{"id":2667,"date":"2007-12-21T08:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/12\/teacher-drops-out-of-first-congressional-district-race\/"},"modified":"2007-12-21T08:56:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T14:56:00","slug":"teacher-drops-out-of-first-congressional-district-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/12\/teacher-drops-out-of-first-congressional-district-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher drops out of First Congressional District race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">High-school teacher <a href=\"http:\/\/www.call4democracy.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Call<\/a> is dropping out of the First Congressional District race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The Democrat\u2019s decision, announced late Thursday on his Web site, came after the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afscme.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees<\/a> on Tuesday endorsed fellow Democrat <a href=\"http:\/\/www.martinheinrich.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Martin Heinrich<\/a> in the race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cI\u2019ve pushed this thing about as far as it can go, and I\u2019m officially pulling the plug,\u201d Call wrote on his Web site. \u201c\u2026As someone who has been a union member his entire professional career, I completely understand AFSCME\u2019s decision to endorse a \u2018winner,\u2019 as opposed to a fringe candidate like myself. I think that they made the right choice, and I hope that Martin goes on to trounce whichever nutjob the GOP chooses to prop up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Call pledged to return the $1,000 he raised for the race, saying he spent only $277 and would \u201ctake the hit on that.\u201d He also plans to keep his Web site operational and wrote that, if the next member of Congress from the Albuquerque area doesn\u2019t actively work toward goals including single-payer health care, public financing for elections and immediate withdrawal from Iraq, \u201cthen I will continue this campaign for the 2010 congressional election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cI have been a peace and justice activist for near 20 years,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI intend to continue doing just that, and I will be a thorn in the side of my elected representative if they do not represent those same ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cAs evidenced by the last year of Democratic capitulation, we must not consider a Democrat \u2018win\u2019 in CD1 to be a \u2018win\u2019 for truth, or peace or justice,\u201d Call wrote. \u201cThat \u2018win\u2019 will only be evidenced vote by vote, issue by issue. To think that a Democratic win automatically equates to a win for progressive values is a recipe for disaster. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">His withdrawal leaves Heinrich and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michellelujangrishamforcongress.com\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Michelle Lujan-Grisham<\/a>, former state health secretary, vying for the Democratic Party\u2019s nomination for the seat. On the GOP side, state Sen. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.senatorcarraro.com\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Joe Carraro<\/a> and Bernalillo County Sheriff <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darrenwhiteforcongress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Darren White<\/a> are running.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High-school teacher Jason Call is dropping out of the First Congressional District race. The Democrat\u2019s decision, announced late Thursday on his Web site, came after the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on Tuesday endorsed fellow Democrat Martin Heinrich in the race. \u201cI\u2019ve pushed this thing about as far as it can go, [&hellip;]<\/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-2667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667","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=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}