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Real News For Real New Mexicans.
The Chile Wire with Abe Baldonado. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Chile Wire this week. I have a familiar face and my good friend, Michael Perry with me in the studio who's running for state land commissioner.
Abe Baldonado:Michael, good to have you again.
Michael Perry:Good to have you brother. Good to see you again.
Abe Baldonado:Likewise, man. Of course. It's been a long time since we last chatted. Last time I had the pleasure of having you and your wife, Kimberly, on the Chile Wire right when we just started kicking off this thing, man. And so
Michael Perry:Closer to the primaries. Right?
Abe Baldonado:I mean, it was before the primary. Well before. I mean, it was really early on. We had a different setup in here. I think you were probably one of our first episodes, think, one of our inaugural episodes of when we first started kicking up.
Michael Perry:And I appreciate you guys doing that and doing this again because you guys are the ones that are moving the needle for us. You really are.
Abe Baldonado:Well, I appreciate that, Michael. And a lot of things have happened since the primaries. We're new day and I think a lot of New Mexicans sometimes, you know, if they're not plugged in or it's not relevant right now, sometimes they can forget. So anyone who watched our old podcast may forget some of the things we talked about. But I think there's a lot of new things we can talk about right now.
Abe Baldonado:And I I'm glad you're in the studio because I'm frustrated, Michael. I'm frustrated for you. I'm also hopeful, and I'm also really excited because what I saw happen recently kind of validated why we started up The Chile Wire is that there is legacy media out there. There is lazy journalism that oftentimes leaves out voices and sometimes misleads voters or or sometimes leaves stuff out intentionally. Or, you know, we we talked about this before we had jumped in this in the studio, but fairness, just even fairness of people being able to get the word out about who they are, why they're running for office.
Abe Baldonado:And, you know, I just want to say that I saw the Daniel Chacon interviews of yourself who's running for state land commissioner and your opponent, Wanda Jesus Sanchez. And the contrast between both of those interviews should be very disturbing to voters. I think it's unfair to voters. And the reason for that is because I saw very different tones, but also very different questions. And and I'd love to get your take on this, but it left me feeling frustrated that I didn't think you got a fair shake.
Abe Baldonado:And so, you know, I said, we got to get Michael back. He needs to be able to talk about who Michael Perry is, you know, the family man. You didn't even get that opportunity.
Michael Perry:No, I didn't get that opportunity. But actually, that interview, he was very polite and he was professional. Oh, totally. And I don't have anything against the man, but I will tell you that the cards are absolutely stacked against conservative candidates statewide. Even when you're you get mail in questionnaires Yeah.
Michael Perry:From groups, all of those are very very slighted towards the Democratic perspective.
Abe Baldonado:Well, and a lot of times it seems like the questions are the gotchas on some of the button issues, some of the more complex issues happening around our state, and some of the more sensitive issues. And it's like, well, you're gonna ask a question about a sensitive issue, you have to ask both sides because there needs to be a clear picture for voters when they go to the ballot box that they know. I know where Michael Perry stands on this issue and I know where Wanda Jesus stands on this issue because I heard both of them talk about the same topic, the solutions or ideas that they have to address this issue, and I can make a well informed decision Right. On them.
Michael Perry:And and it's hard because you you don't have a platform where every or it's an even playing field or it's a level playing field. So he doesn't get asked the questions that I get asked, and you saw that in that interview, but it's it's it's like that everywhere. It's it's become the norm.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Really. It's frustrating. It's it's not good for voters. It's not good for just our legislature because oftentimes we have folks making very blind decisions.
Abe Baldonado:And oftentimes, like, I'm voting for Juan de Jesus Sanchez because he's a Democrat. And that's it. Not that I know what he stands for, I know what he wants to do, I know how it's gonna impact New Mexico. And you know what? If you still believe in those policy decisions that is that are a part of his platform or a part of yours, okay, I can respect that.
Abe Baldonado:You educated yourself. You said, hey, this person, their ideas, their solutions align more with my values. Can't be mad at But I can be mad that I know what one person's views are and solutions are and the other I don't know. But just because there's a letter by their name, I'm gonna vote for that person just because.
Michael Perry:Well, you when you described that first, I think you described it right. If somebody aligns with your views and your culture and your viewpoints and the issues that you have in your life, I think that means you did the proper research. I think you researched your candidate because a lot of people don't even know the candidate they're voting for, what they represent, how they represent it, how they fit into their daily lives. And that is that is what I would call a shallow voter. And we have a lot of them in this state, unfortunately.
Abe Baldonado:To my point, legacy media is failing voters because they're not giving a fair playing field to both sides and asking the same tough questions where you can go, this is apples to apples. Know? It's apples and oranges. And it's like, well, you know, I heard Michael talking about this issue, but I didn't hear Juan. And I'm just having to kind of go with what I've been led to believe Right.
Abe Baldonado:From whatever, you know, organization put something out, whether it's The Journal, The San Antonio Mexican, Las Cruces Sun. But for me, it's just bad. It's just not good.
Michael Perry:It's bad business and honestly, it's dishonest. There's nothing that's true about it. And how can you make a good, well informed and educated decision if you don't do your own research? And a lot of people don't. So I think that's what this show encourages is even if they just research us talking right now, at least they're gonna have a thumbnail sketch of where I am and where I come from and what what we're about and what our concept is about.
Michael Perry:But most of the times, they don't even get that far. They just go into the voting booth and do the thing that they did the last year or the last couple years before that and I think that's dishonest to themselves. If you're gonna be true to yourself, research your candidate. And I can say for one, even in the last election cycle, I didn't vote a total Republican ticket. Yeah.
Michael Perry:There's been times that I have, but there's been times that I've voted several Democrats
Abe Baldonado:because feel like that's most people. I mean, at some point, I don't think everyone just always votes down the line
Michael Perry:I don't think most Mexicans are like that. Yeah. I just don't think they are. I I well, I should say I don't think most progressives type ideologies. I don't think they vote straight ticket.
Michael Perry:Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:Don't they Blue no matter who.
Michael Perry:And that that's a wrong concept because, I mean, everybody's been harping on it lately, but we're number one in a lot of bad things. Yeah. And we're not doing as well as we should be doing. And every now and again, you've got to kind of rein in the horses and say, a good lead horse or do we need to go
Abe Baldonado:in We different have the resources, like, there's no doubt about it. We have the infrastructure in place to be successful. It's bad governance. And that's the real conversation that we have to have is that it's bad governance. And, you know, one thing that I've been trying to drive is on the Chile I I I try to stay away from national, like like, topics, you know, Iran, that like, foreign affairs.
Abe Baldonado:Like, I usually try to stay out of that stuff because most of the time that doesn't really impact people here. Like, that's more of a global scale. Yes. Like, you could attribute gas prices, but I'm like, if we're gonna talk gas prices, let's talk about some of the state actions that have led us to high gas prices in New Mexico, like the Clean Fuels Transportation Act that passed that added about 50¢ per gallon and it's gonna increase year over year. Today, we hear we heard that there's a proposal out by senator Bobby Gonzalez to increase the gas tax now because it hasn't been increased.
Abe Baldonado:I mean so when we talk about affordability, like, that's just contradiction right there is that you have these Democrat lawmakers who who run the state right now, and I'm just I'm calling it for what it is. They run the state. They do. You know? If it were the Republicans doing the same thing, would say the Republicans are running the state and they're doing this.
Abe Baldonado:But the Democrats are leading the state right now and they're talking about affordability. They're they're kind of rage baiting folks like Republicans aren't doing anything for you. No. No. It's not Washington.
Abe Baldonado:It's here in New Mexico. Your lawmakers here in New Mexico are failing you. And when we have a Democrat lawmaker who's proposing a gas tax, that doesn't sound like someone who's trying to address affordability because now they're trying to tax you more at the pump. Right. And that's the contradiction that New Mexicans need to know and they need to call it out is, hey, maybe these people aren't trying to make things more affordable for my my way of life.
