ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: BIG LOANS TO CAMPAIGNS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 22, 2008


Some have observed that the 3rd Congressional District primary is getting “personal.” One way it’s getting personal: The candidates are sinking personal funds into the race.

Developer Don Wiviott, according to a report filed Tuesday, just sunk another quarter-million dollars into his campaign. This brings Wiviott’s total of self-contributions to $1.34 million for his House campaign plus another quarter-million and change of his own money he spent on his aborted U.S. Senate campaign last year.

Meanwhile, Ben Ray Luján this week reported taking out a bank loan of $150,000 for his campaign. That’s on top of a $50,000 loan he took out earlier in the race.

Sneak preview: The next round of campaign finance reports for congressional and Senate candidates isn’t due until today. But the June 3 primary is so close that federal law requires reports of contributions of $1,000 or more within 48 hours of the contribution, so a few of those are popping up.

Luján reports getting $2,300 from Ohkay Owingeh; $2,300 from Margaret Moñoz of Gallup; and $1,000 from Yvette Dobie of Laguna Beach, Calif.

Wiviott reports $2,050 from Edmund Schenecker of San Antonio, Texas; $1,500 from Michael Wilson of Albuquerque; and $1,000 each from Jonathan Potts Wendell of Greenwich, Conn., and David Gold of Albuquerque.

Also, CD 3 contender Jon Adams filed his report a day early. He said he’s raised a total of $51,500 for his campaign so far, which includes $13,000 in loans.

The two Republican Senate candidates already reported their totals.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce says he has raised $357,000 since the beginning of April. He spent $964,784 and has $247,207 in the bank.

His rival, U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, reports raising $291,106 for the same period. While that’s $66,000 less than Pearce, Wilson reports having $712,476 in the bank.

Brace yourself, Bridget. That’s going to pay for a lot of television ads in the last week and a half of the primary campaign.

Rescinding a non-endorsement? Earlier this month on an interview on KNME’s In Focus, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said he wasn’t going to make an endorsement in the Republican Senate primary.

But the retiring senator did leave the door slightly ajar: “Now, if something should happen untoward, where I think something was taken advantage of, I may change my mind, but that’s pretty remote at this time.”

Earlier this week, however, Domenici called upon candidate Pearce to demand The Club For Growth withdraw its new ad blasting Wilson for voting in the House for the State Child Insurance Program, or S-CHIP. Domenici voted in favor of the bill in the Senate. Pearce voted against it in the House. President Bush vetoed it.

The offending ad actually stopped running before Domenici called for it to be pulled. But that’s beside the point.

Could Domenici be thinking this ad is “untoward”?

Asked Wednesday whether Domenici might be reconsidering his non-endorsement decision, spokesman Chris Gallegos said, “We have no comment.”

Is there still some Richardson campaign we don’t know about? It seems our governor sure has been out of state a lot lately. On Tuesday, CNN reported, “Bill Richardson will campaign this week for Barack Obama in Puerto Rico, 10 days before the Commonwealth holds its Democratic primary, a Richardson aide tells CNN.” Apparently Richardson is visiting the island today.

Puerto Rico can’t vote in the general election. But in the Byzantine glass bead game of the Democratic nominating process, the island has 55 pledged delegates at stake in the primary.

Earlier this week, the governor was on the East Coast. He gave a commencement speech Sunday at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, shortly after receiving a Titan of Technology award and delivering a keynote address for the Eastern Technology Council at Drexel University. That same day, he spoke to the World Council of Philadelphia and the William Hughes Center for Public Policy in Atlantic City.

SHENDO STATEMENT

CD 3 candidate Benny Shendo sent a statement about our story in the New Mexican. I'll post the whole thing:

There has been a lot of mischaracterization of the fact and intention of my question to Ben Ray Lujan on Monday night at the Farmington County Democratic Candidate Forum, the first and only forum or debate opportunity for candidates to ask questions of one another. In this day of "sound bite" politics, I appreciate your giving me this opportunity to set the record straight instead of letting this be spun by the Lujan and Wiviott campaigns to an inaccurate portrayal of my views and serve as a distraction from the real issue and the real point of my question, which is:

Does Ben Ray Lujan have the courage to stand up on the difficult issues that face us as a society?

First, I deeply respect the right of every individual to choose their own lifestyle. I was raised in my native culture, which has for generations been tolerant and inclusive of all people regardless of their personal lifestyle choices. And I hold the deepest commitment to working toward the day when every single person in our whole society can be accepted publicly and privately for who they are without fear or shame.

My question the other night was not about whether Ben Ray Lujan is gay or not. And if all the people who have known Ben Ray over the years at the state house, in the community and in his own extended family, and have for years known and accepted him as gay are wrong, that's perfectly fine. His sexuality is not the issue here.

My question was about his maturity and integrity in handling the issue and whether or not he is ready to be our representative in Congress. Being a leader means taking tough stands, and that takes courage—courage that starts in a person's heart, and that starts at home.

My question was about whether Ben Ray had the courage to stand up to his parents, who have been a very active presence in his public life and in his campaign. And many voters, especially including members of the GLBT community and members of Lujan's own family, have expressed concern to me that there may be a level of public deception going on in the way that Ben Ray and his parents have handled this matter by so actively promoting publicly that he has a girlfriend.

