{"id":17907,"date":"2010-05-28T07:46:18","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T13:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17907"},"modified":"2010-05-30T08:16:19","modified_gmt":"2010-05-30T14:16:19","slug":"gop-gubernatorial-debate-won%e2%80%99t-change-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/gop-gubernatorial-debate-won%e2%80%99t-change-much\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP gubernatorial debate won\u2019t change much"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Republican gubernatorial candidates Allen Weh, left, and Susana Martinez.<\/p><\/div>\n

Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh<\/a> needed to shine at Thursday\u2019s candidate debate to make up ground he\u2019s lost against opponent Susana Martinez<\/a>, but while he had a very strong moment near the end, he didn\u2019t stand apart in a forum in which all five candidates did reasonably well.<\/p>\n

Doug Turner<\/a> brought the most solid performance to the debate, presenting a mix of witty one-liners that got people\u2019s attention and solid discussion of policy issues. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a> was policy-focused and solid.<\/p>\n

Pete Domenici Jr.<\/a>, showed that his ability to present himself as a candidate has improved significantly since he entered the race.<\/p>\n

Like Weh, frontrunner Martinez didn\u2019t stand above the other candidates, but she was solid \u2013 which means she accomplished what she had to in order to maintain her lead heading into the final weekend of the campaign.<\/p>\n

The bottom line: With only a few days left in this race, the debate isn\u2019t going to change the outcome.<\/p>\n

The money<\/h3>\n

Heading into the final days, then, Martinez keeps the lead<\/a>. Her closest opponent \u2013 Weh \u2013 filed his final campaign finance report<\/a> Thursday. It shows that, in the last few weeks, Weh has loaned his campaign another $600,000 to keep running TV ads at a faster pace than Martinez, but he only raised about $41,000 from other contributors.<\/p>\n

Weh ended the reporting period with $52,820.04 on hand. Of course, if Weh needs additional money he could spend more of his own.<\/p>\n

Martinez hasn\u2019t yet filed her finance report. The Secretary of State\u2019s Office extended the deadline for filing the reports to 5 p.m. Friday because of a power outage<\/a> that struck the office this afternoon. But The Associated Press<\/a> reported that Martinez raised \u201cabout $721,000 and cash-on-hand of $139,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a huge amount to raise in three weeks. Someone has been pitching in big to help Martinez keep up with Weh\u2019s self-financing, which is now at $1.6 million.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Like Martinez, Turner hasn\u2019t yet filed his finance report.<\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t too many surprises in the other candidates\u2019 finance reports. You can find Domenici\u2019s here<\/a> and Arnold-Jones\u2019 here<\/a>. Domenici gave his campaign another $55,000.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that we already knew the other candidates \u2013 Turner, Domenici and Arnold-Jones \u2013 didn\u2019t have the resources to keep up with the battle between Martinez and Weh, because they haven\u2019t been spending as much on TV ads.<\/p>\n

For better or for worse, that\u2019s an accurate measure in a race of this caliber of who\u2019s going to lead in the polls \u2013 and usually on Election Day.<\/p>\n

Best moments<\/h3>\n

But back to the debate. The catchiest lines of the night came from Turner and Arnold-Jones. Turner\u2019s came when he was discussing his belief that the Rail Runner isn\u2019t a good use of taxpayer dollars \u2013 in spite of what the Richardson administration has claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve experienced is a great Jedi Mind Trick<\/a> on how wonderful this is going to be,\u201d Turner said.<\/p>\n

Arnold-Jones\u2019 shining moment came in response to a statement in which Weh said he would bring a baseball bat to clean up Santa Fe and a question about what she would bring to Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a baseball bat. I had a little bitty camera,\u201d Arnold-Jones said of her well-known push to force webcasting on the Legislature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most emotional moment came during Weh\u2019s closing statement. He told the story of being present in Vietnam when a soldier had his legs blown off. The soldier realized his legs were gone as he was being carried away, and Weh said the soldier started singing a song that carried across the battlefield.<\/p>\n

It was a moment Weh said has brought him inspiration ever since.<\/p>\n

Back-and-forth between Weh and Martinez<\/h3>\n

There was some back and forth between Weh and Martinez at the debate \u2013 a continuance of the nasty battle they\u2019ve been fighting on television and elsewhere for about two weeks \u2013 but it was relatively tame. Referring to the GOP party chairman calling him out<\/a> for airing a false and misleading ad, Weh said there has been some \u201cunethical\u201d dealing behind the scenes and his integrity has been attacked.<\/p>\n

Weh encouraged voters to decide the race rather than letting party insiders do it.<\/p>\n

Later, Weh brought up Martinez\u2019s accusing him of supporting amnesty<\/a>. \u201cLet me unequivocally state I am not for amnesty and have never been for amnesty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can go back and forth, Allen, about whether it\u2019s amnesty,\u201d Martinez responded, but she said the fact is that the Bush immigration reform plan, which Weh supported, would have allowed people in the United States illegally \u2013 she used the number 13 million \u2013 to stay.<\/p>\n

Martinez claimed that would have cost taxpayers $2.7 trillion and said, \u201cthat is bad policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to debate the 13 million issue with Susana at a later time,\u201d Weh responded.<\/p>\n

Watch the debate<\/h3>\n

You can watch the full debate here:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Denish looms<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Diane Denish<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Diane Denish<\/a> has continued her impressive fundraising. She reported Thursday<\/a> that she raised almost $465,000 in the last three weeks, spent $521,000 and ended the reporting period with $2.65 million on hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am extremely grateful for the strong showing of support I have received,\u201d Denish said in a news release. \u201cCreating an economic turnaround is going to take hard work, leadership and concrete ideas. People have signed on to my campaign because, like me, they believe our state\u2019s best days are ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But another new poll showed that the general election won\u2019t be a walk in the park for Denish. The poll, from Rasmussen Reports<\/a>, showed Denish leading Martinez in potential general-election contest 43 percent to 42 percent. In late March, Denish led Martinez by 19 points<\/a> in a Rasmussen Reports poll.<\/p>\n

The new poll shows Weh trailing Denish by 6 points in a potential match up. The other three GOP candidates trail Denish by 14 points or more.<\/p>\n

The survey of 500 likely voters was conducted on Tuesday and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susana Martinez didn\u2019t stand above the rest, but she was solid \u2013 which means she accomplished what she had to do heading into the final weekend of the campaign. Allen Weh needed to shine, but like Martinez, he was solid but not superb. Doug Turner and Janice Arnold-Jones had the best performances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-17907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17907","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=17907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}