Abe Baldonado:And and Michael, I just wanna know because I think it's important for folks to know what we're talking about here. I'm gonna have our producer play some clips of the introduction, just the introduction. We'll talk a little bit more about the long interviews that Daniel Chacon had with each of you. But even just the intro itself was was you notice. And so we're gonna play that now for you just to show the interview of Juan de Jesus Sanchez and Michael Perry.
Speaker 3:I'm your host, Daniel Chacon. Our guest this week is Juan de Jesus Sanchez the third, a thirteenth generation New Mexican who is one of three candidates seeking the democratic nomination for state land commissioner. A farmer and conservation advocate, mister Sanchez emerged the favorite at last month's democratic pre primary convention, receiving nearly 56% of the vote. Mister Sanchez is a former natural resource specialist and ranger with the US Army Corps of Engineers and worked as a technical adviser for the New Mexico commission. Mister Sanchez, welcome to around the roundhouse.
Speaker 3:Thank you for joining us.
Michael Perry:Thanks so much for having me, mister Tricon. I'm a big time listener, first time joiner, but I'm really excited to get, get going with this.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Well, I always like to, start off the podcast by just learning a little bit about you. So, you know, before we we dive into your candidacy, tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up and what were you like as a kid? Our guest this week is Michael Perry, the Republican nominee for state land commissioner, which is arguably one of the most important jobs in state government.
Speaker 3:The New Mexico State Land Office oversees 9,000,000 acres and 13,000,000 subsurface acres of state trust land, and it's a big moneymaker for the state. Big as in billions. Mister Curry I'm sorry. Mister Perry, who is currently a Chavez County commissioner, is a retired game warden who would bring firsthand knowledge and experience to the office if elected in November. Mister Perry, sorry for butchering your name there for a second, but welcome to Around the Roundhouse.
Michael Perry:Thank you. Again, pleasure to be here. Michael Perry, I'm the Republican candidate, and I I'm absolutely excited that you took the time to visit with me today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, sir. Let's start with the topic that has been in the news a lot lately, a proposal by the Trump administration to get rid of a 10 mile drilling and mining buffer zone around Chaco Canyon. Where do you stand on the issue?
Abe Baldonado:So, Michael, on that clip, what we see, Juan de Jesus Sanchez, he introduces and kind of reads his bio. He did the same for you. He read your bio, who you are. But then he proceeds, Juan, tell us more about who Juan de Jesus Sanchez is.
Michael Perry:Right.
Abe Baldonado:And for you, he said, Michael, the Trump administration has been addressing the Chaco issue and I wanna get your thoughts on Chaco Canyon and the 10 mile buffer zone, you know. And it's just straight to the point just and don't get me wrong. Do I think it's a bad question? No. But it should be a fair question.
Abe Baldonado:Why didn't you ask Wanda Jesus that who's running for this
Michael Perry:And honestly, in total honesty, when those questions were asked of me, I I kind of thought in the back of my mind, man, guy's this coming at me a little bit here because this isn't Well, it's your typical it didn't feel like your typical interview. He was very professional, but again, I didn't have the wherewithal to know. I didn't have the forethought to look at other interviews and see how his interview was with with Juan. I didn't know that he had even interviewed Juan. I really didn't.
Michael Perry:So during this whole interview, I just thought, man, this guy's coming a little hot. But I'd hey, you can go look at the interview. I I answered the questions very well and I stood on the ground and everything went fine. I'm not embarrassed of my answers. I'm not taken aback by the questions.
Michael Perry:I answered the tough questions and that's what that should be about. And I think that's what you're trying to expose, so to speak, is that those tough questions were absolutely asked of me, but were they of my counterpart? And I would say they were not. Because after I watched his interview, was like, man, this guy was this this is not fair. Right.
Michael Perry:This is a loaded deck. Yeah. This does not even feel like this does not feel right. I can't believe this happened to me. But it did.
Michael Perry:That's how it is.
Abe Baldonado:And it's unfortunate, but, you know, you have a platform here in the Chile Wire where we can talk about some of the issues. But I think one of the most important things for people to know is the gubernatorial race is important, but the state land commissioner race is very, very important. And when we think about what 2027 could potentially be like in a legislative session, And I think of a Deb Holland who has made it very clear how she does not like our oil and gas industry and wants to end all fracking. But then you also have Wanda Jesus Sanchez who has said, I will follow Stephanie Garcia Richards' lead, who's now the current state land commissioner but also running for lieutenant governor. And I think if you have both the executive and the state land commission running in tandem, I am terrified for what's going to happen to our way of life in New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:And I still remember something you said, Michael, when we chatted last year. You talked about conservation versus preservation, and that always stood out with me, and I've always remembered that. And I always brag a little bit about you every now and then because I said, Michael opened my eyes to a new perspective on the way to think about the state land office. And being a state land commissioner, we talk about conservation, which means is that we live off the land. We live off our natural resources.
Abe Baldonado:So to be opposed to oil and gas is just wrong. Yes, we should conserve it. We should use it wisely.
Michael Perry:Correct.
Abe Baldonado:But we should also reap the benefits of that as well. And it's not just financial benefits, it's our modern way of life. It's modern medicine. It's our hospitals. It's the clothing that we wear.
Abe Baldonado:It's the technology that we all love. You know, all that is derived from petroleum byproducts. And I just thought, man, that is such an eloquent way to address our natural resources here. And the role of the state land commissioner is to, yes, protect our environment and conserve our natural resources, but also make them available to create a better quality of life for New Mexicans.
Michael Perry:Absolutely. And I think, you know, the conservation or conservationism is what I've been doing my whole life and it's what I've lived. I mean, I wore a badge for twenty two years as that conservation officer. Which get to learn about that because that's what you represent every It's
Abe Baldonado:important to You've worked for the state
Michael Perry:land office. I worked I worked on all the land, but I worked for New Mexicans as a natural resource law enforcement officer. And I I tell people all the time, I don't think it it hits them quite wide, but I was committed. I'm still committed to help this state. But when you put on a piece of equipment every day that says this side towards bullet, you're a little bit different guy.
Michael Perry:Mhmm. You have a different makeup. And that that shows that when you do that, I'm committed to the resource. I didn't wake up one day and say, man, wanna save the butterfly. I put my life on the line to save everything because that's just what we do when when you're a game warden in this state.
Michael Perry:You don't get paid any money to do it, you hardly ever get a thanks to do it, but you do it because of the pride in the Mexico and the pride in the state that you have and the pride in the cultures that you represent. So this is a beautiful state and I'm not willing to let it go by the wayside because the Democrats have control. I'm willing to sit here and fight for it and say the right thing to do is produce good conservation minded concepts that are gonna live longer than me. Just like my granddad did when he was a game warden. He made decisions that live longer than him and we're still hunting some of the species today that he introduced or he was part of being introduced into the state.
Michael Perry:So it's it's a neat place, it's a neat state, it's a great time to be in. I think I'm the perfect candidate for it, but it's because of all the learnings and ongoings that I've had throughout my career that brought us all to this point. And what we need right now is a pragmatic approach where we can have multiple layers of leases on the same property, but they all get along and they're all And I'm not sure that that's always been the case. You know, we have people that that lease grazing rights on this. They have a say so.
Michael Perry:They should have a say so. We have people that lease for minerals. We have people that lease for wind energy, for solar energy, for all kinds of energy productions. But they should all be working together and what I wanna do is have more of a conservation and wildlife friendly mindset because that's what we need environmentally to make our habitat better for the next generation. I've always said there's two functions of this job.
Michael Perry:One is to make revenue for the schools and for the public hospitals, but the other is to take care of the land for the future generations. We absolutely have to do that or what good are we? I mean, you wanna leave something for your kids. Yeah. Leave them more state land on the landscape and in better health than the day I came into this office.
Michael Perry:Absolutely. And to that point, do you find it ironic
Abe Baldonado:that someone like Wanda Jesus Sanchez, Deb Haaland, these folks who are opposed to the oil and gas industry, which right now brings in half of our state budget, want to implement policies that would hinder their opportunities to extract natural resources here in New Mexico, which then in turn would hurt our But I just think it's so contradictory to say, hey, I don't like oil and gas, but I want to spend more money on education. Well, how are you going to do that? And as state land commissioner, as Wanda Jesus said, I want to do everything that Stephanie Garcia Richards doing and just carry the torch. Well, she most recently did her announcement to stop uranium mining. Right.
