Courting Domenici
SANTA FE—Other than the nomination itself, perhaps the biggest prize in this year’s U.S. Senate Republican primary race is the endorsement of Sen. Pete Domenici, the man Rep. Heather Wilson and Rep. Steve Pearce both hope to succeed. That’s the focus of this Associated Press piece, in which reporter Heather Clark explores Domenici’s influence in the race, despite the fact that he hasn’t publicly endorsed either candidate. Both candidates and their supporters have been going out of their way to praise and associate their campaigns with the retiring Domenici, a longtime popular senator who helps funnel hundreds of millions of federal dollars to New Mexico’s national labs and other programs every year.
The play for Domenici’s supporters was more than evident at an April 25 primary debate in Los Alamos, when a moderator brought up Domenici’s recent "Qualified Admonition" from the Senate Ethics Committee for phoning a federal prosecutor and asking him about about the status of a corruption investigation involving prominent Democrats (scroll down to see video of the April 25 debate exchange).
It’s a touchy subject for Wilson, who also placed a call to former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, even though she was in a tight race with former state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. At the debate, Wilson declared (without elaborating) that her call was "different" from Domenici’s. She defended her actions, saying as she has in the past that she was simply investigating a constituent’s concerns that Iglesias was intentionally delaying corruption prosecutions. She then went on to defend Domenici, praising his service and calling on New Mexicans to accept Domenici’s apologies for his phone call to Iglesias.
"He apologized for something that was frankly a fairly minor issue and a brief phone call to a young man whom he had helped tremendously," she said.
There was nothing really surprising about how Wilson handled the question. But some may have been surprised by Pearce’s response. Instead of attacking Wilson on this question of ethics, he went straight to Domenici’s defense, praising the senator’s service and questioning the political motivation behind the ethics inquiry.
"So we’ll continue to support the Senator. We’ll continue to support his good efforts. And I wish that they (the Ethics Committee) would have given an even cleaner bill of health," Pearce said.
Nary a word about Wilson’s call. To criticize her would be to criticize Domenici.
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