bay by attacking those who engage in it. It serves as a warning to others who might go down that path and it can be quite effective. (Witnesses the mindless babbling you still get in the Machine controlled media over Martinez as a possible VP candidate).
The cowering of the media in the Martinez era is one of the big untold stories that your blog has brought to your attention and that's now starting to publicly surface. And that's why. . .
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2015