Apodaca remains tone-deaf as he runs for governor
If you ask ordinary people what has changed most about politics, the answer is remarkably consistent. They say spite, incivility and attacks have escalated.
That’s not it. Politicians were nastier last century than they are now.
The sainted Harry Truman ran mean campaigns as a machine candidate. Upon his arrival in Washington, underwhelmed colleagues called him “the senator from Pendergast,” a reference to his political boss.
Jim Clark, a segregationist sheriff in Alabama, wore a lapel pin that said “Never!” Clark once used his billy club on a black woman who was trying to register to vote, then bragged about the fan mail he received for hitting her.
So, no, politicians were not more moral in earlier times. They just weren’t on television as often, and they benefited by holding office before everybody had a smartphone.
The greatest turnabout in politics is more fundamental.
Candidates used to enter campaigns with at least one sound idea and the work ethic to put it into effect.
Many of these politicians dreaded campaigning. It was an ordeal they had to endure so they could do a job.
I knew a painfully shy man who ran for office because he was determined to clean up a corrupt police department. I met others uninterested in personal recognition who entered politics to save a public lakefront from a developer’s bulldozers.
This era is different. Many politicians relish the campaign, the rallies and selfcongratulatory advertisements, but they have no real understanding of the issues they are running on.
Jeff Apodaca, a Democrat campaigning for governor of New Mexico, continues to be a primary offender.
The son of a former governor, Apodaca says he would revive New Mexico’s economy by leveraging the state’s endowments. He erroneously calls them “rainyday funds,” a term that makes it sound like they could be tapped tomorrow.
“I’m tired of hearing that NM is broke,” Apodaca wrote on Twitter. “We’re not broke. We sit on $23 billion in ‘rainy day’ funds. Let’s #InvestInNM.”
Many sincere people, such as New Mexico’s Catholic bishops and a bloc of Democrats in the Legislature, have pushed to use a portion of the largest endowment, the $17 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund, to expand early childhood education.
The theory of these advocates is simple. If children get a good start in school, the number of well-educated people will grow and the prison population will decline. More skilled workers will mean smaller welfare rolls.
Still, after seven years of trying, the advocates have not succeeded. Cautious state legislators in both political parties do not want to spend more from the landgrant endowment. It is funded by royalties from extraction industries and is supposed to last forever. State senators have declined to put the proposal for expanded early childhood education on the ballot.
Allen Sánchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, tried to give Apodaca an elementary lesson on how the endowment works and the obstacles his group has faced.
“I met with Apodaca months ago to explain the Land Grant Permanent Fund to him,” Sánchez said. “It went in one ear and out the other. He didn’t get it and didn’t seem to care. All he wanted was the catch phrases.” Apodaca continues on that same path. “It is time we invest 5 percent of our $23 billion back into our state by creating opportunities and raising wages for all New Mexicans,” he said. “…We will implement this plan from day one, and the immediate impact will be seen by the people of New Mexico within our first 100 days. Together, we can create 225,000 new jobs for New Mexico and New Mexico’s families.”
Apodaca hopes cheering crowds will believe the hype that he can do it alone.
His style is all too common in modern politics. As a Westerner, Apodaca knows the saying.
All hat, no cattle.