Mud Season, Fire Season, Mud Season, Silly Season…
by John Weckerle
With the weekend’s odd weather now behind us, the mud is starting to dry up a little here at New Mexico Central. However, the warm spring sun shining on our environs probably won’t do much to help us avoid mud of an entirely different nature. That’s right: with the Republican primary looming, TV campaign advertisement season has begun, if a little anemically.
We here at New Mexico Central don’t have an unlimited amount of time to sit in front of the television waiting for campaign advertisements, and perhaps that’s why we’ve seen relatively few so far. Thus far, we’ve noted two of Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh’s commercials – one focusing on his military service, and another focusing on Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish’s supposed use of stimulus funds to fly the State jet to a parade. However, NMPolitics.net reports that this allegation is not true; the flight was paid for by the state’s general fund. In the same ad, Mr. Weh touts his use of a truck to get around. This article claims to show a picture of Mr. Weh’s truck parked in a red zone, purportedly parked there by Mr. Weh just before he got out and walked into a fundraiser with former Bush advisor Karl Rove. We have to wonder, however, whether Mr. Weh would really use his truck to get around if elected, given that his campaign is currently making its way around the state in the “Weh Forward Bus.” We have no information regarding whether the bus has been parking where it’s supposed to.
The only other high-profile advertisements we’ve seen so far are for Dona Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez, also running for governor. Ms. Martinez seems to be taking the higher road by not directly bad-mouthing anybody, at least for now, although her reference to corruption probably irks a few people currently in the system. However, the early focus of the Martinez campaign on drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants and prosecuting corrupt officials as a means of solving all the state’s ills, including the economy, seems a head-scratcher. Ms. Martinez has also been embroiled in some legal controversy surrounding the campaign, particularly with respect to complaints regarding her office’s response to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act request filed by the Democratic Party (here and here). In addition to just plain looking bad, the situation ended up with the DA’s office footing the bill for digitizing thousands of pages of records in a situation where the requester was willing to bring its own equipment in and do the work itself. If Ms. Martinez clinches the nomination, we suspect we’ll be seeing advertisements from the other party mentioning the NMIPRA controversy.
The ads for both candidates have all the hallmarks of standard campaign fare: appeals to emotion, vague accusations and, in Mr. Weh’s case, the first misrepresentation of a potential opponent’s actions of the season. They also lack what is usually lacking: specifics on just what these folks intend to do, and how they intend to do it, if they are elected. We doubt that the ads will be any more informative once the general election cycle starts, and the other party (or parties) start buying TV time. What does this mean? Well, for many of us, it probably means what it has in the past: giving the mute button a good workout, and renting a lot of movies.