Jennings Campaign Shows Muscle in Latest Finance Report

In case anyone thought Senate President Pro-tem wasn't going to take his re-election challenge seriously should read Jennings' latest campaign finance report.

In the last month, Democrat Jennings raised more than $105,000 and spent more than $134,000. He's still got $53,000 cash on hand.

That's quite a bit of dough to spend on a state Senate race.

But the totals aren't the only thing that's notable about the report. Even though Jennings has been targeted by the PAC led by Gov. Susana Martinez's political director, there are some prominent Republican names and traditional GOP supporters on his donor list.

I reported in last week's column, that Jennings' previous report showed a contribution from The Jalapeno Corporation, an oil company chaired by former state GOP Chairman Harvey Yates. The new report shows that oilman Mark Murphy gave Jennings the maximum $2,300. Yates Petroleum kicked in $500. Former Public Regulation Commissioner Rory McMinn gave $500. Oilman Ray Westall, a former state game commissioner, contributed $1,000.

And Jennings got $1,000 from former State Fair Commission Chairman Tom Tinnin, who left the state Board of Finance last year because, he said, he was pressured  by the Martinez administration to back the Downs at Albuquerque racetrack/casino deal. (Martinez has denied pressuring Tinnin and any wrongdoing in the controversial Downs deal.)

Jennings' Republican opponent Cliff Pirtle raised just $3,100 last month and has $17,000 in the bank. However, Jay McCleskey's Reform New Mexico Now still has nearly $113,000 to play with according to its latest report. I suspect some of that will go into the Roswell Senate race.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: Keith Gardner Talks Dirty for Tim's Campaign

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Oct. 7, 2012




Senate President pro-tem Tim Jennings, faced with his first serious election challenge since — I dunno, the dawn of civilization? — has an unusual campaign surrogate.

His name is Keith Gardner. He works as Gov. Susana Martinez’s chief of staff. You can hear his voice in new ads for Jennings.

Remember that secretly recorded tape in which Gardner was calling Jennings every cuss word in the book? Jennings has turned that tape into campaign radio, television and newspaper ads, a mailer and a website called TheyHateRoswell.com

The broadcast ads, naturally, bleep out all the obscenities, while the newspaper doesn’t even refer to the salty language. The mailer also contains none of the dirty language, though one side of it is photo of the inside of a decrepit “They Hate Roswell and think it is a …”

But the website contains the entire hour and 13 minute recording of Gardner and his erstwhile friend Brian Powell, a fire department official in Roswell. No expletive is deleted. And, apparently for the hearing impaired, several key quotes, all uncensored, are printed.

Jennings’ Republican opponent Cliff Pirtle, a 26-year-old rancher who I assume loves Roswell, was not part of the Gardner tape. But in that conversation, recorded about a year ago, Gardner bragged about raising half a million dollars to run someone against Jennings. And now Jennings has been the target of attack mailers by Reform New Mexico Now, a Martinez-associated political action committee.

“This web site is paid for and authorized by the Tim Jennings Re-Election Senate Campaign Committee,” says a message on the site’s home page. “Sen. Jennings has always run positive, issue-oriented campaigns. He feels the unprecedented attacks by his Republican opponent not only affect him, but this community. This web site is his response.”

Gov. Martinez and Keith Gardner

The controversial recording was released last month to reporters by Albuquerque lawyer Sam Bregman, an active Democrat who won’t confirm or deny whether he’s considering running for governor. In the conversation, which took place about a year ago.

Powell says he is a Republican who voted for Martinez.

I Hate This Town: The part about “hating Roswell” was brought up by Powell, talking about the hard time his daughter was having in school. “I hate this town, I hate this town. I hate this school district, I hate this town,” Powell said. “I’m with ya, I’m 100% with you,” Gardner, a former legislator who represented a Roswell district, replied.

Jennings’ web site surprisingly doesn’t quote a later part of the conversation in which Powell says, “This town is evil.” To that, Gardner replied, “It was sucking the life out of us.” (Gardner moved to Santa Fe after Martinez appointed him chief of staff.)

Attacking the attackers: Jennings is taking a page from Clovis Republican Pat Wood, who survived a bitter primary in June after making Martinez’s political director Jay McCleskey, his opponent’s campaign manager, an issue. McCleskey had unleashed attack mailers on Woods.

“Reform New Mexico Now was created by an Albuquerque political consultant who is renown for running negative campaigns,” Jennings’ mailer says. Some of his ads identify Gardner as an “architect” or “leader” of Reform New Mexico Now, which probably isn’t technically true — though he did boast about raising money to defeat Jennings.

