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Real News For Real New Mexicans.
The Chile Wire with Abe Baldonado. Hello, welcome to The Chile Wire. I'm Abenicio Baldonado. We are recording episode five today, and I'm excited to introduce my guest today, Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation, who also serves as president.
Abe Baldonado:Paul, thank you for joining us today. It's good to see you. Paul, Rio Grande Foundation has done tremendous work and impactful work in public policy, but I'd like to open it up for you to just talk a little bit about the Rio Grande Foundation and some of the work that you've been involved in over your time at RGF.
Paul Gessing:Oh, well, nineteen years, it's a long time. We've been involved in predominantly, we're known for our economic policy research and writing and discussion of issues that I think if we just got a fraction of the things that we want to see done, that New Mexico would blossom into a prosperous, economically diversified, fast growing state. We've got the weather, we've got the wide open spaces, we've got so many positives, but it's just our bad public policies around our economy. So that's number one. That's the area we are known for.
Paul Gessing:Education policy, which I consider the education system simply a socialized extension of our broader economy. I don't necessarily see the possibility anytime soon of a truly free market in education the way we would like to see it, but, certainly school choice and accountability are the focus of our efforts when it comes to education in New Mexico. And then the third issue area that we've really worked on in recent years, and more heavily honestly, is the constitution, both federal and state. We're not a gun rights organization, but we support gun rights in the second amendment. More recently though, we've gotten engaged with public health orders, emergencies at the state level, separation of powers, the idea that we shouldn't have to live under one person's rule for years at a time, especially getting back to the education discussion, the fact that the governor locked our kids out of the schools for over a year.
Paul Gessing:And I think she's done immense harm to our children, our educational outcomes. We're now ranked dead last in myriad national tests on education. But in the area of the constitution, especially, there should be checks and balances, all these things we learned about kind of American government one hundred and one classes or even high school civics.
Abe Baldonado:Which they're barely teaching now. We've seen with the graduation requirements, civics now is kind of an elective rather than a requirement. And so which kind of goes to, hey, you know, what are we doing to education right now?
Paul Gessing:Absolutely. There's what are we doing? What are we not doing? Unfortunately, especially in New Mexico. We have you know, you you look at education for The United States and other states across the, US, And we're struggling on international tests relative to other countries.
Paul Gessing:And when New Mexico's at the very bottom of the pile, it really shows that we have a lot of work to do. So some organizations when it comes to education focus on, well, we are only focused on school choice, or we are only focused on reforming the existing system and making incremental changes here and there. We focus on all aspects of what we believe can work. And when you're dead last, you have plenty of opportunities for improvement.
Abe Baldonado:Right. You can't go any lower. So let's shoot for the stars. Paul, I love your points that you made. Just in our last episode, we talked about NM party control and we utilized the RGF graphic that showed over the last sixty four years, who's controlled New Mexico government.
Abe Baldonado:And so talking about the issues and what the Rio Grande Foundation is working on, you know, we kind of highlighted that in our last episode was, we're dead last in education, there's no reason to. And I agree with you, the governor, I think really set back our state during COVID. We had the whole moonshot, I think we could talk a little bit about that, but the whole moonshot, we've invested significant amount of money in education and we've actually seen no return on investment in that. In fact, we've actually declined and have stepped back and which is unfortunate and conversations I've had with people is that money is not the problem. It's how you impact and how you implement.
Abe Baldonado:That's the problem. And I think we've seen that the policies under this administration just have not worked out for children because they don't prioritize children, they prioritize adults, they prioritize the teachers unions. And so on that note, as I mentioned, we talked about New Mexico democratic control over the last sixty four years since 1931. Right now we have our gubernatorial candidates lining up, but I want to focus, you know, a lot of people say, well, you know, it's not good to play a blame game, point fingers. And I agree, you know, I think I've had this conversation with many people.
Abe Baldonado:I think we have tolerated a lot in New Mexico, and I don't think one side's, you know, more to blame than the other. But looking at the graphic that published through RGF, I think it's very clear what party has ran New Mexico over the last sixty four years and the policies that have impacted New Mexico and have kept us back or stagnant in many cases. And so we see now with the gubernatorial candidates coming out, Deb Holland. We have Deb Holland who's running for governor. And, you know, when I think of Deb Holland, and many people have thought this as well, is she might be a Kamala two point o.
Abe Baldonado:Is that is that a fair assessment?
Paul Gessing:I'm not sure if Deb Haaland's got as much on the ball as Kamala Harris. I hate to say it, but it's she's never done or said anything that I thought, you know, this person has a real sense of the important issues or whatever's facing either New Mexico or of course her time in Department of Interior, the United States. And that, of course, she had some pretty well publicized testimony on Capitol Hill. It never went well. Real quickly, ninety four years.
Paul Gessing:Yeah. Ninety four years of democratic rule. It's basically creeping up on a century since 1930. Since the Republicans have had what you would call a trifecta, trifecta being a governing majority, the governorship, both houses in the legislature. You've had better and worse eras in New Mexico history when it came to our view of free market public policy.