Abe Baldonado:And, you know, would love to get your perspective on that because to me that sounds like, well, you're not doing your job to make sure that you're bringing in money for our public schools because like you said, that's one of the responsibilities. Sounds like you're hindering that opportunity.
Michael Perry:Well, think that's the difference between being real and being an activist. And I guess I could go two ways with that because you had a couple of different concepts going there. But one of them, the first one was oil and gas and making regulatory assignments or decisions against oil and gas. But on the other side of it, they're taking that money. Big Oil and Gas is actually donating to Juan.
Michael Perry:Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:I'm Well, they're hedging their bets. Right?
Michael Perry:They're not donating to me.
Abe Baldonado:They're their bets.
Michael Perry:I they're doing something, but they're not they're not donating to me. And that's that's crazy that that is the very production that we want going on, but the people that they're in giving money to are actually writing the regulations against them. It's crazy. And you're right, they are hedging their bets. But on on the uranium or any kind of energy source or any kind of economic driver that's an income for our state, we have to be due diligent and look for other ways to create an economic driver or economic gains in this state other than oil and gas.
Michael Perry:So you got one party that's saying, we have to we have to get away from oil and gas. But then when you have a wind energy product, they only charge them a 3% royalty.
Abe Baldonado:Right.
Michael Perry:Or when you have the ability to environmentally and soundly maybe extract uranium from a spot that's way out in the middle of nowhere that's not gonna affect a water or an aquifer, they say we're absolutely not gonna do it in this state. And we're gonna make the the buffer around Chaco Canyon larger. And so if you if you keep being an activist, how are we ever gonna make money when oil and gas goes away? Right. What are we gonna do?
Abe Baldonado:And what are we bringing in as far as our economy goes to diversify it to say, well, okay, maybe we're not bringing in money from oil and gas, but we have these other industries that have You now moved know, and the one thing that I think of is data centers. You know, I think there's a lot of misinformation. I'd love to get your take on that. Just like, is there misinformation out there? I believe there's misinformation from just things that I've seen and folks that I've talked to in that world.
Abe Baldonado:I think there's a lot of misconceptions against data centers. But I mean, that's another opportunity for and Stephanie Garcia Richards signed off on Project Jupiter. Like, people need to remember that. Like, she gave the thumbs up on that development. Right.
Abe Baldonado:I do believe that it is fair for New Mexicans to ask questions on the development of data centers and any other energy resources that are coming to New Mexico, any companies, you know, wind, solar, we should always talk about the responsible development of energy and data centers. Same goes for data centers. Like, there needs to be conversation on the responsible development. I have And there no
Michael Perry:needs to be conversation with the local communities.
Abe Baldonado:That as well. Yes. State will No very doubt.
Michael Perry:Because right now, you know, I've said it on a couple of interviews, everybody on one side of the spectrum says, you know, we don't want kings, but they don't have any problem with us having queens in this state. Because a queen can make a decision unilaterally for the whole state and that's it. That's done and nobody says anything about it. Yeah. But it's absolutely the same thing.
Michael Perry:It's hypocrisy at its finest.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. It's like, hey, don't forget who shut down the state during COVID. Exactly. That's out of the realm of this conversation, but I'm just using it as an analogy that like, hey, you know, the same people calling out the no kings, like, we're also the same people telling you stay locked in your homes and you're a terrible person if you go out.
Michael Perry:And you're not wrong on that one, but when you look at it on the concept of data centers, we actually had one that came and visited with us in Chavez County. As you know, I'm the vice chair of the Chavez County Commission. I'm in my last year. We had one that submitted a proposal to us, And we did not give them the ability to come and make a data center in our county because as a county commissioner, we have to look out for our constituents. Yeah.
Michael Perry:I gotta look out for the environment. I gotta look out for my people. But on the other side of it, I do wanna increase our gross receipts because we do have to still provide services and goods to the people of the county. So when when this data center came in and visited with us, we didn't give them a carte blanche, yeah, you can build one. What we said is we're gonna put you on the path because we are open for business and we do want you to have a thriving business in our county.
Michael Perry:We want you to help us. However, there's 17 things that you're gonna have to do in two years to get that next set of approval and assignments to get on down the line. We're not just gonna give you the ability to do it. Then the other
Abe Baldonado:thing we did guardrails put in place Oh, Hey, we're
Michael Perry:And put a sunset clause on it. Yeah. And then the other thing we did is we passed a resolution that said, you know, this this group came in after we gave them our 17 points and said, we're not gonna use your energy. We're gonna bring our own energy and we're not gonna use your water. We're gonna use a closed geothermal loop.
Michael Perry:So we've investigated that, looked into it. It seems doable, but just to put some safeguards on that, we passed a resolution in Chavez County that said our agricultural water is gonna stay culturally appropriate in the agricultural system. It's gonna stay for farmers, agricultural use, and people. It's not gonna go to a data center. It's not gonna go to a business that drinks a lot of water.
Michael Perry:And if you do wanna drink a lot of water and you do need that system, you need to really look at the desalinization process or you need to go over there to the oil field to get some that produced water and clean it up. So we left the door open for water and our thinking there was make them go figure out a way to desalinate the water that's good for us. Make them go clean up the produced water. Make them go to the legislature and fight that instead of us trying to fight it because me that's some low hanging fruit in New Mexico. When you when you talk about data centers, everybody says, oh my god, they take a lot of water.
Michael Perry:Well, if if you if you put them on a document that says you can't have water, well, they're not gonna take our water. Right. But it makes them explore other avenues to have their business. And if they can't do that, they can't
Abe Baldonado:have it. Which why wouldn't we, right? We sit on a very large brackish water table, but also the amount of produced water that comes out during oil and gas extraction. I'd you know, going back to my Namoga days, get about four to five barrels of water for every one barrel of oil. Right.
Michael Perry:And where is that water going?
Abe Baldonado:To Texas. It's not going here because
Michael Perry:And what is Texas doing with it?
Abe Baldonado:They're using it for themselves.
Michael Perry:They're using
Abe Baldonado:it. They're selling it. They're Right? Selling it back to And and that's where we
Michael Perry:They're farming cotton with it.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. And that's again, like these are New Mexico state policies, not Washington DC. These are lawmakers here, policymakers here that are hindering New Mexico from leading and advancing innovation. New Mexico should be at the forefront of Absolutely. Produced Like, this is a conversation Patty Sullivan, Mike Hightower, LOS NMSU folks have been working on this for ages because they knew we were in a race with Texas.
Abe Baldonado:And Texas knew that New Mexico's environmental regulation
Michael Perry:And their business model.
Abe Baldonado:And their business model is going to benefit us. It's going to come to Texas anyway. But when you think about produced water, you know, and I had this conversation with some friends who work in the data space field and do some contracting because I wanted to learn more. And, you know, they informed me like, hey, produced water would take a lot of extra desalination just because it has to be to a point where it's as close to fresh water as possible just because you don't want any buildup in that closed loop system that, you know, produced water would still have to be desalinated even further for it to be appropriate to put into a closed loop. So, yes, it does take investment.
Abe Baldonado:But if you're serious about coming into New Mexico and you're serious about, you know, your impact that could be here, you would think a business would say, yeah, I'll invest in it.
Michael Perry:I Absolutely. Will do And the crazy thing about it, and I think you explained it a little bit, is the technology currently used in the desalination process is from New Mexico State University. Yeah. It's from our college. Yeah.
Michael Perry:Our people education, our experience, our abilities are having to go to other states and provide for other states. They're providing them water. And I and I've said this many times, especially of late, and New Mexico is gonna have an moment and I hope they have it in the next sixty days or fifty two days, I guess, I should say. That moment is our forests are burning Mhmm. Our cities are burning.
Michael Perry:We're in a water shortage. There's no water in the drainage. We have produced water literally laying around. We have salty water at our feet literally laying around. We have a college that has has the technical advances to make that technology benefit us, but yet we have no water and our forests are burning and people are sitting around going, what's gonna happen to us?
