Friday, October 30, 2009

Campaign Tidbits


I just got official work that Santa Fe Rep. Lucky Varela will be seeking re-election to his District 48 seat.

Varela, a Democrat, has served in the Legislature for 23 years and is chairman of the Legislative Finance Committee. He's earned the reputation of having more knowledge of the budget process than anyone in state government.

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh says he's collected enough signatures to get his name on the ballot.

"Republican gubernatorial candidates need 1,062 signatures to qualify for the pre-Primary convention and 2,124 signatures to secure a place on the ballot for the June Primary," a Weh press release said, noting he's reached that latter mark. "Reaching this goal will place Weh’s name on the ballot regardless of the results of the Pre-Primary convention slated for early March."

There is the little formality of verifying the signatures if another candidate decides to challenge. This has kept some candidates off the ballot in the past. But I haven't talked to anyone who thinks Weh will have this problem.

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State Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, has been campaigning for lieutenant governor for a few months now. In fact, I'd forgotten, until I got his press release today, that he hadn't officially declared his candidacy.

Here's the news: Now he has. Or at least he will in a couple of hours (5:30 p.m. to be exact) at his office in Winrock Mall.


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Finally, the state Democratic Party is having a little fun with this video of GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Turner making a campaign video with his family, apparently at some rally this week.

"After Turner forgot to actually announce his candidacy, his personal public relations team reminded him why he was there. And even then, it took Turner four tries to get it right and tell his audience that he was actually running for Governor," says the party blog

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping for a "Macacca moment" or something like John Edwards primping his hair. But here Turner doesn't come across as stupid or vain. And even though he's obvious taking direction from some guy with a video camera, he doesn't come across as "flashy prepackaged" like the blog says. To me, this video makes him look human -- a guy with a nice young family (including a toddler who messes up Doug's mike.)

You be the judge. Here's the video.