Paul Gessing:You could look at Governor Bill Richardson and say, this point in time, he's probably somebody that's more towards the Republican side, the conservative side, at least when it comes to a lot of his issues. We bounced back and forth, Gary Johnson, then we had Susana Martinez, then we've had Michelle Lujan Grisham. Theoretically, this is a lining up for Republican year, but it is, I think, fundamentally an open question whether New Mexico has moved beyond the capacity to elect statewide Republicans. This gubernatorial race is going to be a very interesting kind of highlight and example of where New Mexico stands politically. Because it doesn't take a conservative like you and I to say Michelle Lujan Grisham failed.
Paul Gessing:This has been a failed administration across the board. She's obviously been propped up by massive oil and gas, wealth, and new discoveries, ways that we've seen money pour into New Mexico's budgets that has fueled a lot of this education spending. Then you throw into that the constitutional amendments to bring pre k and early childhood into the mix. So it's just been new resource after new resource. And yet, as you say, New Mexico's worse off educationally, and I would argue worse off in most every other way as well, than we were before Lujan Grisham took office.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Quality of life has definitely been a persistent problem in our state. I know it's what worries a lot of people. I want to transition to, you did a great article on the National Review about Deb Haaland, and we'll provide that to our viewers, we'll provide a link because I think it's great if they read this article, but you kind of highlight some of the failures of Deb Haaland and some of the things that people need to be aware of. And, you know, I'd like to give you a moment to just kind of briefly highlight, you know, what was in that article that you wrote and why New Mexicans should really do their research before they even consider Deb Haaland for governor.
Paul Gessing:Well, of course, she was a member of Congress for a little over two years, one term before she got plucked out of relative obscurity by the Biden administration. Nothing really noteworthy among her years in office. She supported the so called Green New Deal, which aspects of that passed through bills like the Inflation Reduction Act, which had nothing to do with reducing inflation. But that was beyond Holland's time in office. The Green New Deal was actually even more aggressive.
Paul Gessing:It was something that of course Kamala Harris, AOC, the left left wing of the Democratic party supported. Deb Haaland's always been in that group. Now, Green New Deal, if embraced is an effort to undermine the traditional energy sources that we use in our daily lives, but of course, that we in New Mexico so benefit from in terms of the budget and whatnot. So it would be an arrow right at the heart of New Mexico's economy. I think that's the biggest if you had to point to one specific issue that I think Deb Haaland truly separates herself from even Michelle Lujan Grisham, who we've had plenty of disagreements with, is that Michelle Lujan Grisham is more in line with the way Democrats have traditionally operated in New Mexico.
Paul Gessing:They don't have a free market bone in their body, at least in the last decade or so. But they do support, they like the money flowing into the state's coffers from oil and gas. So they're not going to kill the golden goose. Right. And Deb Holland thinks she's a different animal.
Paul Gessing:She may be a true believer to the point where she would be willing to strangle that little goose and kill those golden eggs.
Abe Baldonado:Well, and Paul, I'm glad you bring that up. During my time at the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, I saw at the forefront, a lot of her policies coming from the Department of Interior that were hurting oil and gas. And so I think about how that's gonna hurt New Mexico, because if she did that at the national level as governor of New Mexico, I think she takes it a step further to make it even harder for oil and gas to produce our natural resources that we have in the Permian And San Juan Basins. But also what I see with her is like you said, you know, coming in and not afraid to kill the golden goose. And you know, that trickles down to our education system, our public safety, and I'll even take it a step further that, you know, many folks don't realize oil and gas is much more than our state coffers and much more than dollars, much more than putting fuel in our cars.
Abe Baldonado:It's everything we wear from our clothes to our advances in medical science. A lot of these things have been derived because of oil and gas. I've always heard the joke that environmentalists who just want to kill oil and gas are the only folks that fill up their cars at the gas station, stop by McDonald's, get a McMuffin and drive all the way to Santa Fe to oppose the industry that got them there.
Paul Gessing:Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, again, Holland, I think her biggest specific threat is in that area, which of course, that is New Mexico already has so many problems and it's so unfortunate that we are stuck with these problems because we elect people who don't understand how to use the existing wealth, the billions in surpluses that we've been running in recent years to maximize good things for New Mexico and its children, families, its economy, etcetera. So we just either spend money, as we've done in education and done in general with practically a 75% budget increase so far under this governor. And then you've also just got the state not doing what needs to be done to make everything better in our state. So Deb Haaland, she would be very, very bad for New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I think about her running, I've looked at her priorities on her website, no solutions, Paul. All she says is her priorities are jobs, health, housing, education, safety, but no solutions of how she's gonna tackle those top priorities. I thought that was quite interesting looking at her website.
Paul Gessing:Well, Lujan Grisham ran for reelection without mentioning any specific policies, shockingly won despite her myriad failures, including, of course, the COVID pandemic. I think that the the Democrat party machine in The States, especially the progressives, feel like they can just drive their candidates forward on biographical issues. You know, of course, a Native American woman, somebody who has all of these progressive views. And again, Deb Haaland is a true believer in a way that Michelle Lujan Grisham just kind of, I think, used that machine to move forward. And we see it, for example, on the crime issue where and kind of other issues where the governor's been squabbling and fighting back and forth with the progressives.
