Marty Chavez for Senate: Blog Smackdown

Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez has been getting hit repeatedly by bloggers and commenters and folks at Dem gatherings ever since he decided he'd abandon his long advertised run for governor in 2010 and instead enter the Dem Senate primary race. Mockery. Complaining. Groans. Tales of horror about Marty's past dealings. Complaints about his lack of integrity, ethics, people skills, honesty. I guess that's what happens when a politico has a sudden expedient ephiphany (oops) epiphany that leads him to try to pretend he's someone he's not in order climb up a big, big rung on the political scale.

Marty has just burned too many bridges and backstabbed too many people to get away with it. Too many in New Mexico know him for who and what he is, no matter how many top notch campaign consultants he hires to repaint the picture. Here's a sampling of some of the most recent blogging critical of the Mayor and his candidacy:

• Bumpersticker, mjh's blog
• Mayor Marty and Montano, Cocoposts
• Where in the World is Marty San Diego? , Burque Babble
• Marty Chavez’s Donkey Con, Coco on Duke City Fix

And ouch -- this Monday front pager by Markos on Daily Kos certainly doesn't mince any words. Quote:

Everyone wants Chavez out of the primary, suggesting he run for one of the House seats opened up by this Senate race. Me, I'd rather see Chavez' career destroyed by Udall in this primary once and for all. The last thing we need is his corrupt ass in Washington in the House, stinking up the Democratic brand and making Latinos look bad. So I hope he's stupid enough to stay in the Senate race. I'll have fun seeing him go down in flames.

Finally, there's the rapidly evolving story about Marty and his pet money-making red light cameras. You know, the ones he had put into place for safety reasons -- not to make money or headlines. Sheriff Greg Solano of Santa Fe weighs in on those on his blog. Suddenly, now that Marty is running for Senate (and questions are being asked about where the money is going from the program), he's developed new doubts about their effectiveness. So many doubts, in fact, that he's appointing a task force to study the cameras -- better known as putting the onus on somebody else, anybody else.

As of June 30th, the cameras have made $5.8 million for the city after paying off the company that runs the program. Meanwhile, there's no clear cut evidence that they're cutting down on accidents -- or that they're not, for that matter.

The odd thing is that Chavez. who has made the camera program something of a personal crusade, has now admitted publicly that he's reconsidering the red light cameras for political reasons. A Sunday Albuquerque Journal article reports:

Mayor Martin Chávez, saying the city's red-light camera program is not "delivering on its promises," will appoint a task force to consider scrapping it.

... "Folks either love these things or hate them, and more and more people just hate them," Chávez said in a telephone interview Friday from Chicago, where he was attending a conference. "I am not seeing the reduction in accidents that justify the headache and the controversy."

The city launched the program in October 2004 at two Northeast Heights intersections. Initially, it was designed to catch drivers who run red lights.

The program has since expanded to 20 intersections, and most cameras are also catching speeders. The city has added three camera-equipped vans to catch speeders as well. Chávez on Friday acknowledged that the program could be a "political liability." He announced last month that he was seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Pete Domenici.

"If we have a policy that is not liked and not working, certainly that is a political liability," Chávez said. "It is not the only issue on my municipal plate. I want to make sure that it does not deflect other things we have accomplished."

Probably realizing the impact of what he said on Friday about political considerations, Chavez changed his tune on Sunday:

Chávez downplayed any notion that he is trying to jettison his unpopular red-light camera program because it could be a political liability in his recently announced candidacy for the U.S. Senate.  ... The mayor said his appointment of a nine-member panel— which will make recommendations to him if the program should be kept, changed or scrapped— is timed to January's state legislative session in Santa Fe and not to his campaign strategy.

"If it were political, I'd kill the program," Chávez said in an interview following a news conference at the Civic Plaza.

I've always thought that one of Chavez's most serious faults is the transparency with which he conducts his purely political and often nasty movidas. I guess he really thinks we won't see through them because we're too clueless and naive to realize that the emperor has no clothes. He'd better think again.

For our previous posts on the 2008 U.S. Senate race in New Mexico, visit our archive.