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Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Pence Comes To Play In Heated Congress Contest And The Still Close Gov Race; VP To Rally Conservatives Friday In Roswell, Plus: Guv Chase Goes Into Negative Meltdown; MLG Accused Of Coziness With Drug Dealer; Pearce Blasted For Coddling Child Abuser, And: The Martinez 5 Are On The Firing Line  

In yet another sign of how close that battle is for the open southern congressional seat, New Mexico will get a visit from Vice President Mike Pence Friday. He'll rally the conservative faithful in Roswell in an effort to put GOP nominee Yvette Herrell over the top and also boost the gubernatorial chances of Steve Pearce.

The Friday 3 p.m. rally at the Roswell Airport is sure to attract a large crowd. Pence is a leading social conservative whose message will fall on welcome ears in precincts that we old timers still call "Little Texas."

As you would expect the visit is timed for maximum TV exposure, with the 3 p.m. start guaranteeing time on both early and late TV newscasts. Also, Saturdays are heavy early vote days so the Friday afternoon timing works for that as well. The event is free but those attending need a ticket which is available here. One other thing: News of his visit was announced just as the ABQ Journal prepares to go into the field for its final survey to be released this Sunday.

The Pence game plan is simple: Boost turnout in the bedrock eastside GOP voting counties of Chaves, Eddy, Lea and Otero to offset Dem votes in the city of Las Cruces. D's have worked furiously there to increase early turnout among Hispanics for their congressional nominee, Xochitl Torres Small.

Pearce is vacating the southern seat to run for Governor and it's essential that the R's hold on to it if they are to have any chance of staving off a Dem takeover of the US House. That's why the nationals are pouring millions into this deal and why the TV ad sales guys are drinking the good stuff.

Also, the R's maintain that Pearce is within shouting distance of Lujan Grisham, trailing by only four points. While the odds still favor her election, the GOP has determined Pearce's best chance at the upset is to get a turnout spike in his district and weaken her in the Spanish North where her candidacy has met with some resistance in traditional bastions.

MLG's hole card is big BernCo where she could pull off a mini-landslide dooming Pearce's chances. And conservative Mike Pence is not going to do anything to impact that possibility.

THE BACKDROP

Pence will appear against a GOP friendly news backdrop--upset over the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings and widespread news coverage of a caravan of Central American migrants making their way toward the US.

Herrell supports Trump's border wall. You will be sure to hear about that Friday as well as Pence's well-known pro-life stance that Pearce and Herrell share. In addition, President Trump's approval ratings, according to the latest NBC News/WSJ poll, is at an all time high in that survey of 47 percent. That means Trump, who easily carried the 2nd CD over Hillary Clinton and Gary Johnson in 2016, may be hitting popularity highs in the south.

THE NEWBIE VOTE

Torres Small cast her ballot in Las Cruces on Saturday, the first day of early voting. She spoke to supporters about it and in the process broke some news on the turnout in the district, saying:

A third of the people who have early voted so far in the Second District never voted in 2014. People are showing up.

If that trend were to hold it would be good news for Torres Small and other Dems. Mid-term voters lean more conservative so a pot spiced with more irregular voters is an appetizing development for the D's.

The race for the southern congressional seat is rated Lean Republican.

A NEGATIVE MELTDOWN

The candidates for Governor have gone from attacking each other to attacking each other's supporters. And as one of our Senior Alligators said of the latest TV:

Joe, we're getting as close to a Willie Horton ad as we can.

That's a reference to the famous 1988 presidential spot.

For Republican Steve Pearce his local Willie Horton is Jerry Padilla, Sr. of the ABQ South Valley, a three time convicted heroin dealer who was known as the godfather of the notorious Los Padillas gang. Padilla has been campaigning with Dem contender Michelle Lujan Grisham. Pictures of the duo have been featured prominently on Facebook and now in Pearce's TV ad. He stares sternly into the camera and declares:

Violent drug gangs want to turn New Mexico into Chicago. Not on my watch. 

