Richardson reflects on his record, election results

Republican Susana Martinez soundly defeated Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish in the governor’s race Tuesday.

But over the months it appeared the Doña Ana County prosecutor  was running against outgoing Gov. Bill Richardson as much as Denish.

Martinez ripped the once-popular, former Democratic presidential candidate constantly on the campaign trail, dismissing his policies and painting his administration as irredeemably corrupt thanks to the multiple scandals that tarred his time as governor. One of those scandals short-circuited Richardson’s shot at becoming U.S. Commerce Secretary under President Obama. Richardson withdrew his nomination because of a federal pay-to-play investigation that ended in 2009 without indictments.

Denish, for her part, distanced herself from Richardson, with whom she won election twice as lieutenant governor. In New Mexico candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run together.

Earlier this week Richardson finally got his chance to defend his record, telling Gene Grant, the host of KNME’s New Mexico InFocus program, that the only regret he had as governor was his inability to defend his accomplishments during this year’s election.

“I’m very proud of our record,” Richardson told Grant as part of election night coverage produced through a partnership of The Independent, KNME and KUNM, Albuquerque’s National Public Radio affiliate.

Richardson’s only regret

“I walk around the state and it’s very gratifying,” Richardson said during the nearly eight-minute interview. “No, I don’t have any regrets. The only regret was that I wasn’t able to defend my record, and this campaign you had all these negative ads about my record, which were inaccurate.”

“I believe my administration accomplished a lot,” Richardson told Grant. “We created a lot of jobs. We cracked down on DWI. We improved education. We did the Rail Runner, the Spaceport. We did so many things, we expanded teachers’ salaries. We brought the movie industry. But that didn’t come out.”

Many of those accomplishments, such as the RailRunner and Spaceport, provoked controversy, especially from a bipartisan collection of state lawmakers. In other cases measuring the precise effects of Richardson’s policies is difficult to gauge. The multiple scandals didn’t help, obscuring accomplishments Richardson could point to such as his tough stance on DWI, his work to position New Mexico as an early adopter of new energy sources.

But the Denish campaign appeared to make a strategic decision during the election to not only distance herself from Richardson, but also to not defend any accomplishments of the last eight years.

Asked if Denish could have done anything differently during the election, Richardson told Grant “I am not going to criticize any campaign.” But the two-term Democrat admitted to feeling frustrated “sitting on the sidelines.”

Richardson’s remarks about not being able to defend his record echoed the remarks respected New Mexico pollster Brian Sanderoff made to The Independent on Tuesday:

“Everything from loss of jobs to dropout rates, Diane Denish was being blamed for as part of the Richardson administration,” Sanderoff said of the Martinez campaign. “They saw it as key campaign tactic, and I think I worked.”

The Denish campaign “had a tough decision to make, whether to ignore these associations or to defend. And they chose not to defend,” Sanderoff added.

Sanderoff then ticked off what he viewed as Richardson’s accomplishments:  the lowering of the state income tax; eliminating food from the state gross receipts tax; its tough stance on DWI; and its pro-business stance.

“Those would have been good messages in this anti-tax, anti-establishment year,” Sanderoff said. Defending the Richardson administration “may have been tough, but it doesn’t look like ignoring (the associations) worked either,” he said.

Campaigning to help Harry Reid in Nevada

Richardson wasn’t all that visible during this year’s New Mexico governor’s race, but he offered a glimpse during his interview with Grant of how he spent campaign season.

“I was campaigning in Nevada,” Richardson said. “I feel very good and it looks like (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid is doing well in an area that I campaigned, the Hispanic community in Reno. I was in Pueblo, Colo.”

Richardson, as one of the most prominent Hispanic elected officials in the country, is often called upon to campaign across the country for other Democrats in high-profile races in which Latinos make up a significant portion of the electorate.

Richardson also acknowledged doing some fundraising for some New Mexico state legislators.

Looking ahead to 2011

Richardson leaves office having served two terms, helping to steer the state through high and low points. He ran unsuccessfully for president, helping to thrust New Mexico onto the national political map more so than usual.

He also led the state during good years in which the state reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus, which were spent on buildings and projects around the state, as well on state services and programs.

But those good times ran out, just as Richardson was entering the final chapter of his governorship, and it pit him against certain powerful legislative leaders as to how New Mexico might extract itself from its budgetary problems.

Richardson often feuded, sometimes fiercely, with his own Democratic colleagues who controlled, and still control, the New Mexico Legislature.

Given his experience, Richardson dispensed some advice to Martinez and to the New Mexico state lawmakers with whom he often tangled Tuesday. The new governor and the Legislature will have to start working together days after Martinez is sworn in as the state’s new governor. And the challenges are substantial.

The biggest challenge facing Martinez and state lawmakers is how to close a $260-million gap in the state budget after the state already has cut costs and raised revenue during previous legislative sessions.

“She has to reach out because she’s of a different party and she is outnumbered,” Richardson said of Martinez.

Democrats hold a 37-33 edge in the number of lawmakers in the House of Representatives and a 27-15 edge in the state Senate.

“But the legislators too have to realize that the voters have sent a message that they want, at least for now, her kind of leadership, her kind of approach to state government,” Richardson said.

Richardson also recommended that Martinez “call in the legislative leadership right away as governor elect Talk to them about the upcoming budget. That’s going to be the most contentious issue.”

Martinez made promises on the campaign trail that she might find hard to keep when state lawmakers converge in Santa Fe in January for the next legislative session.

Like Denish, Martinez promised not to raise taxes in her first year at the same time she promised not to cut two of the largest areas in the state budget — public education and Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program. Education and Medicaid make up 60 percent of the state budget.

Legislative sessions are usually graveyards for election-year promises as rhetoric and philosophical conviction give way to pragmatic deal-making and compromise, especially during tough economic times. But it is unclear how flexible Martinez, or state lawmakers, will be in cobbling together a state spending plan.

Richardson also said that Martinez might want to focus mainly on the state budget during this next session.

“Maybe lay aside the other issues she’s going to want to bring up, like immigration, like crackdowns on crime; make it strictly a budget session,” Richardson told Grant.

Moving on

After such a bitter gubernatorial election, Richardson said what New Mexico needs most is bipartisanship.

“We’re a state that  needs unity now,” Richardson told Grant. “It was a very bitter campaign. The time has come to recognize that we need some bipartisanship now. As an outgoing governor I am prepared to be as helpful as I can, just as Gov. (Gary) Johnson was when I came in. He was personally helpful. It’s a tradition I want to continue.”

As for all those attack ads saturating the air and radio waves leading up to Nov. 2, he suggested Democrats and Republicans have to overcome any hard feelings, and get down to the hard work ahead.

“It’s over,” Richardson told Grant. “You get over it. It’s time to govern.”