The Real Deal (Romero) Versus a Placebo (Wilson)

Albuquerque's weekly Alibi endorsed Richard Romero in the Congressional District 1 race against Heather Wilson. Turns out that neither Heather nor her campaign manager showed up for their scheduled interviews with Alibi staff. Their editorial endorsing Sen. Romero describes Heather Wilson this way:

"Since Wilson won't answer our questions, we can only judge her on her voting record and campaign contributors. Based on that record, we see Wilson as a tool of the oil and gas industry, the pharmaceutical industry and above all the fiscally reckless and secretive White House. She is not independent—her votes are bought and paid for by corporate interests—and for Wilson to claim otherwise proves, in our opinion, that she thinks District One voters are gullible fools."

"A look at a few of Wilson's campaign contributors—more than $10,000 from Tom Delay's ARMPAC, $1,000 from Katherine Harris (Florida's former Secretary of State who certified the election for Bush before the votes were counted in 2000), $2,000 from Haliburton, $1,000 from El Paso Corporation (which wants to open New Mexico's pristine Valle Vidal, located in the Carson National Forest, to mining and coalbed methane development)—explains her politics well enough. To add insult to injury, Wilson opposes publicly financed elections, but mails her campaign literature at taxpayer expense. She talks about education being her "personal passion," but she refused to take a position during last year's education reform debate that led to millions of dollars in increased funding and the creation of a secretary of education. That's pitiful."

An excerpt of what the endorsement says about Romero:

"We're endorsing Richard Romero because he offers genuine, independent leadership that we believe reflects true New Mexico values. He devoted his professional career to education as a public school teacher, principal and assistant superintendent at APS. In short, nobody running for office knows the education needs of this district better than Romero. He's an Air force veteran who speaks passionately about veterans' affairs. He rightly criticizes Heather Wilson's absurd claims that the Bush administration's Medicare prescription bill helps seniors more than it panders to pharmaceutical companies."

Read more of their endorsement editorial here.

To learn more about Richard Romero, to contribute to his campaign or to sign up to be a volunteer, visit the Romero Campaign website. Sen. Romero has also been endorsed by Democracy for America's Dean's Dozens and Daily Kos's Kos Dozens, among many others.

(Photo courtesy Richard Romero campaign.)