Let's be clear, if a private citizen chooses to keep their sexual orientation secret, that's their right. But Ben Ray Lujan, by his own choice, is not a private citizen, but a candidate for public office, and in this context, he is asking us to trust his decision-making, his judgment, his leadership capability, his maturity, and, frankly, his honesty.

Being a political leader isn't just about having a big office and fancy title. It's not even just about what you say your stance is or will be on the issues. A person who actively puts themselves forward as a public figure, an elected leader, by definition, is putting themselves forward to be a role model.

As such, they need to accept a higher level of responsibility for their actions. If they actively put forward a deception to hide their homosexuality, then they send a terrible and damaging message that there is something wrong with being gay. In a very real sense, they become a "gay basher" by their actions, which clearly say there is something shameful about being gay. And that does incalculable damage, especially to young GLBT people who are struggling with this issue.

I have spent the bulk of my professional career working with young people, helping them get into and succeed in college, I know first hand the damage that this kind of message sends, when leaders by their actions say that being gay is shameful and thus, by extension, that young people struggling with their own sexual identity should also be ashamed of who they are.

And that damage is especially grave when it is in the form of a person's own parents not accepting who they are, and pressuring them into living a lie. I have seen first-hand and experts agree, when parents do not accept their children for who they are, this creates a deep wound that forms an underlying cause of many of our worst social problems – alcohol and drug abuse, depression, domestic violence, hatred and intolerance.

Therefore, when a public figure and role model chooses to deceive on the issue of his lifestyle and sexual identity this is not just private or personal matter, but an issue of direct concern all of us, including the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community, as well as to the general well-being of our whole society. Some of these may be difficult issues, certainly, but all the more reason we must talk about them, and not sweep them under the carpet, with an understandable, but misguided cry for personal privacy.

That being gay is shameful is not the right message for Ben Ray to be sending to the very people he claims he is mature enough and courageous enough to stand up for. Our representatives in Congress need to be an embodiment of the acceptance we seek in our society, acceptance both of others and of themselves. This means that if our public leaders allow themselves to be the victim of intolerance –by others or even by themselves to themselves—then they are not in a position to defend the rights of others. They become party to the intolerance, and our leaders, especially now, need to be stronger willed and more principled than that.

That is what my question was about. And that's what I will continue to fight for: that day when every child, including Ben Ray Lujan, can grow up proud of who they are, where they come from and what their place is in this world.

Benny J. Shendo, Jr

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CD 3: TURNING DOWNRIGHT NASTY

Yes, the Third Congressional race suddenly has taken a severe turn for the ugly.

No, it's not just the attack ads between Ben Ray Lujan and Don Wiviott. That stuff, despite cries of "Swift boat attacks," is to be expected.

Let's talk about the unexpected.

Things turned bizarre Monday night at a candidate forum in Farmington. And it came from -- of all people -- candidate Benny Shendo, who previously seemed like a soft-spoken, well-informed voice of reason.

But in Farmington, Shendo let loose with a strange innuendo about Ben Ray Lujan's "lifestyle."

"You say that you stand up for the people of New Mexico," Shendo said, "and I want to know how you can stand up for the people of New Mexico if you can't stand up to your mom and dad about your lifestyle."

And in an interview with Kate Nash of the New Mexican today, Shendo went on to say, that while he has no evidence about Lujan's sexual orientation:

"If he is gay, and he's deceiving people, that's wrong. The voters have a right to be concerned about the deception — not whether one is gay or not. The issue is deception. That's relevant."

It is?

The Lujan campaign calls the attack "despicable." And Linda Siegle, a lobbyist for Equality New Mexico, said, "Whether he's gay or not shouldn't be an issue. Whether he has a girlfriend or not shouldn't be an issue. The issue should be the issues. Why would another Democrat be bringing this up?"

No, it doesn't get much stranger than this. Read the whole story by Kate and me HERE.

NEW NM POLL SHOWS OBAMA TIED WITH McCAIN

The latest SurveyUSA poll shows Barrack Obama tied with John McCain 44-44 percent in a presidential match-up in New Mexico.

The automated phone poll, taken over the weekend of 600 registered voters in the state has several possible running mates of the two candidates.

Obama does best with John Edwards as his running mate. In fact without Edwards, Obama falls behind McCain in every other match-up. McCain does well with Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney as a running mate.

However, I believe these match-ups aren't very valuable at this stage. Edwards has high name recognition, as do Huckabee and Romney. Somehow I don't think Kathleen Sebelius and Tim Pawlenty are that well known here.

In fact, SurveyUSA honcho Jay Leve told me in an interview last month that the numbers in New Mexico will be going up and down for the candidates until the bitter end. "“Nothing in our polling suggests that a consensus has been formed (in New Mexico),” Leve said in April. “I expect a razor-thin margin.”

The margin of error is 4.1 percent.

IS THIS AN OPENING FOR A DOMENICI ENDORSEMENT?

Earlier this month on an interview on KNME's In Focus, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said he wouldn't be endorsing in the GOP Senate primary.

However, he did leave the door slightly ajar: ""Now, if something should happen untoward, where I think something was taken advantage of, I may change my mind, but that's pretty remote at this time."

On Monday Domenici called upon candidate Steve Pearce to demand The Club For Growth withdraw its new ad blasting Heather Wilson for support of the State Child Insurance Program (S-CHIP). (Read an Associated Press story HERE) Domenici voted in favor of the bill, which Pearce opposed and President Bush vetoed.

Could Domenici be thinking this ad is "untoward"?