Primary 2010: winners and losers

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This week, as the dust settles from the 2010 primary election, let’s take a look at who came out on top and who took a whuppin’.

Question: Who are the winners and losers in this election?

PAUL GESSING, president of the Rio Grande Foundation:

Winners: Law and order Republicans and Hispanic Republicans;

Losers: House Speaker Ben Lujan who will see his power eroded further
after this close-call; libertarian Republicans (Doug Turner and Adam
Kokesh), policy wonks (Janice Arnold-Jones).

BILL TURNER, hydrologist and former director of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (and father of GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Turner).

The losers are New Mexicans who we now expect will be ruled by the Thug Club if Martinez wins.  Losers are reasonable conservative Republicans rather than being ruled by patronistic redneck Repubs and Dems.  Loser is the two party system.  Losers are Republicans who thought they were voting in an open election rather than a system rigged by the Republican GROUP.  There were no winners.  Most qualified by all measures of youth and a new beginning, energy, intelligence, depth of understanding of New Mexico issues, a positive campaign, and leadership ability were First. Doug Turner, Second Janice Arnold Jones.  There were no third, fourth, or fifth.  You gotta watch the KOB debates at www.kob.com or link to it from the Doug Turner website turnerforgovernor.com The candidate with the most passionate supporters were First Doug Turner Second Janice Arnold Jones, Third Allen Weh.  To look into this visit their facebook sites.  Also you gotta read the expose on the inside workings of the Republican Party and their puppetmasters known as the GROUP.  I can’t name names.  You just have to read it.  They are New Mexico’s Tamany Hall and they are real.  Most Republicans it would appear were DUPED BY THE GROUP.  There is a link to this on most of the candidates websites as well as the Joe Monihan blog.

MARTHA BURK, Gov. Richardson’s senior policy advisor on women’s issues:

When it comes to the top of the ticket, all women are the winners in a certain way.  Having two women square off for the Roundhouse is a sign that female candidacies are now “normal,” and not some sideshow exception to the unspoken “no girls allowed” rules of the last century.  We have indeed come a long way since 1987 when Pat Schroeder was asked if she was going to run for president as a woman, and she replied “Do I have an option?”

Having said that, women will only be true victors if the winning candidate supports their priorities, and the single-minded focus on immigration in the last week is not encouraging.. When pollsters ask both women and men the open-ended question “What do you think is the most important issue facing the country today?” consistently fewer than 10 percent cite illegal immigration. On the other hand, in poll after poll, women put pay equity near the top of the list, along with jobs and the economy.  Pollsters say women are more worried about the future than are men, because their jobs are less secure and pay less. Women also want medical privacy and control over their own choices.  So the take-away for candidates is that just being female, or just being a tough-talker on one subject,  is not enough to garner support from the majority of voters (females). Candidates need to tell us what  they’ve done during their years as public servants to address real issues women care about.  If they do that, the choice  will be clear.

TERRI COLE, president and CEO, Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce:

New Mexico is a changin’! And while overall,  New Mexicans seem to be fed up with festering problems that aren’t getting solved, and as a result they seem to be deciding on a case-by-case basis who stays and who goes. That’s my takeaway from the election results. I don’t see any clear cut theme of partisanship or  incumbent  fatigue. Rather voters seem to be thoughtful- race by race- which led to voting based upon the situation of each candidate and or incumbent. There was a lot of individual thought that went into these votes this time around. I like that better than a tsunami that hits one way or the other. It will create another kind of New Mexico that will be harder for candidates to spin and that’s good. The successful ones, I think,  will be the ones that can best demonstrate the willingness and ability to solve problems verses the ability to simply keep all “the tops” spinning at once. Whether this new attitude has staying power or not, only time will tell.

RICHARD ANKLAM, president and executive director of the New Mexico Tax Research Institute, former director of tax policy for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department:

Elections are about more than just which candidates won or lost. Elections are about issues and what the people expect their government to do about those issues. While the candidates matter, voters never just respond to candidates, they respond to what the candidates stand for. Elections help us define the important issues and test the candidates for how we think they will approach the issues and handle the problems of government.

In that sense, the winners of any election are the people of the state of New Mexico. Not just by voting, but by participating in debate and discussion on the issues we want candidates to address, the citizens of the state can shape their government to make it better. Overly partisan politics and the mass media sometimes obscure the real issues and solutions, the things that really matter. Narrow special interests often consume too much of the debate. Attack ads and playing on people’s lesser nature are also all too common. But the process is way too critical to give up on. It can be punishing to run for public office. And if you win, your reward is often a host of problems that you didn’t create. You wonder why anyone would do it. (And you think, maybe the real winners are actually the losers.) So when you see candidates like those who have emerged in this recent election, people who are for the most part obviously committed to the state and who genuinely want to see it prosper, you have to be grateful. For the contested races there’s still a lot campaigning to do, and I honestly don’t look forward to it. (Things can get so negative I find sometimes find myself in November just wanting to vote “no” at times).

Still, when you have honest and qualified candidates that care about the duties of office they’re running for, the worst that can happen is not that bad, and the best answer may just be a matter of opinion and perspective.  Here’s to hoping that good governance in New Mexico and the benefits of that which flow to the citizens of this state, as well as the economy in general, are all on an upward trajectory of continued improvement.