Abe Baldonado:You know what frustrates me, Michael, with that is the activism emotional piece by the other side because my family was impacted by the Hermits Peak Half Canyon Fire, and nothing has frustrated me more than those folks using that as a talking point to push these climate change, this climate change rhetoric. Like that has frustrated me because I'm like, no. First and foremost, that fire happened because of govern governance ignorance. Like, government was ignorant and they failed New Mexicans when
Michael Perry:they started preservation mindset of the forest instead of the conservation mindset.
Abe Baldonado:And my grandfather was a logger, you know, and my family roots up in Northern New Mexico, my family were loggers. That's what they did. And, you know, they lived off the land, but my grandfather also knew the importance of thinning our forest to avoid those forest fires. So to your point, the conservation, yes. My grandpa was a logger, he cut wood and he sold Lenya and Well, I
Michael Perry:would have loved to
Abe Baldonado:do Lenya.
Michael Perry:He burned
Abe Baldonado:Lenya, right?
Michael Perry:I bet his hands were bigger than yours.
Abe Baldonado:Oh, man. He was a tough, tough, tough man. But, you know, that's how we were raised, man. You know what? I remember when I was a kid and I'll tell you, I grew up in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:I didn't. But every weekend that we went over to my grandparents, every now and then, you either had to stack wood, and grandma would tell you, hey, go get me some lenya, bring it in, and stack it. Or your grandpa would wake you up at 4AM and say, hey, let's go get lenya. We're gonna put you to work today.
Michael Perry:You
Abe Baldonado:know, but we they lived off the land and, you know
Michael Perry:And you had to earn your keep too. Yeah. You had
Abe Baldonado:to earn your keep. So going back to that conservation, my grandfather and my family and, you know, my ancestors lived off the land and they conserved it. They knew that, hey, we're protecting the forest, but we're also able to provide heating for
Michael Perry:our It's funny you just struck a chord with me. I remember when I was a kid, when I was a little kid in eighties, and I would remember watching old Howard Morgan on the Weather Channel. And at that time, they had a no burn. It's either a burn or a no burn night depending Because on when the wind is back then, people heated their houses Yeah. With firewood.
Michael Perry:Everybody cut firewood. Everybody heated their houses with firewood. It was it was a way
Abe Baldonado:the pinon or if you needed something extra hot, you get the cedar and throw the cedar
Michael Perry:of an energy cost. And now, I pulled into Albuquerque this morning and I just I didn't see any smoke, obviously, because it's in the summer. But I, you know, I saw a lot of smog. And that's not something I like to see, but in the eighties, it was it was smoke from wood burning its toes. And now it's smog from cars.
Michael Perry:And times change and I think the only thing that's constant is change. People ask, is there a climate change? Well, yeah, there's a climate change. Climate change
Abe Baldonado:The world the earth is always changing.
Michael Perry:It's always changing. But it's what we we're coming full circle with the conversation, but it's like what I talked about earlier. Even when they ask you to fill out these questionnaires to see if they're gonna support you or endorse you or not, everything is the same. It's it's gotcha. You believe in climate change?
Michael Perry:Yes or no. Well, there's a lot more to that than checking the box. Or no. Right. It's just but that's not the way our society is functioning
Abe Baldonado:define climate change. Right? Like even these folks now, you know, when you're elected state land commissioner, I'm going to manifest it right now that you're going to be elected land commissioner. But I know you're going to be battling even this and I dealt with this at Nimoga, and I used to hate this term, Michael, environmental justice, because no one could tell me on the other side what environmental justice Right. Because it's just a broad term that they thought sounds catchy and it they used their favorite word justice and they threw environmental right in front of it.
Abe Baldonado:But I'm like, define for me what is environmental justice.
Michael Perry:Draw me a picture what it
Abe Baldonado:looks like. Right.
Michael Perry:Because it doesn't look like Las Vegas right now.
Abe Baldonado:Right.
Michael Perry:And it doesn't look like Rio Dosos. What is Exactly. Environmental justice? Because both of those concepts, both of those cities were under a preservation mindset for so long, they're gone. Yeah.
Michael Perry:And I and I've when I was in Washington DC on the Public Lands Advisory Committee, it was mentioned in one of the seminars that for every $1 you spend on conservation management practices, timber reduction, you save 7 to $10 in FEMA money. Think about that. 7 to $10 in FEMA, that's a lot of money. I look at I look at conservation and say, if we would have done that better, Rio Do So homes would still be there. Yeah.
Michael Perry:Las Vegas homes would still be there. Us not paying attention to the landscape and mismanaging our land has caused Rio Do So to suffer economic peril. Yeah. They lost the racetrack. Yep.
Michael Perry:People from Texas aren't coming over as much. They're not spending their money. They're not buying the trinkets
Abe Baldonado:from Home the down news.
Michael Perry:They're it's right now. You just don't see what you saw three years ago and it's causing a reduction in money that flows into that economy.
Abe Baldonado:And it's even just, you know, my parents are always at risk right now with flooding. Right. And that's another hazard that you have to worry about is the constant flooding because of the burn scar.
Michael Perry:Which watershed management, which is what I'm running on. I'm talking about watershed management.
Abe Baldonado:And I'm from Las Vegas, New Mexico. Like, a lot of my friends and a lot of people I talk to, like, Las Vegas is on I-twenty 5. Why is it struggling? You know, every time I go back home, another business is closed, has closed its doors. There's not a whole lot of economic opportunity right now happening in Las Vegas.
Abe Baldonado:But people forget they're on a watershed, and they lack a lot of water. It's historically been that way. And then you just add the pressure point of the state's largest wildfire. That doesn't help because now they're having to, you know, rebuild some of that water infrastructure, that watershed infrastructure, and it takes a lot.
Michael Perry:But you've to rebuild all the infrastructure because it all gets basically gobbled up by
Abe Baldonado:the fire. So power poles, water sources, everything is just gone. And it's just frustrating to hear one side make it a talking point on just throwing out climate change. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It was a failure of government.
Abe Baldonado:That's where we need to talk. And to your point, it was a preservation mindset that
Michael Perry:It was.
Abe Baldonado:Put that place
Michael Perry:It was.
Abe Baldonado:That put that area at risk.
Michael Perry:You know, when I'm sure you've heard, the Republican candidates have been all over the state. We are working so hard. I don't see our Democrat counterparts doing that at all.
Abe Baldonado:Because they believe that they have New Mexicans vote, Michael.
Michael Perry:I think they do.
Abe Baldonado:I think they just believe like they're gonna vote Democrat no matter what.
Michael Perry:And and maybe that maybe they will, but I I tend to have faith. I tend to have faith in the New Mexico constituent that saw us at the Mora Fairs and saw us at the Fiestas and saw us at the Bean Festival last week in Wagon Mountain. And when we're having those conversations with people Don't you love me? We'll talk three or four minutes before they say, well, are you conservative? I said, I I am conservative.
Michael Perry:And so are So so you're a republican? I said, yeah, I'm a republican. What's the big deal about that? And they're like, what?
Abe Baldonado:Maybe I am too.
Michael Perry:I just didn't know. It doesn't matter. And and I really think about this with this office, does it matter? Because what we really wanna do is do the best thing for
Abe Baldonado:the land for the future We were Mexicans.
Michael Perry:And what does that matter who it is?
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. It Well, really that was another part in that Daniel Chacon interview, the contrast between your interview and Juan de Jesus Sanchez. You know, he touted the political activism that Juan had as a skill. I'm like, but this office shouldn't be political. No, It's it about the management of our public land.
Abe Baldonado:Yes. That shouldn't be political.
Michael Perry:I am 110% the other direction of what that interview with him represented for him. I am not that guy. I I believe in doing what's right. As a law enforcement officer for twenty two years, you have to have a very strong moral compass and you have to have a high level of integrity and ethics to live through that for twenty two years. Absolutely.
Michael Perry:And when you come out the other side, you're just glad that your badge number still lives. Yeah. My badge number still lives. It's still out there. There's somebody out there that's 60 right now and that's that's what makes me happy.
Michael Perry:But when when you talk about that framework that made me who I am, that's what gives me that moral compass to sit down with anybody and say, what are your problems, sir? What can I help you with, ma'am? How do we need to make this system better? Because I'm not an activist. Right.
