Candidates offer snake oil to voters

POLITICAL CANDIDATES say the strangest things. Two of the Democrats running for land commissioner are slamming a third candidate because he would allegedly “protect” the oil and gas industry. Well, I would hope so. After all, that industry pays over one-third or more of the state budget. Can you spell huge tax increases on the rest of us if they somehow moved over the state line to Texas?...

Then there’s the Democratic candidate who wants to be the next state auditor, ... slamming President Trump over the much-scorned border wall. Previous candidates for auditor understood they were supposed to be the public watchdog over state and local government misspending of public money . ... Apparently (one of) the latest contenders believe(s he) will instead be involved in forming national immigration policy.

Lest we forget, most candidates for every office up for grabs this year are absolutely in love with wind and solar electric generation . ... One candidate has even upped the ante to 100 percent renewable generation. Of course, that would only work when the sun shined and the wind blew, or until the state ran out of money paying subsidies to these industries. I guess they figure living in the dark will prompt some genius to finally figure out, for the first time in at least a hundred years, how to store mass quantities of electrons. Maybe. And I thought the era of snake oil salesmen ended long ago. JOHN GILLIS Santa Fe