Time to end whining in race for governor
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jeff Apodaca, whose specialty is bubble-headed economics, fully understood one equation.
Apodaca realized that, if he could push rival Joseph Cervantes out of the race, his own chances would improve.
A one-on-one competition with the front-runner, Michelle Lujan Grisham, was Apodaca’s best hope for victory.
Apodaca needed to force out Cervantes and hope Lujan Grisham would make a giant gaffe. Then Apodaca could squeak through with a stunning upset. Or so he hoped.
As it turned out, the first part of Apodaca’s political maneuver swiftly failed when he tried to knock Cervantes off the ballot.
Cervantes, a state senator from Las Cruces, initially failed to qualify for the primary election at last month’s Democratic preprimary convention. But he submitted additional petition signatures to make the ballot.
Apodaca sued, claiming signatures Cervantes submitted included any number of dead people and live ones who were not registered Democrats.
It looked like Chicago-style politics might break loose in a Santa Fe courtroom.
But Apodaca never got to offer a single detail of his claim about corpses signing petitions for Cervantes.
A judge ruled that Apodaca’s lawsuit was defective because he did not properly serve all those who were party to his complaint.
Apodaca was not in the courtroom when he lost his lawsuit. And so his lawyer was left with the job of shaking Cervantes’ hand and offering obligatory congratulations.
She told Cervantes that his lawyer, fellow Democratic state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, did a good job in getting the lawsuit kicked.
Cervantes’ win is a plus for Lujan Grisham. She appears to have a bigger base than either of the other candidates.
If Lujan Grisham holds strong, Cervantes and Apodaca will divide what’s left of the vote and she will coast to the nomination June 5.
Cervantes’ campaign has had no electricity so far. He received only 10 percent of the delegate votes last month at the convention.
To be sure, the sample of voters at the convention might not be representative of the much broader electorate. But Cervantes’ poor showing was a sign that he was disorganized, unwanted or both.
Now, in the last two months of a long campaign, he has to somehow demonstrate that he is the candidate best equipped to defeat Republican Steve Pearce and invigorate a state that has stagnated for eight years under Gov. Susana Martinez.
The odds against Cervantes are steep, but at least he is capable of talking intelligently about running state government.
In contrast, Apodaca has filled his campaign with wild claims.
He claims he will create 225,000 jobs by using $1.2 billion in state endowments for a laundry list of projects. Apodaca doesn’t say where he derived that massive jobs figure, what the jobs would be, how much they would pay or how many would be tied entirely to government funds.
Apodaca ignores that state lawmakers are wary of or downright hostile to using the endowments for new or additional projects. They would be happy to bury something as shallow as Apodaca’s plan.
Cervantes says his place in the race means there will be vigorous competition, not what he called “a coronation” for Lujan Grisham. Political coronations do not work, he said, naming Diane Denish in the 2010 governor’s race and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign as examples of Democratic Party favorites who failed to win general elections.
Lujan Grisham has been haughty, treating herself as the nominee by regularly calling Pearce her opponent. She acts as though Cervantes and Apodaca do not exist.
But there is a big difference between the underhanded tactics that gave Clinton a presidential nomination and the campaign Lujan Grisham has run.
To date, Lujan Grisham has outworked and outpointed Cervantes and Apodaca. Any complaints by Cervantes and Apodaca that the party’s preprimary convention was somehow rigged for Lujan Grisham are meaningless.
Apodaca made the ballot at the convention with 21 percent of the delegate vote. Cervantes has qualified by petition.
Now both have their chance to win over the only crowd that matters — Democrats voting in the primary.
Let the three-way competition begin.
And let all the whining stop immediately.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.