Even if he loses, Ronchetti might be for real
If you’re a Republican politician, the late Pete Domenici remains the North Star — a political perennial whose longevity, likability and, at times, sensibilities made him as constant and reassuring as night following day.
But Domenici wasn’t always such a heavyweight. Fifty years ago this November, in New Mexico’s gubernatorial election of 1970, he ran up against the Democratic Party’s version of Pete Domenici, an amiable cowboy named Bruce King. The Stanley rancher pounded St. Pete by more than 14,000 votes, and Domenici would have to wait until 1972 before winning a spot in the U.S. Senate.
The rest is history.
Or maybe — maybe, maybe, maybe — prologue.
There remain plenty of unknowns in the election of 2020, in large part because the state and nation are so filled with anxiety about the things we once took for granted. Sure, Ben Ray Luján appears to have a sizable lead in the U.S. Senate race against Republican Mark Ronchetti, and if inertia holds true — polls say the congressman leads the weatherman by nine percentage points, maybe more — he ought to take the seat being vacated by Tom Udall.
But in Ronchetti, and in defeat, the Republicans may have found someone with enough staying power to survive this election cycle.
If you’re so inclined, there are a lot of things to dislike about Ronchetti’s politics. His willingness to tie himself to a deeply unpopular president — you know the name — during the red-meat Republican primary is a strategy that blocks any reasonable path to success in a statewide general election in New Mexico in 2020. But if Ronchetti figures out a way in the last few weeks to make the race against Luján reasonably close, say four or five percentage points, then he has all but assured himself of consideration for another run at something.
The five-second wisdom in this race is that Ronchetti is a hairdo, a weatherman for heaven’s sake, and thus, too insubstantial to be a serious politician. I don’t buy that. His campaign style — actually, his way of communicating — makes him a player.
When Ronchetti talks, regardless of whether it’s in a debate or an interview, I don’t hear the blaring of the GOP string-pullers who compose those dyspeptic, anti-Luján scare ads. Instead, I hear someone who taps into the vein of discontent that a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats, feel about New Mexico.
Our inability to get better than 48th on almost any national ranking. Our collective inability to fund or figure out a better school system. Our struggle to be … well, better.
“I’m just frustrated, you guys,” he said last week in an interview with members of The New Mexican‘s editorial board. “I’m frustrated because I live in a state that I think is the best state in the union, and our problems never seem to get fixed.”
If you think you’ve heard that sentiment from a Republican before, you have. They came from a woman named Susana Martinez, who beat two Democrats in her runs for governor because she could gather that latent exhaustion and turn it into a cudgel against establishment Democrats. That she couldn’t govern a lick really didn’t reveal itself until early in her second term, but she created a template someone could follow.
Look around the Republican world, and there aren’t many who can voice those thoughts with verve or genuine feeling. Yvette Harrell? Steve Pearce? Who? The GOP’s inability to develop a bench through traditional methods — time in the Legislature, solid performances at the city or county level — are shocking. Think about it: If the state Republican Party had found any kind of potential the old-fashioned way, would Mark Ronchetti, a former member of the media, ever have been a serious consideration?
The truth is, some potential office-seekers who are longtime Republicans have quietly changed their party affiliations to “decline to state” so they can avoid the stench of the Trump years and the state party’s ineptitude.
Ronchetti’s dogged stalking of Luján, his rapid-fire parrying of Luján’s attacks, makes me think the Republicans could find buds of hope in what promises to be statewide carnage in November. There’s some speculation Ronchetti’s run was a get-toknow-you announcement before he takes on Tim Keller for Albuquerque mayor. But why take a shot at that nightmare of a job when there’s a gubernatorial election in 2022?
Depending on a million factors — namely, whether Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is still the governor in ’22, and who would get the Democratic nomination if she’s not — there may be an opportunity for a Republican challenger.
Yeah, it’s a long shot. And maybe Ronchetti will want to head back to the green screen and talk about a cold front moving into the state from Colorado. But what seems so unlikely in one November can change two Novembers later.
St. Pete knew.