Please Vote! Here Are Some Thoughts

If you care about nothing else, vote for Harris-Walz at the top of your ballot. Mr. Trump is wholly unqualified: he’s a danger to our country not only in his narcissism but in his incompetence, his dictatorial inclinations, his complete indifference to policy details, and how easily foreign leaders manipulate him. Harris and Walz are interested in government, interested generally in helping average people, and seem to be decent, highly competent human beings who care.

U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich is experienced and highly effective, and speaks of tackling climate change and expanding health care access. Nella Domenici spouts generalized accusations that everything she dislikes in our state is Heinrich’s fault. She’ a privileged, private-equity person from elsewhere who hopes we’ll vote for her because her father was Pete Domenici and she grew up in New Mexico. She ain’t Pete. Oddly enough, he was a friend of mine. And a good and highly competent man, despite our ideological differences. (He once told me that when, as non-partisan mayor of Albuquerque, he considered a Senate run, choosing his party was a close call.) His daughter is further right; her private-equity career means sympathy for our wealthiest citizens; if elected, and if Mr. Trump were President, she’d be in his possible majority in the Senate, helping him do whatever nutty thing enters his head. Pete wouldn’t have been Trump’s puppet. Heinrich will be a strong member of the loyal opposition. That’s important.

Similarly, former Las Cruces City Councilor Gabe Vasquez is a better Congressperson than was Trumpist Yvette Herrell. This campaign has gone way negative: he emphasizes her draconian position on abortion, she stresses some out-of-context remarks he made regarding the police. The reality is that she’d help pave Mr. Trump’s road, while Gabe wouldn’t; and she simply doesn’t get the fact that we should not be effectively murdering young ladies for getting pregnant, whether they were unwise or victims of rape or incest. Their bodies are theirs, not mine or Yvette’s.

Samantha Salopek Barncastle is challenging two-term incumbent NM Senator Carrie Hamblen (D-38). Barncastle has long been attorney for Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which has frequently drawn fire from environmentalists and some small farmers.

The District Attorney race ain’t the easy choice I wish it were. I’ve known Fernando Macias at least slightly for 50 years. He’s highly experienced and has done a lot of good. Some also find him a little grandoise and imperious: “My Way or the Highway!” Some very good friends, Democrats, some holding office here, say they would never vote for him. Michael Cain, while charming and an experienced criminal lawyer, is simply not as strong a candidate as Fernando, although Cain argues that his decades specializing in criminal law outweigh Macias’s wealth of experience as judge, county manager, commissioner, and state legislator. Friends passionately support both. Which would rescue the office? Bottom line: if I thought this race were close, I’d vote for Fernando. If not, I’d wish I could write in Atticus Finch.

I discuss local races in my blog post on http://www.soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/. County Clerk Amanda Lopez Askin, Tara Jaramillo, Bill Soules and Nathan Small, among others, have served us well and deserve re-election. I’d also vote for Sarah Silva if I could.

I think I favor all four proposed constitutional amendments, and the bond issues. Despite strong distaste for our state’s use of the gross receipts tax, I’d approve Las Cruces’s small requested increase.

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[This column appeared Sunday, 27 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will be up soon  on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[What else should I note here?

> That our County Clerk, Amanda LopezAskin, is a star in that position. I’ve thought so more and more strongly. And the lady challenging her in this election basically promiss to do stuff Askin is already doing, such as being transparent and outgoing and pro-active about educating voters and increasing registration. So that’s an easy one.

> We had District 3x state representative Tara Jaramillo on our radio show recently, and she was distinctly more impressive than most folks realize. It came through in the depth of her commitment to public service and all that inspired it. Runs deep in her family, and in her. And she’ll be fierce about giving kids he best chance we can, particuarly kids with an extra helping of problems.

> I touched on the state senate race between Carrie Hamblen and Samantha Salopek Barncastle. I’ve run into Barncastle in court, representing right wing interests who didn’t seem to have our community’s best interest at heart, and as EBID’s lawyer, pushing for water issues to come out in ways EBID would prefer; but I haven’t seen her out just doing good for our community. Meanwhile, I think her pals at EBID have lost their taste for her company, or at least for her professional help. By contrast, Hamblen seems a straight-shooter, she’s effectively progressive, and a top conservation group gives her 100% approval for the whole time she’ sbeen in ofice. Hamblen makes sense for the modern and growing community we are. Barncastle pobably doesn’t.

> This morning I looked again at a seven-minute black&white film about the passionately Nazi American Patriots rally that drew 20,000 to New York’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939, about when Hitler was completing construction on his 5th or 6^th concentration camp. It doesn’t answer any questions. Just documents that they were there, listening to an orator and finding some way to mix love of Hitler with love of George Washington, who maybe they didn’t know turned town office a few times, including after serving two terms as our president. Shows ‘em sincere as hell, conflating our democratic tradition with hatred and prejudice. I alwas wondered how. We might be finding out, the next few years. ]