{"id":3311,"date":"2008-05-30T14:38:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-30T20:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/05\/huge-contributions-fuel-effort-to-oust-foley-and-adair\/"},"modified":"2008-05-30T14:38:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-30T20:38:00","slug":"huge-contributions-fuel-effort-to-oust-foley-and-adair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/05\/huge-contributions-fuel-effort-to-oust-foley-and-adair\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge contributions fuel effort to oust Foley and Adair"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Roswell oilman Mark Murphy and an Albuquerque oil and gas company with ties to Murphy\u2019s family have pitched in more than $335,000 to try to defeat Roswell legislative incumbents Dan Foley<\/a> and Rod Adair<\/a> in next week\u2019s Republican primary. <\/p>\n

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

Murphy and his companies and political action committee have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to try to elect Foley\u2019s challenger, Dennis Kintigh<\/a>, and Adair\u2019s challenger, Rory McMinn<\/a>, on Tuesday. In addition, a company whose registered agent is Murphy\u2019s brother-in-law has contributed a whopping $250,000 toward that effort — $125,000 to each challenger.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>Because of those contributions, McMinn and Kintigh have significantly outraised the incumbents. Their campaigns have flooded the airwaves with TV ads, run newspaper ads and sent out several mailers.<\/p>\n

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

The largest campaign contributions weren\u2019t revealed until finance reports were filed publicly late Thursday with the Secretary of State\u2019s Office<\/a>, which is why they weren\u2019t disclosed in an earlier article about the bitter battles<\/a> in the Roswell Republican primaries.<\/p>\n

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

Kintigh has raised a total of $235,812.55 for his campaign to oust the House minority leader, according to his May 12 and May 29 finance reports. Foley has raised $119,611.09, according to his reports.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>McMinn has raised $184,628.89 for his campaign to oust Adair, while Adair has raised $56,655.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Kintigh\u2019s contributions include $55,000 from Murphy and $125,000 from LAGO LLC, an Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> company the Public Regulation Commission\u2019s Web site<\/a> states is in the oil and gas business.<\/p>\n

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

The only name listed in connection with the company is the registered agent, Sealy Cavin, who is Murphy\u2019s brother-in-law. Cavin is also the brother of the Chaves County Republican Party chairman, who, as the earlier article reported, has been accused of supporting Foley and Adair because he tried to stop negative attacks from Kintigh and McMinn.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>Kintigh\u2019s contributions also include $5,000 from Murphy Petroleum Corporation, of which Murphy is president and Cavin is the registered agent, and $2,500 from Strategic Technology Resources, which has the same address as Murphy Petroleum Corporation. Kintigh\u2019s in-kind contributions include $444.88 from Strategic Technology Resources and $5,797.67 from Conservatives for a Republican Majority<\/a> — a PAC Murphy runs and helped fund with a $50,000 contribution.<\/p>\n

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

McMinn\u2019s contributions include $125,000 from LAGO, $2,000 each from Murphy and Cavin and $2,500 from Strategic Technology Resources. He has in-kind contributions of $9,459.01 from Murphy\u2019s PAC and of $444.88 from Strategic Technology resources.<\/p>\n

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

Adair and Foley, meanwhile, have received contributions from a mix of individuals, PACs and corporations. Foley\u2019s largest contributions are $5,000 each from Anheuser Busch, Consumer Lending Alliance, Vasa Interests and rock star Ted Nugent. Adair\u2019s largest contribution of $7,500 comes from Krum Land & Cattle Company.<\/p>\n

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

Murphy and LAGO aren\u2019t the only funders of the McMinn and Kintigh campaigns. Both challengers have tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from other sources. But the amount of money LAGO and Murphy have poured into these races is unusual in state legislative contests.<\/p>\n

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

Attempts to reach Murphy and Cavin today to inquire about the contributions and who is behind LAGO have been unsuccessful. A receptionist at Cavin\u2019s law firm said he was not in the office. Murphy wrote in an e-mail that he would be available for comment later today. If that happens, this article will be updated.<\/p>\n

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

A long history<\/span><\/p>\n

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

There\u2019s a long history of dislike between Murphy and the two incumbents. In an interview conducted earlier this week, before the largest contributions were made public, Murphy was highly critical of both. He has become a leader of the opposition in the Republican Party to Adair and Foley.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIf you don\u2019t completely agree up and down the line with Rod Adair and Dan Foley, then you are the mortal enemy and they\u2019ll say and do anything to disparage you,\u201d Murphy said in that interview.<\/p>\n

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

While Adair and Foley say Murphy\u2019s efforts are backed by only a handful of people, Murphy insists that a large number of Republicans are dissatisfied with the leadership of the incumbents.<\/p>\n

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

Foley said today the money reveals that Murphy is trying to drown out the voice of the majority of Republicans with his own.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cHe is trying to take over the Republican Party. He\u2019s trying to buy the Republican Party,\u201d Foley said. \u201cThis right here is everything everybody hates about politics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roswell oilman Mark Murphy and an Albuquerque oil and gas company with ties to Murphy\u2019s family have pitched in more than $335,000 to try to defeat Roswell legislative incumbents Dan Foley and Rod Adair in next week\u2019s Republican primary. Murphy and his companies and political action committee have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to […]<\/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-3311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311","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=3311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}