The incumbent in the state land commissioner race is battling allegations that campaign workers deceived a school principal into letting them film a commercial there and that he’s using state employees and resources to aid his re-election efforts.
He is down two points in the newest Albuquerque Journal poll, but Republican incumbent Pat Lyons has more money to spend than Democrat Jim Baca in the final days of the campaign, making this the hottest statewide race.
The troubles began earlier this week, when
Parents of two students featured in the ad, both Baca supporters, complained to the Albuquerque Tribune and Santa Fe New Mexican.
“I didn’t understand how he could put my daughter in an ad so prominently and not even call me,” Dave Pittis said of his daughter.
Parents had signed waivers allowing their children to be filmed and photographed at the school, but Pittis said he didn’t expect that to apply to campaign advertisements.
Lyons’ office filmed a commercial in the same school a year ago promoting the state land office, Kristin Haase, Lyons’ spokeswoman, told me. That prior relationship is what made the campaign decide to approach the school again. Haase said she left two voice mails for the schools’ principal, Sandy Davis, asking for permission to shoot a second commercial, this one for the campaign, and said
Though she approved the filming of the second ad,
“I didn’t think about it being a political ad,” she told the newspaper. “If I had any idea it was going to be political, I would not have done it, or I would have checked with the parents…”
Regardless, immediately after Pittis called the state land office to complain about its use of his daughter’s image in the second commercial, Haase said she had the commercial reworked so that his daughter’s image was removed. Production of a new commercial that will replace this one was sped up, and it will begin airing this weekend, she said.
Haase told me there was no deception.
“To say that (the principal) was deceived is just not the case,” she said. “She may not have been paying attention.”
The inside cover features a letter by
“The timing for the annual report isn’t fortuitous,” Baca told me. “It’s bad enough that I’m running against so much oil and gas money. Now I’m running against government money, too.”
Haase said the office sends out about 1,000 copies of the annual report each year. Though it’s normally done in January or February, it was done earlier this year because “we could be out of office in a few weeks.”
“It’s nothing underhanded,” Haase said. “The term ends Dec. 31, and we, by statute, have to get that out.”
The last issue is Haase herself. She has been intimately involved in the campaign, and is the assistant state land commissioner for communication. She said she does all campaign work, including production of the controversial television commercial, on her own time. The cellular telephone number I and other members of the media call her on is her personal number, she said.
“I’m just an employee of the state land office who’s volunteering my time to help my boss get re-elected,” she said. “I can assure you that probably every governor exempt employee is helping (Bill Richardson’s) campaign.”
Baca said he believes it’s inappropriate for
According to the New Mexican, Baca himself was criticized as the mayor of
Baca told the New Mexican the program was designed so that high-school and college students around the country could “learn about politics by working on a campaign … but I didn’t go in during school hours and shoot a campaign commercial under false pretenses.”