New Mexico State Auditor Hector Balderas - Who Does He Think He Is?
“What’s wrong, Ellsworth?” my friend Peter Keating asked. “You’ve been cranky all week.”
Peter and I were grabbing an early bite at Le Chantilly in Albuquerque, preparing for a meeting with Cuffy Meigs and leaders in the local teachers’ union. With the exception of the abysmal failure of the Atlas Shrugged movie — which gives me immense pleasure — it has been an awful week. Some of you drink when you get depressed. I eat French pastries.
“Where do I start, Peter?” I sighed. “After months of careful planning, getting everyone on board behind our guy Martin Heinrich in the open U.S. Senate race, Hector Balderas decides to go off the reservation.
Next year was promising to be a repeat of 2008, where Democrats unified behind Tom Udall while the Republicans slaughtered each other in a bloody primary.
“Now, Hector wants to cut the line, and is trying to win the nomination by pitting rural Democrats against our Progressive base in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Meanwhile, Heather Wilson is just killing John Sanchez in the early polls, and she may take the Republican nomination unopposed, or with only nominal opposition.
Heather Wilson - Insufferable Smarty-Pants
“We are headed for a blood bath – a repeat of the Casey Luna/Bruce King debacle of ’94 – which will hand the U.S. Senate seat to Ms. Smarty-Pants for the next 20 to 30 years.”
“I thought you liked Hector, Ellsworth,” Keating said. “You were all for him running for AG in two years.”
“Attorney General? Sure, Petey, that would be fine, but not the United States Senate. The senate seat is important. We need a reliable Progressive, a solid union guy, an ardent environmentalist, someone who can be relied upon to do what he is told. Someone willing to lie when we need him to lie to win an election - like our boy Martin Heinrich. You remember what he did to Jon Barela last year, with that social security ad that scared the crap out of all the old folks? Martin will stoop to anything.
“Hector, alas, is his own man, a moderate on some issues, even a conservative on some social issues. Our big money Progressive donors in Albuquerque and Santa Fe won’t like that. Plus, Hector won’t play ball with our lobbyist friends on K Street, which is the last thing we need.”
“So what are you going to do, Ellsworth? Submarine him?”
Martin Heinrich - Eye Candy
“This is all very touchy, Peter. We need the rural Hispanic vote to win general elections, but we can’t let those people actually run the party. Hector is going to get the rabble from the rural areas all stirred up, thinking they should be in charge, and one of them should be the Senator.
“What is it Hector says in his video — ‘I won’t be the candidate of the lobbyists or the insiders. I’m not running to be their Senator. I’m running to be yours.’
“A senator with a mind of his own? Please. We can’t have that.”
I nibbled at my cheese croissant, and sipped my cappuccino.
Governor Mitch Daniels - Egghead
“But that’s not the worst of it, Petey. It looks like that other insufferable smarty-pants, that midget from Indiana, will be entering the Presidential race. He could be dangerous.”
“Mitch Daniels?” Keating asked. “You’ve been saying for months that Obama would crush him.”
“That’s the lie we use for public dissemination, Peter. No, Daniels is the one candidate who worries us the most.
“Mitch has quite the reputation for careful planning, and thinking strategically. This whole ‘will he run’ or ‘won’t he run’ melodrama has been a ruse. Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, George Will and the rest of the Republican elite have been plotting for months for Daniels to enter the race. Mitch has been coy, but it turns out he has a full campaign organization in place.
“Mitch is ready to go, and will — soon.
“It seems to me Haley Barbour was just a stalking horse. Mitch and Haley are buddies from the Reagan years. The plan all along was for Haley to keep the big money folks on hold, let the media ridicule pandering Mitt and the rest of the field, then bring in Mitch at the eleventh hour to save the day, like Harry Potter defeating Voldemort, or in Mitch’s case, like Frodo Baggins riding out of the Shire to destroy the Ring.”
“Friday, Mitch announced he’s going to sign the most conservative anti-abortion funding bill ever passed in the United States, gutting Planned Parenthood. So much for the “truce” on social issues. Overnight, he goes from zero to hero with the social conservative crowd. It’s all been well choreographed. A brilliant job, actually.”
“But Daniels is dreadfully dull, Ellsworth,” Keating said. “I mean, could he actually beat Obama?”
“In a general election, the Daniels campaign won’t be a replay of the McCain/Palin amateur hour. He’ll resurrect the Bush/Cheney 2004 war machine. Mitch and his team will have precinct level turnout operations in key states, and will build a competent, methodical, well funded juggernaut. Obama had better be ready, or his bony little African-American butt will get shipped back to Chicago on a rail.”
“I’m worried, Peter. America might just dump Barack for the reincarnation of Calvin Coolidge. This whole thing has Rove’s fingerprints all over it, and I don’t like it.
“It’s depressing. Hand me another pain au chocolat.”