Jennings also noted that Reform New Mexico Now is funded by out-of-state special interests. That’s true. According to the most recent campaign finance report filed last month, the biggest contributor to the PAC is Republican State Leadership Committee, which gave $250,000. Texas developer Marcus Hiles kicked in $25,000 while Las Vegas, Nev. airline executive Maurice Gallagher donated $5,000.

Speaking of campaign contributors, Jennings had a one that might be surprising. His latest report included $2,000 from an oil company called The Jalapeno Corporation, whose chairman is Harvey Yates, a recent chairman of the state Republican Party. The corporation’s former business manager was one Ryan Cangliosi — who now is Gov. Martinez’s deputy chief of staff.

Sen. Clint Harden Resigns

Sen. Clint Harden, R-Clovis, who did not seek re-election this year, has officially resigned from the state Senate.

Sen. Harden

In his letter to Secretary of State Diana Duran, Harden recommended that the governing bodies in the counties in his Senate District -- Curry, Quay, Harding, Union, Colfax, Taos and San Miguel counties -- recommend the name of Pat Woods, who won the Republican primary for Senate in June. Woods is unopposed in the general election.


“It has been my honor to serve the people of New Mexico and the district,”  Harden said in a news release. “I believe Sen.-elect Woods values are consistent with the views of the constituents in the district and I know he will be successful.”

Gov. Susana Martinez makes the actual appointment of the person to fill out the rest of Harden's term, which ends at the end of the year. Martinez was a vocal -- and financial -- supporter of Woods' opponent Angie Spears in that heated primary.

Harden was appointed to the New Mexico Senate in 2002 after then Sen. Pat Lyons was elected as state Land Commissioner. He won re-election in 2004 and 2008. Prior to his time in the Legislature, Harden served in Gov. Gary Johnson’s administration as Secretary of Labor. (The Labor Department's name later was changed, for reasons I still don't understand to the Department of Workforce Solutions.)

Another Senate Forecast Moves NM to Likely Dem

No the election's not over yet, but Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. publication that specializes in Congressional coverage, has moved the U.S. Senate race from "Leans Democratic" to "Likely Democratic."

... another race where they got the strongest possible nominee despite the demographics of the state favoring Democrats. Former Rep. Heather Wilson (R) has run a good campaign. But national Republicans aren’t spending any money to help her, and polls show Rep. Martin Heinrich in a good position to win next month.

... For all of  (Wilson’s) strengths as a candidate, she entered this open-seat race with high unfavorable ratings from her previous statewide campaign. Plus, she’s running in a heavily Hispanic state no longer viewed as competitive in the presidential race and against a solid Democratic recruit in (Heinrich) who took the lead in August and does not appear willing to let go."

Let's not forget though that there are a bunch of Heinrich/Wilson debates ahead in the next few weeks. The first one is next Thursday. I'll be live blogging over at The New Mexican site.

Johnson Still Left Out of Debates

I just talked with former Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate for president, who conceded the fact that tomorrow's presidential debate will go on without him despite the fact he filed an antitrust lawsuit in an effort to be included.

Johnson's suit, filed last month in federal court in California, invokes the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act to force the Commission on Presidential Debates to include all candidates who are on enough state ballots to get 270 electoral votes to have a spot on the debate state.

Johnson is on the ballot in 47 states so far, plus Washington, D.C.

"It appears we will be excluded from the first debate," Johnson told The New Mexican. He said the court so far has taken no action on the suit.

"It's possible the court could act in time for me to be in the second and third debates," he said.

The commission's rule that all candidates must be polling at least at a level of 15 percent is the reason Johnson was not invited to the debates.

Johnson's suit quotes a former head of the League of Women Voters who describes the establishment of the debate commission as a "conspiracy" by the Democratic and Republican parties to "hoodwink the American people."



While Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are debating in Denver tonight, Johnson said he’ll be in Chicago where he’ll be participating in an online Google Plus event. He also said he’ll be tweeting his reactions to the debate.

Johnson's antitrust suit is below:

Scan 001

Two More Bad Polls for Wilson and Romney in NM

Last Friday the Heather Wilson and Martin Heinrich camps released conflicting internal polls. Heinrich's showed him with an eight percentage point lead over Wilson. But Wilson's showed her only one percentage point behind Heinrich -- which represented a dramatic shift and backed up Wilson's contention that she was on the comeback trail.

There have been exceptions, but I generally ignore internal polls. I figured these two cancelled each other out and that the truth was somewhere in between.

