No, Chandler, who held a recent fundraiser for Morales, didn’t belong to the Weather Underground or blow up any buildings. But he and his Tierra Blanca Ranch High Country Youth Program are the subject of civil suits claiming child abuse, one of them a wrongful death suit.
Ayers became an embarrassment for Barrack Obama during his 2008 campaign because early in Obama’s political career, Ayers hosted a fundraiser for him.
And just a couple of weeks ago, Chandler was involved in a political event in Deming for Morales, who is running in the Democratic primary for governor. And Republicans are saying — in so many words — that Morales is palling around with (alleged) child abusers.
For the rest of this column, go to the version on The New Mexican's site.
BLOG BONUS: There's a YouTube featuring the audio of what purports to be Scott Chandler introducing Morales at the fundraiser or meet-and-greet or whatever it was. Please note that it's been heavily edited -- you can hear the clicks and when words get cut out etc. And who knows who "Jav Cha" is. (This is his first and only YouTube video posted.)
In it, the man who says he's Chandler talks about the "state burn-down" (which I assume was the Amber Alert situation), “When we were going through that and the Senate was looking at the stuff we had, uh, you know, Howie was kind of helping us guide through some of that ...”
“I had a conversation with Howie, and I thought, you know what, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to uh, be associated with what’s going on. And he said, ‘What is right is right’. ... I'm very honored to be able to put this on for the senator ...”