Michael Perry:I'm all about the right things for New Mexicans. And
Abe Baldonado:playing it fair, right? So when we talk about industries, treating oil and gas the same as you would wind and solar
Michael Perry:Absolutely. And I I used to talk about it and I've kind of got off it, but right now the the moral high ground is we really gotta do something for the water. That's the big thing. We gotta do something with the water. And I'll tell you, as Republican candidates, we circle our wagons and we're talking once every 10 days about talking points and what we've learned and and the hot topics and what people are hearing in the field from Yeah.
Michael Perry:From mister Hall, from mister Cunningham, from mister Marker, from Ramona. We're hearing what people are saying. We're communicating about those things about every ten years and the number one topic right now is water. For this corridor and for these people right here, it's water.
Abe Baldonado:Anyone from along the Rio Grande Valley has seen our water, you know, depleted. I mean, there's no water in the Rio Grande right now. And I remember not long ago someone told me, that's not true. That's AI. I'm like, no.
Abe Baldonado:I drive over it every day, you know.
Michael Perry:I can tell you with great confidence that our candidates are having very specific tailgate conversations with each other and we're saying, if I'm state line commissioner, I'm gonna start working on watershed management. I'm gonna thin the forest. That's what I can do. Mister Hall has an incredible resume about water recharge, aquifer recharge, because he did it at real rancho. So his knowledge is incredible and my knowledge is incredible.
Michael Perry:We talk about our other candidates and desalinization and then going and looking at tours of of the plants in El
Abe Baldonado:Paso Did
Michael Perry:you go
Abe Baldonado:to the TPL? Sevent? The TPL. It's right across the border, I believe, South of Carlsbad. They built it in Texas.
Michael Perry:So some of our guys went and saw that.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Yes. So I mean, that facility decided to build out there instead of New Mexico. Right. And we could have had it here.
Abe Baldonado:Right. But because of our burdensome, you know, red tape
Michael Perry:And I think that's what New Mexicans need to understand, that there's one side of the political spectrum that really wants businesses to get better. And we want to make a business format that makes you successful. We don't want you to live off of government subsidy. We really, really don't. And know I think about New Mexico and we really already are socialists.
Michael Perry:If you think about it, we are. I was talking
Abe Baldonado:to wife. Childcare, you know, our
Michael Perry:this morning, she's still in Raza working, but talking to her on the phone, said, you know, New Mexico is already a socialist. We're already socialism because half of the money is made in three counties in Southeastern Mexico off of oil and gas, and then that money is put into a pot and distributed to the other
Abe Baldonado:doesn't even go back to those three counties. They get a fraction of what
Michael Perry:It does.
Abe Baldonado:They put in
Michael Perry:We're already at socialism and if you we need to get away from that. We need to pull harder. We need to get
Abe Baldonado:And for people who don't understand socialism, it's take from another and give it to someone else.
Michael Perry:That's right. And we're doing it. And we're doing it. And I would say that in my communications with folks in Northern New Mexico, They want to be on their own. They want to live off the land.
Michael Perry:They want to make their own Like
Abe Baldonado:they've always have.
Michael Perry:They want to
Abe Baldonado:be grandfather, like my ancestors. It's how they lived.
Michael Perry:That's exactly right.
Abe Baldonado:And conservative at heart.
Michael Perry:It's very prideful to live like that. It's it's very respectful to keep that culture whole, I think that's absolutely what we need to do. And and we try to do it very hard as a county commissioner is to make sure that that that cultural and that production is real. We wanna keep our alfalfa production high Mhmm. Even though we lost all of our dairies recently.
Michael Perry:So we have to find something that our our farmers can pivot to to make them still successful because it makes us successful. We have to do that and I don't think that's the case sometimes in Santa Fe because I see the negative regulations, the the silliness of just our water. Right. We could solve a lot of water issues. There's probably 12 to 14 different water bodies of saline brackish type water in New Mexico.
Michael Perry:And if we had desalinization plants, and I've Mayor Hall and I even talked about it. If if you wanna go down this road and you're in there and I'm in there, let's make let's bring in industry. We'll put it on state land on We one of those bladders of
Abe Baldonado:create jobs, too.
Michael Perry:We'll create some jobs. What a concept that is because and I've noticed this as a county commissioner, I mean, I live it, you have to have those economies working, you have to have those businesses, you have to have people buying tires and staying at hotels and creating gross receipts revenue that funds the county. You have to have that. And if you don't, you're going backwards and there's a lot of counties in this state that are going backwards.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Because San Miguel County is one of them.
Michael Perry:Well, there's four counties in the Northeastern part of the state, and I think I've said this three times today. When I was talking to some other county commissioners, they're predicting in ten years, our population is gonna decrease by 40%.
Abe Baldonado:I'm not surprised. The population decline of Las Vegas itself, since I got out of college and I moved, I mean, I think at one point I saw about almost 25% population decline at the time. I mean, I can't imagine now. I don't know the latest numbers, but
Michael Perry:Well, the thing that worries me about that is if if you're losing population, which we are Mhmm. And all of our a lot of our cities are losing population, and Mexico has gone down in population. Yeah. And if you're gonna have a 40% reduction in the next ten years because all those all those historic ranchitos and all those historic places, they're dying and their kids are already in town, don't wanna live off the land like they were raised to. So where my mind goes next is what's happening to their land and it's being sold and who's buying it?
Michael Perry:Because it it ain't New Mexicans.
Abe Baldonado:Well, hopefully not China because Well I know Texas It's not
Michael Perry:New Mexicans. It's either Californians or people coming over from Colorado. But really what it's doing, and it's It's slow a cheap date, man. It is for them, but it's a slow and growing process, they're changing our culture. Mhmm.
Michael Perry:They're they're changing our culture through attrition because our recruitment is horrible. Yeah. Our recruitment back into agricultural production, into farming, into ranching is horrible. I was talking to a group yesterday in Rio Doso and it was all farmers and ranchers and I was talking about recruitment And this elderly man stood up at the end of the conversation and said, you know, Michael's right. Just just to soothe my giggles a little bit, if you're 40 and you're a rancher, stand up.
Michael Perry:One person
Abe Baldonado:One person. Stood Yep.
Michael Perry:When they when they eventually got up to 60 60 and 70, it was probably 65% of the crowd.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. I remember that.
Michael Perry:There was three people in there that were 80 still working ranching.
Abe Baldonado:Senator Pat Woods had made that point on some legislation that he was running. I don't remember if it was this legislative session or the last for 2025, but he had read out those statistics about the average age of farmers and ranchers in New Mexico. And it was like, wow, it
Michael Perry:It's is dying dying out. And the crazy thing about it for me is where it really brings it home is I would love to have a ranch. You would love to have a ranch. It just wasn't in the cards for our families, so they didn't hold on to whatever they have, so we don't have one. But in order for a guy like you or me to say, wanna buy a ranch, it's off the table, man.
Michael Perry:Yeah. The prices are so high, cattle are so high, you can't do it. But here we are so hard on the families that are actually still in the fight and still producing for our families. Yeah. It is so incredibly hard for them and it's just not fair.
Michael Perry:Living in Santa Fe, man, I'll tell you, I used to always think about when I'd go down to the capital for
Abe Baldonado:work and all those old Spanish homes that were once held by our ancestors, friends, family, our gente that are no longer there. They're they're owned by Californians. And those homes now are worth millions
Michael Perry:Right.
Abe Baldonado:Of dollars that once belonged to the
Michael Perry:Spanish.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Well, that's But they were forced out.
Michael Perry:They And that's my point is the culture has turned. The culture has turned. Met a gentleman in in Taos, and I won't say his last name, but his first name was Herminio. And he's told me my
Abe Baldonado:There's not that many of
Michael Perry:them. You said something out
Abe Baldonado:right away, man. It's like Abenicio. Everyone knows. It's either me or my dad.
