Michael L. Hays
About 30 years ago, “Tip” O’Neill, the Democratic speaker of the House, famously declared that all politics is local. He spoke before the mass deployment of personal computers and the availability of the Internet, not to mention all those little hand-held things.
Today, as a result of these technologies, all politics is national. So all candidates for the Senate and House addressed not only the economy, bailouts, deficits and health care, but also a general malaise about the country’s future and widespread dismay (for widely different reasons) with Obama. Oddly, Republicans did much better in the House than in the Senate.
Also oddly or perhaps not so oddly, as the loss of self-funded, expensive Republican senatorial or gubernatorial candidates in California and Connecticut suggests that money alone cannot win. Rich amateurs are not going to beat professionals.
Anonymous expenditures by conservative groups paid off handsomely when the candidate was not a blatant crackpot, like O’Donnell in Delaware or Angle in Nevada. (Miller in Alaska may be an exception in a state that has its fair share of – how shall I phrase it? – colorful individuals. But he seems to have exceeded even its tolerance of off-norm personalities or positions.) We should expect anonymous corporate or Republican – is there a difference? – money to fund non-stop attacks on opposing politicians and misrepresentation of issues, from this moment on, no time off.
Finally, no politics in this campaign involved international issues; there was little or no discussion of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, between Israel and Fatah/Hamas, or about nuclear-bent Iran. With allowance for the narrower perspectives of midterm elections, the virtual silence was unusual.
But local candidates are local only
I announced my intention not to vote for either candidate in the gubernatorial or the Congressional District 2 election. Neither Denish nor Martinez impressed me as capable leaders, especially in education, where their simplistic views reflect reflexive ideological positions of their respective political parties. Who needs kneejerk policies?
Likewise, neither Pearce nor Teague has impressed me as committed to public service. I accept that Pearce, like many candidates, successful or unsuccessful, runs on behalf of a narrow philosophy and special interests that reflect that philosophy. I also accept that Pearce does not represent or even listen to the views of those who differ from him on those and many other issues. But his highly partisan behavior and commitments are not unknown to the residents of the Second District, and they elected the devil they knew.
In Teague, they rejected the devil whom they did not know, whom they could never know, and whom they did not want to know longer than they had to. Unlike Pearce, who does not respond to comment, question or criticism, Teague offered a menu: silence, dodges, evasions or half-truths. I never knew what causes or commitments serving the public interest motivated Teague; he seemed a self-made man who wanted public office to crown his success and satisfy an old man’s vanity. So I come to bury Harry, not to praise him, and to suggest that Democrats need to find a better candidate to run for Congress.
That said, I think three good Democratic candidates – Cote, Steinborn and McCamley – lost to candidates with no demonstrated interest in the public good. But then a lot of people no longer believe in anything but me, me, me. (Let me put in a plug right now for one novice Republican candidate, Debra White, in District 36. Give it a go again, girl! You rock – if you do not mind my saying so in that way.)
Higher education takes a hit
Finally, I take special note of the vote on the one bond issue that failed. Although all other bond issues for education passed handily, the bond issue for colleges lost. I have no evidence to support my guess that New Mexicans, especially in southern New Mexico, are losing confidence in the state universities. For the bond lost by a larger percentage in Doña Ana County than in the state as a whole.
More and more state money goes to more and more students to fund college, but more and more fail to graduate and thus benefit from state prodigality. Many are ill prepared on admission in the first place; many remain ill prepared after remedial courses in the second place. Perversely, the more remedial courses the unprepared take, they less likely they are to graduate.
The universities make out just fine because the state compensates them for the number of credit hours in which students enroll, not the number of credit hours which they complete – hardly an incentive to improve public education at any level. I have no evidence to support my guess that, as such students experience frustration and failure, they and their families, who must still make sacrifices of money, time, and energy, realize and report that higher education in New Mexico rips off many people. Surely, the word gets around.
The universities do not inspire public confidence that they are focused on education when UNM and NMSU, the state’s two largest universities, annually transfer millions of dollars from their general funds to their money-losing athletic programs. Indeed, NMSU recently transferred over $4 million to its athletic programs; as a result, money which might have gone to teaching, research, and service – the three core missions of this land-grant university – went to another losing football season. Local disapproval has been vocal and widespread.
Did I say that the bond lost by a larger percentage in Doña Ana County that in the state as a whole? Since neither the universities nor the Legislature seems concerned to spend education tax dollars wisely when it comes to higher education, taxpayers seem to be voting to starve the beast.
Michael L. Hays (Ph.D., English) is a retired consultant in defense, energy and environment; former high school and college teacher; and continuing civic activist. His bi-monthly Saturday column appears in the Las Cruces Sun-News; his bi-monthly blog, First Impressions & Second Thoughts, appears on the intervening Saturdays at firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com.