Shendo is running like he’s trying to get someplace.

 

Specifically, he’s running to the San Felipe Pueblo administrative building on a gusty, dusty two-lane road. It’s Friday, April 18, just after 3pm. Shendo and his band of supporters are in the homestretch of a grueling 7-day trek across the state’s 3rd Congressional District. Nearly all of it was traveled by running shoes or bike tires.

 

“I’ve been averaging anywhere from running 15 and 20 miles a day,” Shendo says in an interview in front of the San Felipe administrative building under a cloudless sky. “Long before we had horses and vehicles that’s how messages were carried to communities, to tell people what’s happening, to inform people,” Shendo, a native of Jemez Pueblo, says with a nod to centuries-old New Mexico traditions when asked about the campaign stunt.

 

If elected to Congress, Shendo would be the state’s first-ever Native American member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

 

His supporter/runners nearly all wore t-shirts with “I’m running for Benny Shendo because he’s running for all of us!” emblazoned on the back. The campaign’s signs are stamped with the words “progressive Democrat,” backed up by Shendo’s opposition to the war in Iraq, his support for renewable energy, universal health care and domestic partnership benefits, to cite just a few stances from his Web site.

 

But judging by most of the coverage of the 3rd CD race so far, you’d think Shendo has been standing still. The word “Shendo” comes up only three times on New Mexico politics blogger Joe Monahan’s well-read site since April 1. Two of Shendo’s competitors in the 3rd CD race have fared much better on the site. First-term member of the Public Regulation Commission, Ben Ray Lujan, has been mentioned 39 times on the same blog over the same period of time; Santa Fe builder Don Wiviott a whopping 52 times.

 

Shendo, 43, stepped down from his governor-appointed perch as secretary of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department late last year to try his luck at running for Congress. The two-time Jemez lieutenant governor and judge raked in what NMI journalist Heath Haussamen called a “respectable” haul of $113,626 during the first quarter of this year. In fact, that was more than Wiviott raised from all his donors, not counting checks originating from his own checkbook.

 

Even so, Shendo is competing in a Democratic primary in which most of the attention seems to be drifting toward Wiviott, also a self-described progressive Democrat, and Lujan, the 35-year-old son of state House Speaker Ben Lujan. Both Wiviott and Lujan are already advertising on television—Shendo says his TV ads won’t be up until sometime in May—yet both are still relative political unknowns.

 

“The average voter does not know any of them,” longtime New Mexico pollster Brian Sanderoff of Research & Polling Inc. told Steve Terrell and Kate Nash of the Santa Fe New Mexican.

 

An April 17 story by Terrell details the financial backing Shendo has garnered from many of the state’s tribes or pueblos. Terrell writes that the contributions are “not surprising,” and lists some of them,

 

including $6,900 each from Jemez and Isleta pueblos; $2,300 from Acoma Pueblo and $250 from Tesuque Pueblo. He’s also received money from a couple of out-of-state tribes: the Ute Mountain Utes in Colorado and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in California, each of which gave $2,300. 

 

But, Terrell also reports, that didn’t prevent Lujan from his share of contributions from the rez.

 

Ohkay Owingeh gave Lujan $2,300, as did the Jicarilla Apache Nation, while Zia Pueblo gave $1,000. Among individual contributors, Gov. Robert Benevidez of Isleta Pueblo gave $2,300. 

 

 

 

 

Lujan has also been racking up most union and advocate endorsements in the race to date. Following an April 10 AFSCME forum in which Lujan ultimately snagged the influential public employee union’s support, Dixon lawyer and fellow 3rd CD Democratic hopeful Rudy Martin said “the fix has been in.” He was not-so-subtly suggesting that much of the younger Lujan’s support is derivative of his father’s power in the Roundhouse.

 

Dixon elaborated:

 

 Every union is supporting Mr. Lujan. When we have every union… supporting Mr. Lujan and yet again we have six (Democratic) candidates running for this position and five of them are extremely well-qualified, it creates a doubt for me if we have any shot at getting any support from any union.

 

 

Dixon, along with Santa Fe County Commissioner Harry Montoya and lawyer Jon Adams, also candidates in the 3rd CD Democratic primary, have each been fighting over the last paragraph in most of the news stories written about the race so far. That’s often been Shendo’s lot, with rare exceptions like this one in the Albuquerque Journal by Raam Wong.

 

Shendo knows he’s running with the wind in his face. But he doesn’t seem to mind.

 

“I don’t think this race is going to be about money and the political insiders,” he says, adding, “I can’t compete with the millions, but that doesn’t worry me because we will have adequate resources to win this race.”

 

Shendo’s campaign manager, Todd Doherty, goes a bit further.

 

“Just scratch the surface and you’ll see that the progressive isn’t a progressive and the son of the speaker of the House is not ready,” he tells the Independent. “He’s just not ready.”

 

Back at San Felipe, Shendo stands still and quiet, his head respectfuly bowed, as pueblo Gov. Ronald Tenorio opens up a black pouch, takes a pinch of something inside and sprinkles in on the asphalt in front of him. He then chants and mumbles a prayer in the Keres language. Then Shendo gives a brief stump speech in his running shorts. Reflecting on his tenure as a Jemez Pueblo leader in addition to serving on Gov. Bill Richardson’s cabinet, he says: “In all of those experiences they helped me think about the important things in terms of how the political process can make our voice heard, not just at our own communities or at the state level, but at the national level. Not just for native people, but for all of us. And that’s really what this campaign is all about.”

 

After the speeches were over, Stuart Gauchupin, a long-time friend of Shendo’s and one of Jemez Pueblo’s caciques, or traditional healers, stuck around. Asked why he was backing Shendo, he pauses and then gives his answer.

 

“Because I feel he’s a man of the world,” he says. “He’ll make the Native Americans proud all across the country.”

 

Shendo, the life-long runner, could probably leave Wiviott, 52, in the dust in any foot race. He’d probably be able to outlast a younger Lujan in a long-distance run.  But, as Shendo seems to know, the race to be northern New Mexico’s next Congressman is a very different kind of race.