It’s been a thousand years since I last attended a political party session, so when I dropped in at the Bernalillo County Democrats’ forum for Congressional candidates last night, I was emotionally open.
And I was touched. I still feel warm and hopeful (and afraid) when I see Americans participate in the democratic process at these low levels. Close to 200 of them - not the 100 cited in the Albuquerque Journal this AM- came to UNM Law School. Of course, there were a couple of sharp young lawyers looking for signatures; the Sammy Glicks will always be with us. But most looked like regular folks, the majority middle-aged or elderly, with a sprinkling of twenty-somethings.
Eli Chavez, ex-DEA, spoke first. He showed energy and a sense of humor, but said little on the issues. I wondered why he was in the race. Somebody out there hoping to clip Richard Romero’s wings?
Miles Nelson, an emergency room physician from Santa Fe, devoted a lot of his opening remarks to health care. He knows his subject. Dr. Nelson said our system is "broken" and advocated fixing it by way of universal health insurance. (Big applause.) Competition? That, he said, should reign on the level of doctors and other providers.
He touched on energy, too, urging the promotion of "new, clean" technologies to get us to energy independence.
Nelson was assertive, a strong liberal. Sharp edged, too. Young.
When it was Richard Romero’s turn, the State Senator and former educator was easy. He tied Heather Wilson to the Bush economy, as in "three million jobs lost" and turning the Clinton surplus into a huge deficit through "Charge and Spend."
Romero criticized how the war has played out but slipped in a quiet endorsement of the attack on Iraq. Innoculating himself against a Wilson attack?
Romero’s post-mortem on his first attempt to unseat her included a late start and a failure to get out traditional Democratic voters. He said he’d do better this time.
After Romero talked about raising money, Eli Chavez kidded him about his ability to get big dollars. Chavez said there was too much money in elections. And the audience applauded loudly.
I thought, "He’s right. They’re right. And all that is irrelevant."
The money is there. Rep. Wilson will outspend the Democratic candidate by far. Big Pharma will back her again, this time maybe coming out from behind its front groups. As will other corporate interests.
The applause from assembled Democrats for single-payer health insurance and reducing the role of money in electoral politics bothered me. Wishing upon a star won’t make it so.
I left early in the Q&A session, worrying that Democrats do not understand that electoral politics no longer tolerates well-meaning amateurism. It’s about what the folks in the White House did to John McCain in South Carolina and Max Cleland in Georgia. Two war heroes cut down by lies. And oodles of money.
PS Speaking of lies, I just read "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who tell Them,’ by comedian Al Franken. He spends a lot of pages rebutting folks I don’t know - Bill O’Reilly and Hannity and Colmes and other Fox entertainers.
But there’s solid journalism in his chapter on the Clinton record on terrorism and how the Bushies turned their back on what Clinton’s national security people left behind. Also, on Karl Rove and the "Religious Right."
I just don’t think Franken is very funny.
PPS Ah, politics. Where you want to know about the game and the players, I'm a poor choice. Joe Monahan is the pro.
See the link to his "New Mexico Politics" below.
A.A.