{"id":1560,"date":"2007-04-06T10:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T16:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/cervantes-hasnt-decided-if-hell-run-for-congress\/"},"modified":"2007-04-06T10:14:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-06T16:14:00","slug":"cervantes-hasnt-decided-if-hell-run-for-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/cervantes-hasnt-decided-if-hell-run-for-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Cervantes hasn’t decided if he’ll run for Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Watching the room at a meeting of the Do\u00f1a Ana County Democratic Party<\/a> on Thursday, you might have thought there were three men vying for the right to take on U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, R-N.M., in 2008. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Al Kissling<\/a> and Bill McCamley<\/a> worked the room hard at the annual meeting, at which new leaders and delegates to the state party were selected. But State Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, was working just as hard.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

McCamley and Kissling have already declared that they\u2019re in the race and, because of that, both gave speeches at the meeting. Cervantes\u2019 last public comments about the race came in December, when he told me he was seriously considering running and would meet with his family to make a decision \u201cas soon as I\u2019m done with the session.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The session is over. People are wondering, and there were a lot of eyes watching Cervantes as he made his way around the room Thursday evening looking like a candidate. When I asked, he refused to talk with me about whether he\u2019s running.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Today, he said on The Morning Show with Michael Swickard<\/a> that he\u2019s still thinking about it.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI do have a tremendous interest in going to Washington<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>,\u201d he told Swickard. When asked if he was also considering running for governor in 2010, Cervantes said he believes \u201cthere are great opportunities there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t sound like a more definitive answer than Cervantes gave me in December or, for that matter, in December 2005, when he said he was considering running against Pearce in 2006 or making a move to higher office in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In response to criticism that he\u2019s indecisive, Cervantes said he has more to consider than McCamley and Kissling. Kissling is retired and McCamley is single.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI have businesses. I have employees,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big decision for us and it will involve all of our family.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cervantes said he is looking for opportunities to \u201cmake the state a better place and make the nation a better place,\u201d but said a move to Washington would be a massive \u201clifestyle change\u201d that would affect his family.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As I was listening to the interview, I was thinking at that point that Cervantes was leaning against running. Then he said that, while he was working the room Thursday night, several Democrats offered to work on his campaign if he runs for Congress.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMy sense is they\u2019re going to keep an open mind for quite a few months, waiting to see if anyone else is going to get in that race,\u201d Cervantes said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Swickard asked about the timeframe for Cervantes\u2019 decision, and added that, historically, candidates need to get into the race about a year beforehand \u2013 in this case, November of this year.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cervantes said that sounded about right.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cA race against Pearce would be a year from November. I think that\u2019s the timeline you talked about,\u201d Cervantes said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watching the room at a meeting of the Do\u00f1a Ana County Democratic Party on Thursday, you might have thought there were three men vying for the right to take on U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., in 2008. Al Kissling and Bill McCamley worked the room hard at the annual meeting, at which new leaders and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}