Michael Perry:After I spoke, he came up to me and we had a really heartfelt conversation. He said, you know, I like you and I'm gonna vote for you and I'm a lifelong Democrat and I'm gonna ask my family to vote for you because I believe in your values and I believe in the stewardship that you're gonna bring to state land. He said, and we need you right now because those people and he pointed over to some, we'll call them implants from other states, were over there picketing
Abe Baldonado:about Let's call them transplants.
Michael Perry:We'll call them transplants. Transplants. We're picketing and he said, those people are changing my culture. Yeah. They're changing my town.
Michael Perry:My town is not And what it they
Abe Baldonado:believe that they know how we should live.
Michael Perry:Exactly. And that the crazy thing about that is being on the Public Lands Advisory Committee and going to Washington and you know, you're an advocate for our public lands and our open space and our responsible management. But I look around Washington and as I'm walking up and down, think, you know, these are the folks that are trying to tell us how to live, and all this is concrete, and all this is a jungle, and all this is just one big cement, gum infested watershed that leaks into the ocean. But they think they have the moral high ground because they're making the rules. Yeah.
Michael Perry:And they're telling me what we need to do to our land, but yet we go out and look and we're doing so many things to improve our watersheds and
Abe Baldonado:our environment and our habitat in New Mexico, but we're not getting the credit for it. Yeah. Well, and those are the same folks, Michael, when I think about like the conversation around data centers, they're the same folks on the picket line loving their cell phone in hand, their Facebook, their ChatGPT, Gemini, Instagram, and their email. Well, if you're gonna be anti data center, get rid of your cell phone, get of your email, get rid of your social media, get rid of it all. Go go to the dark ages.
Michael Perry:Well, kind of goes back to the uranium conversation. If if you're gonna replace the economic driver of oil and gas, but you're not gonna have data centers and you're not gonna have uranium and you're you're not gonna do all these things, well, how are you gonna do it then? Right. Because you already were an advocate for wind energy and they only have a 3% royalty and 100% of the energy goes to California and Arizona. 100% of the energy does not stay here.
Michael Perry:Contractually, we should have done better. We should have made that energy pay for our electric. Yeah. We should have made it reduce our cost, but New Mexico politics didn't wanna do that. And you
Abe Baldonado:can't even go back to living off the land because they put an end to logging.
Michael Perry:Exactly.
Abe Baldonado:So you can't even burn wood anymore to So heat your you are reliant on natural gas.
Michael Perry:It is. It's sad. We've got to get our public lands back. We've got to get our access. We've to do better.
Abe Baldonado:When I worked for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, Michael, I used to joke in a serious way because I truly believe I joke about it. I think it's true, though. I think this will happen if the activists have their way. And let's just say they did put an end to oil and gas in New Mexico, oil and gas said, you know what? We're going to take our chips.
Abe Baldonado:We're going to move to Texas. We'll just stay on that side. We're done here. Who do they go after after that? And you know who they go after?
Abe Baldonado:They're going go after clean energy because then they're going to say, you know what? Those windmills are killing birds now. I don't like the windmills in my backyard. I don't like they're taking away from the scenery. Oh, those metal solar panels, I don't like those.
Abe Baldonado:They're off the road either. And they're going to finish there, and then they're going to move to what they advocated for in clean energy and say, yeah, you know what? We don't like these windmills either.
Michael Perry:Yeah. When you're an advocate, I think your hypocrisy knows no bounds, basically. But, you know, when you talk about big oil and gas and those type of conversations, I kinda cringe about it because I'm a supporter of responsible production of energy. Oil and gas, wind and solar. I'm for all of that.
Michael Perry:But we have to be on a level playing field. What I don't like of late is when I see that big oil and gas is giving five to one to Democrats over Republicans. And then Republicans write the regulations that are bad on oil and gas, and then oil and gas asks the Republicans to fight it like the Horizon bill last year. And it's just a crazy vicious cycle that I think is unfair and I really don't wanna play in. I think it's ridiculous that they're playing this game.
Michael Perry:And I know for a fact that oil and gas has already financed my opponent. Yeah. Even though he says he's going to hold them accountable, they're he's a puppet right now for them.
Abe Baldonado:I do believe that they do take for granted the vote by Republicans to vote against anti energy bills. But that's problematic because if you're going to rely on these folks to do that, show them some love. Right. Right? And I worked on behalf of the industry and I saw donations going to both sides, but I did see that, you know, Michelle Leone Grisham and others were getting a lot more money.
Abe Baldonado:I still recall MLG saying, If you guys write me a check and you guys go with this, I'll leave you alone. If you guys just let the oil and gas act get through the way it is, the way it's written, we'll leave you alone after this. And I'm like, you're crazy to believe her and give her money, but also take her at her word that she's gonna stop coming after you because, no, it's going to continue, but you gave her a check and now she has some money towards it. It's just it's ugly, man. It's
Michael Perry:Well, it is ugly when you
Abe Baldonado:And I think it's a slap in the face to Republicans who go out and look, most of the Republicans I know, they're common sense. Right? Like they can't fathom walking away from a bill that is going to hurt their communities if they don't vote on it or they vote, you know, yes on it. So they're in a tough predicament, right, in the minority is that Yeah. And I think industry has realized that, like, the Republicans are with us no matter what.
Abe Baldonado:Well, okay, we'll show them some love. And that's unfortunate.
Michael Perry:Right.
Abe Baldonado:But to give to someone who whose messaging says, we don't like oil and gas. And you know what? How's some accountability for Juan de Jesus Sanchez? Because if this guy is anti oil and gas, why is he taking money from oil and gas?
Michael Perry:Big one.
Abe Baldonado:Let's just talk about it because that is a hypocrite right there. So you can't say you're anti oil and gas, but you're gonna take those checks. You are full of it. And I just have to make that point because it just hit me like, no. You know what?
Abe Baldonado:We need to call it out, man, because that is that is wild. And you know what? Environmentalist activist, you should hold him accountable too because he's telling you that he doesn't he's anti oil and gas just like you, but he's taking their money and that should be problematic
Michael Perry:for you. No. You're right. And, you know, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for those that live in our community and our producers for whatever production it is.
Abe Baldonado:Oh, there's amazing man, when I worked for Namoga, oh, man, I met some amazing people that work for industry and I love them. And, you know, they they work hard, man. And you know what? They care about the environment just as Like, when I had conversations with them, they want clean air, they want clean water, and that's why they do what they do.
Michael Perry:And most of them that I really enjoy the conversations with and have a lot of good heartfelt conversations with are living in New Mexico. Their companies are in New Mexico, they're sponsoring Little League Baseball teams in your local towns. Mhmm. Where I've come a little jaded recently is that's the big oil and gas companies are kinda getting away from that a little bit. They've they've gone a lot bigger than what the, I guess, the mom and pops of the industry usually contribute to our local economies of societies.
Michael Perry:And when I say that they give five to one, here's a concept. You got you got big oil and gas that don't live in the state. Their executives do not live here, but they're injecting money into New Mexico politics. So are they changing New Mexico politics?
Abe Baldonado:In a way, yes.
Michael Perry:In a way, yeah. Because they're they're giving five to one to Democrats and what are the Democrats of our state pushing right now? Yeah. They're not pushing oil and gas, they're pushing wind energy or they're pushing stuff in the school Wow. Don't even wanna get
Abe Baldonado:putting more taxes on oil and gas, the royalty rate, they're like, alright, well, now you're gonna pay 25
Michael Perry:And then and then saying that somebody else fought when the gas is $6 at the pump. Yeah. It's it's just crazy that if if people would look up, and I don't even know what it is, I'm sure you know off the top of your head. What how what percentage of taxes are go to the state for a gallon of gas?
Abe Baldonado:Probably a good chunk right now. After the Clean Transportation Fuels Act, I mean, I think that tacked on like another I think it was going to be around close to 50¢ per gallon that it was adding on, and then it was going to grow over time. You know, Paul Gessing from the Rio Grande Foundation put out economic report on the impact that that bill would have over the next, I think, like fifteen years. And so I'd have to go back and look at that.
Michael Perry:But my point is, is it it's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot, especially right now, and it doesn't have to be that. Right. And, you know, you think of where does the money go and what are we doing with the money and do we really need that money?
