She unveiled a well-produced video aimed squarely at women who she hopes will back her in sufficient numbers to give her the nomination and ultimately help make her New Mexico's first female Senator.

The two minute video was also notable for the relatively mild language it employed to describe the chaos in Washington. She did not deliver direct punches that could have foreshadowed a negative campaign against Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, her chief rival for the nomination as well as a member of the US House leadership. Here's how she played the DC angle:

We all deserve a Washington not driven by malice but instead driven by hope and a vision to make things better.

Pretty mild and a Senior Alligator comes with the analysis:

That language signaled that she will largely rest her hopes of winning on becoming the first woman senator from the state and that a direct take down of Lujan and his role in DC is probably not in the cards. She wants to win but isn't going into this like a war. She wants to be left standing for something else if this race doesn't work out.

If so, that could be MTO's most fateful decision of the campaign. However, making a big jump by pounding DC establishment Dems could help her by further alienating Lujan from the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Oasio Cortez (AOC) whose progressive views made them national forces and fund-raising giants. Can MTO raise the necessary campaign funds by taking a more quiet, safer route? That's the multi-million dollar question.

The question of MTO running into some negative campaigning of her own--from Lujan or his acolytes--was raised by her at the front of the video when she said she had not led a "perfect" life and introduced herself as a single mother. She has been married and divorced twice, and while she has won two races for Secretary of State her background has not been fully vetted for a top ballot position such as US Senate. As she acknowledged, that now changes.

SEPARATING SOME

Lujan

MTO did separate herself from the Dem establishment by advocating Medicare for All which Lujan does not. In a statement she also backed the Green New Deal pushed by AOC. And she decried the influx of "corporate PAC" money, indicating she will not take such cash while Lujan will. But she saved her big guns to appeal directly to women, declaring in her video's most forceful moment:

(I want) a Washington that recognizes that women should damn well make what men make for the same work. 

The use of a mild curse like "damn" is still a rarity in campaign announcements but with Trump redefining political language, she turned it to her advantage to rally her troops.

Veteran GOP consultant Bob Cornelius liked what he saw:

She hit the liberal hot button positions like equal pay and Medicare for all. By not rushing to get it out she came across more polished and less rushed than Lujan did in his announcement video. He had to put something up fast after Senator Udall announced his retirement in order to keep (Attorney General) Hector Balderas out.

THE FIRST NUMBERS

Lujan would also have liked to keep MTO out but it was not to be. But he must have been taking some solace in poll numbers floating around from DC Dem consulting firm GBAO Strategies. Take a look:

. . . Our poll of 600 likely Democratic primary voters shows Luján leading Toulouse Oliver, 64-25 percent. The poll was conducted April 15-18, using live dialers, reaching voters on cell phones and landlines, and carries a 4.0 percentage point margin of error. . . While both candidates have similarly low unfavorable ratings, Luján’s favorable ratings are 15 points higher overall and with more intensity. Luján’s name identification is 15 points higher, but that does not account for his lead. Luján leads 63-28 percent among voters who can identify both candidates. Luján leads by at least 20 points in each of the state’s three congressional districts, among Hispanics and Anglos, men and women.

The actual question posed to determine those results was not available, so there's your proverbial grain of salt. Also, the survey was paid for by BRL's campaign.

Having said that, the results are not that far off from how most political pros we consult see the race, namely that it is Lujan's to lose. But MTO did not falter at the starting line. That was job one. Job two is to keep doing it and doing it and hope the other guy doesn't.

R REACTION 

NM GOP Chairman Steve Pearce, still searching for a top tier candidate to seek the Republican Senate nomination, took time out to call on MTO to resign as SOS because, he said, she now has a conflict as a candidate whose job it is to oversee the primary election.

ESPINOZA'S EXIT

While MTO was making her news another well-known woman with political credentials was also creating headlines. Public Regulation Commissioner Valerie Espinoza, who was seen as a possible strong contender for the Democratic nomination for the northern congressional seat being vacated by BRL, announced she was a no go. She made the announcement at the end of a PRC meeting in Santa Fe Wednesday:

New Mexico is my forever home. I could’ve gone to work in Washington DC 20 years ago and I chose New Mexico and again at this time, I chose Northern New Mexico. So instead my God-given energy will be focused on the needs of our residents and serving the public, not campaigning for Congress. It was a tough decision and I will never forget the outpouring of support for Congress as long as I live! 

The decision by Espinoza, a former two-term Santa Fe County Clerk and two-term PRC Commissioner who ends her run at the end of next year, makes a wide open race even more so. But there could still be a Valerie in the running. Santa Fe's Valerie Plame is weighing a run for the northern seat.

Wrap-up the political week with us on the Friday blog tomorrow.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019