But yesterday, (when I was off work), two independent polls came out, and if you can believe them them, Wilson's internal poll was way off and even Heinrich's poll underestimated his lead.

The Rasmussen Report -- which tends to lean Republican -- showed Heinrich 13 percentage points ahead, 52 percent to 39 percent. It was an automated poll on Sept. 27 of 500 likely voters with a 4.5 percent margin of error.

As her campaign has done with other polling companies, Wilson questioned the methodology of the Rasmussen poll. Rob Nikolewski has those comments HERE.

Later in the day, another poll from the We Ask America firm showed Heinrich head by about 11 percentage points. The Democrat was supported by just over 52 percent and Wilson with just under 41 percent. The company did automated interviews with 1,258 likely voters between Sept. 25 and 27. Their margin of error is 2.5 percent.

Both polling firms also asked about the presidential race. Both showed President Obama with a double digit lead over Republican Mitt Romney in the race for New Mexico's five electoral votes.

Rasmussen showed President Obama with 51 percent and Romney with 40 percent of the vote here. "Some Other Candidate" pulled six percent.

We Ask America had Obama at just under 51 percent and Romney at 40.6 percent. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson was right under four percent of the vote.

With numbers like these, I suspect New Mexico won't be seeing many more national polling companies working this state for the rest of the year.

Roundhouse Roundup: How Will Susana Help Heather?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Sept. 30, 2012

Gov. Susana Martinez traveled to Tennessee and Texas last week to do some politicking — speaking to a Republican luncheon in Nashville on Wednesday and going to Houston and Austin the next day for a couple of GOP fundraisers.

And, as KOAT first reported last week, in the coming weeks she’s expected to campaign for Mitt Romney in the Hispanic-heavy battleground states of Florida and Nevada.

Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of chatter here in this enchanted former swing state about why Martinez has been relatively invisible on the campaign trail — at least in the U.S. Senate and House races.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson could certainly use the help of the popular governor. Wilson consistently has trailed Democrat Martin Heinrich in that race. Last week, pundit Larry Sabato — director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and head honcho at the Sabato’s Crystal Ball website — changed his Senate map to indicate that the New Mexico Senate race is now “likely Democrat” instead of “leans Democrat,” as it had been for several weeks.

“If I were running Heather Wilson’s campaign, if I were Heather Wilson, I’d be knocking on the governor’s door for a TV endorsement,” said Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff. His recent poll for The Albuquerque Journal showed Martinez’s approval rate at 69 percent.

A television spot featuring Martinez offering a strong endorsement would be ideal for Wilson, Sanderoff said. Another option would be direct mail, featuring the governor’s image and a message touting Wilson, the pollster said.

I recently put the question to the Wilson campaign. “I expect the governor will be helpful,” spokesman Chris Sanchez said in an email.

And actually I do, too.

There’s no real political downside to taking that plunge. Even if Wilson ended up losing, nobody could honestly say that the loss was a reflection on Martinez’s clout.

And as Sanderoff pointed out, the two have a good relationship. Wilson, following the 2010 election, served as the chief of Martinez’s transition team. Martinez didn’t formally endorse Wilson in the Republican primary for the Senate seat. But her preference for Wilson was pretty obvious.

When Lt. Gov. John Sanchez announced he’d be challenging Wilson for the nomination, Martinez promptly released what more than one writer called an “icy” statement. She said Sanchez wouldn’t be given any assignments in her administration beyond the skimpy constitutional duties of the lieutenant governor. (The Sanchez campaign never really recovered from that. He eventually threw in the towel and endorsed Wilson.)

However, some argue that political endorsements don’t make that big of a difference anyway. Consultant Whitney Waite, a veteran of many GOP campaigns in this state, made a strong case for this position on a recent KNME New Mexico In Focus panel I also was on. I agree that endorsements often are overrated — though in this case, as far as Wilson is concerned, it couldn’t hurt.

Spotlight on New Mexico: It’s not as if Martinez has been shy about getting into other races this election cycle. As Sanderoff noted — and I wrote about in last week’s Roundhouse Roundup — Martinez has been quite active in several legislative races, putting the heat on Democratic legislators who have opposed her agenda.

Senate President Pro-tem Tim Jennings of Roswell and Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez of Belen already have been on the receiving end of attack mailers from SusanaPAC, Martinez’s political action committee, headed by her political director, Jay McCleskey.

Whether you agree with the content or tone of the attacks, it makes sense for the governor to focus on legislative races. It’s more of a direct pain to Martinez if Michael Sanchez remains majority leader in the state Senate than if Harry Reid remains majority leader in the U.S. Senate.