Michael Perry:I mean, you're you're already got 45% of the state's budget is coming from oil and gas. How much more do you need to tax Yeah. Oil and gas? Because that just keeps getting passed on to the consumer.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. What frustrates me, Michael, is the Democrats taking oil and gas money, but then turning around and sponsoring and supporting legislation that goes in complete opposition to oil and gas. Like, is the biggest hypocrisy. That's where voters should hold these folks accountable is is your representative, your state senator, your governor saying that they're anti oil and gas. And no matter what side of the issue you're on, but you should call out the hypocrisy.
Abe Baldonado:Because if I say I'm anti something, I'm not going to take money from it. Yeah. And if I take money from it, then I'm a hypocrite. And you should be held accountable because now you're not only lying to the oil and gas industry, but you're also lying to your constituents and your environmental groups like Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity and those groups and conservation voters who believe that you're an activist just like them and you're not in support of oil and gas, but you're taking their money. And it's I don't know which one, like, these public officials are laughing at.
Abe Baldonado:I don't know if they're laughing at oil and gas when they take their money and then they support a bill that goes against oil and gas, or they're laughing at conservation voters when they're like, yeah, I'm going to support this bill. I know it's never going to pass, but I took oil and gas's money anyway, and I'm taking your money anyway too and your support, and I'm still getting voted in year after year. And I think that is the
Michael Perry:You're robbing Peter and Paul, and you got no moral ethics. No, you're just Exactly. That's just wrong. And I don't think well, I don't want to come from the perspective of I don't think. I won't ever be in a position like that because my moral compass and my integrity says we're not going do that.
Abe Baldonado:We're not going play that. Elect more need people like that that have their convictions and their values to say, yeah, I'm not going to toe this line of ethics and non ethics. And to that point, we heard that Stephanie Garcia Richard, current land commissioner, invited Juan to even start coming and meeting the staff at the state land office when he's not even elected yet. And that's, to me, unethical and it's wrong. You know?
Abe Baldonado:I don't know it's but it's definitely eyebrow raising and should be looked at as like, why are you doing that? He hasn't won yet.
Michael Perry:Well, I think you're right. I just think that when I got into this, I knew it was an unfair dick. And I didn't realize it was going to be this bad. I really didn't. I didn't realize that people were jaded as far as they are and that I would call it their their moral compass is just bent because that's just not right and it's not fair.
Michael Perry:So what you're doing again, and and I and I guess I could tell the the New Mexico people this, is when you when you vote for an advocate, they're gonna advocate for what they want, not what you want. And right now, on that side, they want what they want. Their hands are very open and saying what they want. They want oil and gas gone. They want green energy to go well.
Michael Perry:They don't wanna charge green energy and make the money to replace oil and gas, and they want their next person in line to do the same thing so they can have one hand wash the other, and it's just not a fair scenario. And I don't see that on our side of I don't see that on our side of the game right now. The people that are working, the candidates that are working are working harder than any group I've ever seen. We're going all over the state. I mean, I put 52,000 miles on my truck this alone because we're going and meeting everybody that we possibly can and I promise you, I know because I've been there, the Democrat candidates do not do that because to them, it's in the bag.
Michael Perry:Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:They take the vote for granted.
Michael Perry:And it's in the bag because our constituents are not researching their candidates. And if you don't
Abe Baldonado:Oh, it's not getting their fair shake. You know how we started off this podcast. They're not getting their fair shake by legacy media either. When you have it tilted on interviews and questions and you're doing forums instead of debates to really push to find out what these candidates believe and what their solutions or ideas are to fix New Mexico, if you're not putting that on the platform, then it's just tilted, And
Michael Perry:then, you know, I mean, you look at my counterpart, right, I guess we're finally gonna have a debate. I just got told that today is one of three days in October, but it's only gonna be thirty minutes. I can't ask him any questions. He wants to see the questions before he gets there. I'm like, what is it?
Michael Perry:This isn't a debate. This is I need to look up the answers before I get there so I can tell the TV while Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:He can't talk to me and he
Michael Perry:can't ask me a question.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. I need my talking points so I know what points I want to make and I know he can't challenge my points because And it's a He's not allowed to do that.
Michael Perry:And I should try to probably should keep my mouth shut right now, but it's kind of a joke, the predicament that we're in in New Mexico, but the voters allow this joke to play out every four years. Yeah. Those voters
Abe Baldonado:got to know, that's why we exist. We want to get information. We want to give a fair shake out to the folks in whose voices are being left out of the conversation and the perspectives and the potential solutions, you know, those aren't being shared. And I think it's so important for voters to have all the information available
Michael Perry:It is.
Abe Baldonado:Through any resource to say, hey, I heard this, but I'm fact checking it here.
Michael Perry:And I absolutely appreciate you guys for having a platform that gets that out to a different demographic because it needs to happen. We just need to keep growing it and have some overlap and keep the conversations rolling because right now, they're just starting. I think we're just on the cusp of changing New Mexico and I'm very, very happy that we're to the point that we are and I think we're all in the place that we are for a reason. Yeah. I think there's a higher power involved in this, and I think it's bringing a lot of people together.
Michael Perry:I think we've got some positive movement. It's it's an incredible place to be. When we were at the the Bean Festival in Wagon Mound, all the Republican candidates and the walkers and everybody that was there, every time we do that, we have a prayer. And we circle up and everybody holds hands and we pray. We pray for safety, we pray for the people of New Mexico, we pray that everybody arrives and leaves.
Michael Perry:We we pray. We we pray to God when we're at those meetings, when we're at those parades. And this time, I couldn't help but look over and the Democrats were just kinda looking at us and kinda, I don't know.
Abe Baldonado:They don't do that.
Michael Perry:No, they don't
Abe Baldonado:do that.
Michael Perry:Never did that.
Abe Baldonado:Asked a friend of mine
Michael Perry:Why can't people see what I'm seeing right now?
Abe Baldonado:I asked a friend of mine who's a walk away Democrat who has now actually joined the Republican Party. And she said, My values never changed, but the Democrat party's values did.
Michael Perry:And they didn't And align with
Abe Baldonado:I asked her. I said because she came to an event, and she was just blown away by, We pray. We have pride in not only our country, but our state. And I asked her, I said, hey, you looked a little shocked. Like, do the Democrats not do this at their, like, events?
Abe Baldonado:She said, No, there's no prayer. There's no pledge of allegiance. There's none of that. And I'm like, Wow.
Michael Perry:Right.
Abe Baldonado:And that just kind of shows me where their line has moved and it shifted too far from New Mexican values. And for her, you know, like her story, like many New Mexicans, Blue Dog Democrats. Right? They were JF their grandparents were JFK fans and everything, but that's no longer the party that exists anymore. Right.
Abe Baldonado:You know, they don't represent the middle working class anymore. And just hearing that from her and just seeing her shock at the way we get together and we pray for one another, but we also are not we're unapologetically patriotic not only And to our state but our you could tell she was just like, oh my God. Like, wow. I'm like, hey, we love it here. And I'm so glad you all get to do that and I'm so glad you all have been safe out on
Michael Perry:the campaign Those are the things that keep you going, though, on the campaign trail. When you're walking in a parade or after a parade, my wife and I were in Mora, and we were going by this little table and they had some rosaries. So we stopped and talked to them and talked to them a little bit and they asked us, what are we doing here? You guys aren't from here. Why are you here?
Michael Perry:And we said, well, my husband's running for commissioner of public lands and they asked if we were conservative. And and we said, yes. And they said, we have to have more conservative people in office that reflect our values. And those women said a prayer over my wife and I right there in the streets of Mora and it was almost magical. And it kind of makes my hair stand up on my arms because it really was spiritual.
Michael Perry:Shout out to our fellow And they gave us rosaries. We went to church the next day.
Abe Baldonado:Shout out to our fellow Northennial Catholics.
Michael Perry:Well, I'm already Catholic. If you wanna call me the Northennial Catholic, I'll take it.
Abe Baldonado:Well, I am, man.
Michael Perry:Well, I'm already Catholic, so But I think that when they saw that even though I'm a visitor from outside their community and outside their culture, so to speak, which I'm really not, that we our values align. Mhmm. Our values align in in religion, our values align in education Culture. And how you treat people. And when they saw me in church the next day, bet I had 10 people ask me for signs.