Man, that is hardcore. Maybe even over the top. Drug dealers for Lujan Grisham. Boom! And MLG was not taking it sitting down. Take a look as she lays into one of Pearce's buddies:

Pearce has marketed himself as the candidate to protect children. . .But this “zero tolerance”policy disappears if you are Pearce’s supporter. Pearce has both publicly honored and taken a four-digit campaign contribution from a man convicted of committing felony child abuse in 2013, and who was also arrested this June for aiming a gun at a five year old girl in a bout of rage. Bob Yacone, the owner of Forghedaboudit Pizza in Deming donated $1000 to Pearce’s campaign for governor. They are described as “friends” who have lunch together, and Pearce has been photographed with Yacone many times.

Pearce needs to break into the Albuquerque metro and his crime spot is clearly aimed at crime weary voters here.

DAYS OF DARREN

MLG has also come with a group of Republican lawmen speaking in favor of her crime fighting program and accusing Pearce of having no real plan.

Pearce's backers ripped into that news conference noting that it featured former BernCo Sheriff Darren White, a key ally of Gov. Martinez and her political adviser Jay McCleskey. Pearce and McCleskey are representative of the split in the GOP.

White was labeled a failure who ABQ Mayor Berry had to fire as Director of Public Safety when White interfered with the investigation of an auto accident involving his wife and after presiding over a multitude of police shootings that have cost taxpayers tens of millions in lawsuit settlements.

White, who cut campaign commercials for Martinez in 2010, is now in the medical cannabis business and has donated over $5,000 to Democrat Lujan Grisham.

PEARCE DOG WHISTLE?

MLG backers charge Pearce with putting out a racial dog whistle in his campaign by using against her allegedly corrupt Hispanic men like former Gov. Richardson, the cancer patient and late Santa Fe attorney Diego Zamora, who cut a TV ad for her, and now Jerry Padilla, Sr.

That could be, but MLG took a risk by letting all three of those men into her campaign circle. Having the controversial White lead a counterattack against Pearce is another example of pushing the envelope. Gutsy moves or hubris?

And we're not done with this negative meltdown in the Guv chase. That PAC linked to the Democratic Governors Association is back for a final act by cutting an ad using the corruption cudgel on Pearce. The DGA hit hard in the early going for MLG and then disappeared. Their reappearance confirms we have a closer than expected race.

THE SUSANA FIVE

Even the usually subdued races for the statewide judge slots aren't avoiding the negative campaign this year.

Take a look at this TV hit from a PAC supported by the trial lawyers. They slam five judges who Martinez appointed. calling them "The Susana Five." All of them are up for election--four to the Court of Appeals and one to the Supreme Court.

The ad implies one judge is in the pocket of big oil and that all of them would threaten women's rights. All four Dem candidates for the Court of Appeals this year are women.

This is one of the few (the only?) appearance Martinez has made in a TV ad this cycle. She is as unpopular as Dem Bill Richardson when he finished his eight years. He became a key issue in the 2010 campaign when Martinez rode his unpopularity into the Guv's chair. But this year with drug dealers and child abusers readily available for campaign attack ads, we guess Susana's negative value isn't all that high.

THE BOTTOM LINES

Remember Sandia and Los Alamos Labs and our military bases and how they used to have quite a prominent place in federal elections here? Not so much lately, but Dem Senator Martin Heinrich brings them back in the closing days with this TV spot. The ad says the state's military installations "inject $3.1 billion into the NM economy" each year.

The talk these days is about depending less on federal funding and building a "diversified economy." Gentle reader, as you know there would be no modern New Mexico without the federal presence.

Let's ask this to the Chamber of Commerce and the hotshots at Innovate ABQ this: How many private sector businesses have hired tens of thousands of New Mexicans and kept them employed for 70 plus years? The answer is zero. Class dismissed.

This is the home of New Mexico politics.

E-mail your news and comments. (jmonahan@ix.netcom.com)

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2018
 
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