No apologies for supporting Apodaca’s campaign

Recently, The Santa Fe New Mexican assistant city editor Milan Simonich took me to task in a recent column for my support of Jeff Apodaca for governor (“Don’t play it again, Sam,” Ringside Seat, Jan. 1).

Mr. Simonich rightly points out that during the 52 years I spent as a Washington, D.C., political reporter, my job was to question those in and seeking to be in public office, to make them defend their policies and plans.

During that time, I did not publicly support political candidates or donate money to any partisan political cause. Now, of course, no longer working in the news business, I am free to do so.

Mr. Simonich says Jeff Apodaca’s program for creating 225,000 new jobs in New Mexico that I referenced in a television ad I narrated is “pie in the sky,” containing “phony claims” and “false promises,” and it is “sad” to see me narrating it (which I was pleased to do and for which I was not paid).

I assure Mr. Simonich that I have investigated Jeff Apodaca’s plan to invest $1.2 billion in a job creation program, and I think it will work. Jeff and I are well aware that only a portion of the money needed can by law be taken from the socalled “rainy day” funds of the state, but we believe other monies are available that a governor can use to bring the total to the $1 billion plus in Jeff ’s plan.

New Mexico is last among the states in creation of meaningful jobs, last in education and near the bottom in many other categories. When I came to Washington, D.C., in February of 1961, we had a new president who said he intended to “get the country moving again.”

I believe the person who will get New Mexico “moving again” is Jeff Apodaca, and while Mr. Simonich may think me “misguided” that I do so, I make no apologies for my support of Jeff Apodaca.