Michael Perry:Wow. They came and asked me for signs and it was an all Spanish mass. That's amazing. All Spanish mass. It was incredible.
Michael Perry:And to tell those stories and to feel that love is the only reason you keep going as a as a Republican politician in New Mexico because that's what keeps you going.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. If it weren't for folks like that, this this would not be fun. New Mexicans are truly amazing. Our culture, you know, our our melting pot. Right?
Abe Baldonado:Absolutely. Because it's essentially what it is. A melting pot cultures that have come together over
Michael Perry:And to that point, I think we all need to come to the center. I think we all need to start realizing that we're all in this together. This is our state. It's not your state, and it's not my state. We all come from different places, but I think the truth is in the center.
Michael Perry:I see a lot of far left and I see a lot of far right, and I'm not either one of those. Saved. Because that's that's not where the sense is.
Abe Baldonado:Most people aren't.
Michael Perry:No. Just that's not where that's not where my moral compass takes me, is right or left. It's not, we gotta do the best for the masses, and those masses are what I feel like are my people and those are my constituents, and that's why I'm here. I'm representing them. Absolutely.
Michael Perry:I know there's a lot of people that aren't gonna vote for me just because I'm Republican or just because I'm a white boy from down South or just because I've got a cowboy hat.
Abe Baldonado:And those are all the wrong reasons to vote
Michael Perry:for It is because if you break down, look at the look at the resume, look at your candidates, get to know what they're about, get to know their resumes, and then make a well educated and informed decision.
Abe Baldonado:And man, on that note, you know, the videos, I encourage everyone to our earlier point when we started this conversation on the conversation that Daniel Chacon had with each of you. Listen to the resumes. Juan lays out his resume. Michael, you've laid out yours. The experience clearly leans with you.
Abe Baldonado:Like if you look at resume and you're like, who's the most qualified to take the state land commissioner job? It is Michael Perry. And it's just a resume. And I encourage everyone who's listening to this podcast or watches it on YouTube or sees this clip, go watch those two videos and decide whose resume sounds like it fits more into what the state land commissioner does.
Michael Perry:Thank you for saying that because I've my resume is what got me here and what got me in to this position to even have the wherewithal to run for this, and you can't throw rocks at my resume. I would say
Abe Baldonado:It speaks for itself.
Michael Perry:It's deeper and longer than his existence on this earth. Yep. And my resume is longer than his life on this earth. And his resume is he says it's a lifelong it's a lifelong resume, but it's really about five years and I don't even think he has a job right now.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. He just graduated from college. Really?
Michael Perry:He's an advocate. He doesn't have a job. He's got a degree.
Abe Baldonado:Well, and he talks about that. Political Political activist and, you know, he got his degree from my alma mater, New Mexico Highlands University, same degree actually But as clearly, we're on two different spectrums. Outside of that, like, Daniel highlighted and he highlighted it too, like, yeah, I worked for the Army Corps of Engineers for a short time, not long enough to be like, I'm really experienced in this. Spent most of his time with Senator Martin Heinrich doing political stuff, but not really like, hey, I've been out on the land. I've worked the land.
Abe Baldonado:I've done this job. Again, that's why I encourage everyone just listening and watching this podcast. All fairness at the resumes.
Michael Perry:In all fairness, I like like him. I've had some conversations with him. He's a nice kid.
Abe Baldonado:Oh, yeah. No doubt.
Michael Perry:He's a good guy. Yeah. And I think he has a future. I think he has a future probably in the land office or some other spots, but I don't don't think he's the right candidate right now for what we need. Yeah.
Michael Perry:I would have no problem working with
Abe Baldonado:him and bringing him into the fall, but he doesn't have what we need right Well, and there's some wisdom that's gonna be needed for this role because there are state issues, and depending on who the governor is, can get very muddy potentially on the direction that the executive wants to go and the state land office, and there needs to be some balance there.
Michael Perry:Well, you're right. There needs to be balance, and I've said this many times. It doesn't matter if it's Pierce, Trump, Holland, Michelle Lujan Christam, or whoever, if you're against the state land, I'm against you. Yeah. That's all there is to it.
Michael Perry:I don't have I'm not gonna do the Republican thing or the Democrat thing for the landscape in New Mexico. I'm gonna do the right thing.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. What's the scope of the state land commissioner? What's what's my duty? Exactly. And how do I fulfill those duties?
Michael Perry:As long as you're behaving under those two prongs, you're golden. Yeah. And that's what kept me alive well and not getting sued as a law enforcement officer for so many years. You just gotta do the right thing every It's not hard. It's really not hard.
Abe Baldonado:You just gotta do it. Your point, when your moral compass is set, it leads you. So there's no wandering off the path.
Michael Perry:It's not. It's not. And my dad used to always tell me if it's easy, anybody can do it. But doing the right thing really isn't hard. No.
Michael Perry:It's really not. You just do it. Yeah. You know? Even on the golf course when you don't wanna take that extra stroke because you might be out of bounds, you might just take the extra stroke.
Michael Perry:It's not a big deal.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Sometimes. Or just kick the ball over, you know? Well, Michael, God bless you. God bless your wife, Kimberly, and your family.
Abe Baldonado:And thank you for, you know, throwing your name into the hat and trying to make a difference for New Mexico. And look, I am sorry that you didn't get a fair shake and you haven't gotten a fair shake as you traveled the state talking to different outlets. And that's why the Chile Wire exists because this is a platform where people can get to know certain candidates who maybe aren't given the fair shake by other outlets. And so I appreciate you coming on. I hope our listeners and the folks that watch us on YouTube get to familiarize themselves with you, get to learn more about you, your campaign, your resume most importantly.
Abe Baldonado:But just thank you for all that you do. It's never an easy thing to do to run for office. It's a big time commitment, but it's also a sacrifice. It's time on the road, as you said. Yes.
Abe Baldonado:You know, a lot of it is traveling around, but it is very selfless of you to give yourself to New Mexico, and I appreciate it. I appreciate I even appreciate Juan doing it. Anyone running for office, it is a big sacrifice, it's a big impact on the family, and it's a big time commitment. And so just thank you for taking that leap and thank you for wanting to represent New Mexico.
Michael Perry:I appreciate you guys giving me the opportunity to speak and the time to talk in front of the camera because I feel like you've given everybody a fair shake. I think if Juan came on here and visited with you, he would get a fair shake, and that's all you really want. And if the people of this state decide on him over me, I'll have a hard time handling that because I don't think it's the right decision at all based on my resume. But I respect the vote.
Abe Baldonado:Well, the policies I for the themselves, Michael. Like anything else, you know, you get what you get. And where we're at right now in New Mexico, I know that there's this sentiment that it's easy to blame Trump. It's easy to blame Washington. Right.
Abe Baldonado:But a lot of our problems are rooted right here in our own state government, our local governments. That's where the problems lie, and it's policymakers here in our state that have hindered us. So when we talk about education, we talk about economy, we talk about crime
Michael Perry:Well, I would encourage people
Abe Baldonado:state issues.
Michael Perry:Don't pay attention to what people say. Pay attention to what they do. And my resume has shown what I have done time and time again for thirty three years in this state. I'm not blowing smoke up anybody's skirt.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Take a look at the resume.
Michael Perry:Let's go look at it.
Abe Baldonado:Michael, where can folks go learn more about your campaign?
Michael Perry:Well, there's two places you can go. You can go to my Facebook page at michael perry for land commissioner, which has lots of information, lots of stories about me and my history and my family, or you can go to perryfornmland.com and look at my website that gives more of a thumbnail sketch of what what mission objectives I would like to accomplish day one. Wonderful. Michael, thank you for coming on
Abe Baldonado:The Chile Wire again. We wish you the best of luck. I know it's crunch time as we get closer to November, but we'll be praying for you, and we wish you best of luck as you guys stay busy over the next few weeks.
Michael Perry:Oh, we'll be busy.
Abe Baldonado:Thank you. Absolutely. Well, y'all, that's it for this week's Chile Wire. We'll see you next time.