{"id":582060,"date":"2018-05-20T00:01:24","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T06:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=582060"},"modified":"2018-05-21T09:32:34","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T15:32:34","slug":"growing-a-governor-from-childhood-to-guardian-of-nms-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/05\/growing-a-governor-from-childhood-to-guardian-of-nms-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing a governor: From childhood to guardian of NM&#8217;s children"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When we at Searchlight New Mexico asked the four gubernatorial candidates to talk about the well-being of children, we weren\u2019t looking for pro forma policy statements.<\/p>\n<p>We wanted to hear about their childhoods.<\/p>\n<p>We wanted to understand how those formative years shaped their thinking about what we regard, hands-down, as the most critical issue confronting New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>How will the next governor approach the intractable problems facing the children and families who call this state home? How will he or she elevate the state from its ignoble ranking &#8212; as one of the worst places in America to raise a child?<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article is part of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Searchlight New Mexico\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0year-long journalistic investigation into child well-being in New Mexico. Read the series, Raising New Mexico,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/series\/raising-new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>The Q&amp;A<\/h3>\n<p>Read the candidates&#8217; responses to Searchlight&#8217;s Q&amp;A <a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/growing-a-governor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>What parental influence continues to inform their judgment and thus potentially affect the lives of New Mexico\u2019s 500,000 children?<\/p>\n<p>We asked those questions because we believe the very future of this state rests on the health, education and success of its children. The 2018 election for governor is New Mexico\u2019s chance to get it right.<\/p>\n<p>As the Jesuits famously told us, \u201cGive me the child until he is 7, and I\u2019ll give you the man.\u201d Or the woman. In that spirit, we wonder: Who was Jeff Apodoca at age 7? How did Steve Pearce get along with his siblings? Did Michelle Lujan Grisham eat supper with her family every night? What did Joe Cervantes want to be when he grew up?<\/p>\n<p>The candidates\u2019 answers to our questionnaire are thoughtful, often provocative and in some cases disarming in their candor. Who would have imagined that Apodaca, stricken with cancer as a teenager, was among the first New Mexicans given medical marijuana as treatment for the effects of chemotherapy?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear that in many cases their policies and outlooks grew out of their childhood experiences.<\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham, for instance, says she developed a commitment to public service through watching her parents. Her father, a dentist, worked at one of New Mexico\u2019s first public health dental clinics and continued to practice, providing free care, well into his 80s. Her mother was driven to action after Lujan Grisham\u2019s sister developed a brain tumor at age 2 and went blind. Sonja Grisham devoted herself to reforming the New Mexico School for the Blind.<\/p>\n<p>Pearce\u2019s formative years reflect an entirely different experience. In his telling, the family home was \u201cnot much more than a converted chicken coop\u201d and his father was \u201ca roustabout\u201d in the southland oil fields. As for Pearce himself, he says he was not \u201cparticularly smart or particularly good at anything.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Of the four candidates running for governor, he is the single Republican. His story offers insight into his deep conservative streak and the belief &#8212; intrinsic to many a self-made man or woman &#8212; that success is within reach for anyone who\u2019s just willing to work for it.<\/p>\n<p>What a candidate chooses to omit is sometimes as revealing as what he includes. Cervantes, state senator and lawyer, recalls growing up on the family farm in southern New Mexico, \u201cworking the fields from an early age.\u201d He descends from one of the state\u2019s agricultural dynasties: Cervantes Enterprises Inc. produces chiles for some of the most popular hot sauce brands on the market.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how he would convince young adults to remain in New Mexico, he waxes poetic, turning to metaphor about the south\u2019s archetypal tree.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn its maturation, the pecan tree gives back to the farmer tenfold in its production of pecans, a source of income and well-being for the community,\u201d he writes. \u201cOur children of New Mexico are not much different from this relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Apodoca has a more practical response to the problem of New Mexico\u2019s brain drain. The son of Jerry Apodaca, the state\u2019s 24th governor (1975-79), he has never before sought public office. The decision to do so arose last summer, he says, when one of his 9-year-old twin sons asked him to do something to stop his friends from moving out of the state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know that for his friends to stop leaving, we need to improve the education system and create meaningful jobs and career paths for children starting in high school,\u201d Apodaca says.<\/p>\n<p>The candidates\u2019 answers illuminate who they are as people, and who they would be as governor. We invite you to <a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/growing-a-governor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">read their full responses here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Searchlight New Mexico&#8217;s Q&#038;A with the gubernatorial candidates provides insight into how their childhoods shaped their thinking about what Searchlight views as the most critical issue confronting New Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,431],"tags":[2238,234,3587,3319,3318,107,3306],"class_list":["post-582060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-qa","tag-2018-election","tag-children","tag-jeff-apodaca","tag-joseph-cervantes","tag-michelle-lujan-grisham","tag-roundhouse","tag-steve-pearce","series-raising-new-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582060","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=582060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}