NYT: The son (and nephew) also rises

(Credit: AP Photo/Jeff Geissler)

The national media spotlight that has been shining on New Mexico politics this week found the Santa Fe home of former Kennedy Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, who chatted with the New York Times' Timothy Egan about his family's conservation legacy and the political rise of his son and nephew. Both are sitting Democratic congressmen seeking U.S. Senate seats, and both have good shots at winning, Egan writes. Udall's son Tom is battling Rep. Steve Pearce for Sen. Pete Domenici's long-held seat. And Colorado Rep. Mark Udall is a "slight favorite" in his bid to replace another retiring senator, Republican Wayne Allard.

Two new Democratic senators — first cousins from a family that dates to early Mormon settlers in the Southwest — does not an earthquake make. But New Mexico also has three open Congressional seats, and the presidential campaigns will spend a lot of time here in the Land of Enchantment as well.

 

If the West does prove to be the gateway to the presidency this year — with at least three purple states in play — the campaigns could do no better than to look at polyglot New Mexico.

Egan notes the conservation credentials of the Udall cousins and suggests that a western Demoratic resurgence, rooted in the Udall legacy, is on the horizon.

Not so long ago, when Western Democrats wanted to caucus, “it was sometimes my cousin Tom and I having a beer,” Mark Udall told Outside Magazine. Now Democrats are poised to own the West, or so goes the heady talk here at 7,000 feet.

Mountain Democrats found their way in part by rejecting the excesses of coastal Democrats, and by looking at what worked for their elders, like Stewart Udall and his brother, the late Morris Udall. The Udall name is written deep into the salmon-colored canyons and mesas of the Southwest, as prominent as a petroglyph.

print Share

Register or log in to rate