Paul Gessing:And from a governance perspective, she'd like to do X, Y, and Z on crime. She called a special session. They rejected her outright. But she's been putting these people into their positions in office and now she has to reap the consequences. That's even more troubling that you have that group all sitting there just ready to go and they're chomping at the bit to really embrace far left progressivism that we haven't even seen under this governor, under a Holland administration.
Paul Gessing:So it's a nightmare scenario, I can't emphasize it enough.
Abe Baldonado:Deb Haaland, like some of the most recent elected statesmen and women have come from the Emerge program, and we've seen a lot of them go after more moderate conservative Democrats, And we're starting to see a little bit of that. We almost saw that shift play out on a lot of public policy this legislative session. Thankfully, some of that legislation got killed, but it came very close and we've highlighted some of that, just, you know, the PFML bill and some other bills that we're going through. But I definitely saw more progressive policy framework this legislative session that I have in many years, you know, human sexuality, comprehensive education. I mean, it just astonished me what was coming out from a lot of these newly elected individuals, but come to find out they were all products of this Emerge program that's really trying to push the progressive movement, which Deb Haaland was initially part of.
Paul Gessing:Yeah, and we saw, of course, last November race after race where you had a progressive upstart running against a more moderate traditional Democrat. And don't get me wrong, I'm a conservative. I understand what a conservative or even a conservative Democrat looks like. There's very rarely in New Mexico been what I would call a true conservative Democrat. You've had people like a John Arthur Smith or Clemente Sanchez, he wasn't up there in the Senate quite that long.
Paul Gessing:But they're moderate they Fiscal conservatives. In some respects, yes. They don't like to spend as much money, but John Arthur Smith was not somebody who was cutting taxes or making inroads in with New Mexico's economy, you know, supporting right to work, for example, way back in the ancient mists of time now, 2015, '20 Yeah. Susana Martinez was governor and the house was Republican. You know, that chart you mentioned, that was the first time that the house had been Republican in New Mexico since the mid fifties.
Paul Gessing:So there was a real push to do something like right to work, which just it didn't happen. It was a free market policy reform. But the Democratic Party has moved to the left and it's been doing that for a lot of reasons. You can call it Trump derangement syndrome, I think that's part of it. The money is all on the very left wing.
Paul Gessing:So that's why we've seen Deb Haaland already raising lots and lots of money mostly from out of state because that's just the the nature of the Democratic Party. I mean, Kamala Harris vastly outraised Donald Trump in the last election. So it's it's gotta be tough for these moderate Democrats in the legislature. And I know we're gonna talk about Sam Bregman and whether he's a moderate or not is I think a very open question. But with all of the money coming from the left and no matter how many times you and I or other people who know all of the flaws and foibles and issues that these progressive politics actually create, whether it's right here in Albuquerque where we see rampant homelessness, I mean, Mayor Keller is a true progressive.
Paul Gessing:It's mind boggling how anybody who's got the least smallest amount of information can say, yeah, this is working great. Let's do more of it.
Abe Baldonado:Well, I think Santa Fe is a prime example. You know, I lived in Santa Fe for over a decade until I moved here to Albuquerque. But even Santa Fe now is starting to mirror Albuquerque as far as the homelessness goes, the crime. And it's really attributable to Alan Weber. You know, Alan Weber, even under Javier Gonzalez at the time, Santa Fe had not moved into that direction where it was almost looking like Albuquerque, San Francisco.
Abe Baldonado:But now you drive down Cirillo's Road in Santa Fe around Pete's Place, I mean, it just amazes me how much Santa Fe has changed. I remember when I moved to Santa Fe in 2011, there was no panhandling, there weren't folks on the street, And now there are a dime a dozen in Santa Fe. And I'm like, woah. And and from what I hear is that a lot of it is they move from Santa Fe, take the rail and run or come to Albuquerque, Albuquerque back to Santa Fe, which makes sense. But Paul, I'm glad you brought up the campaign finance reports.
Abe Baldonado:Looking at her campaign finance reports, which we'll put up here on the screen for our viewers to take a look at, but a lot of outside money, it's not even New Mexico dollars from folks here. It's outside interest. Nancy Pelosi's on the campaign finance report that we'll share with everyone, giving her a lot of money. There was a investment made by an individual from Las Vegas, Nevada, 11 Thousand to support her campaign. So to me, these are, and this is where New Mexicans, I think really have to look at, does this person have the best interest of New Mexico at hand?
Abe Baldonado:When they're taking outside money, I'm guaranteeing you, they probably don't. But also on her campaign finance reports, I thought it was interesting. There's a monetary contribution from a political action committee, but it doesn't say what political action committee. It's very vague. I'm wondering why the secretary of state's not making a fuss out of this saying, hey, you need to clarify who gave you this money.
Paul Gessing:Well, I don't know who the Secretary of State's supporting in this particular campaign or what her vision is, but we all know that the Secretary of State's not necessarily the umpire behind home plate that we would like to see calling balls and strikes, honestly. But, I I don't know what what her position is on that. I I do know that traditionally, Republicans have had to lean on more out of state support because we have such a small business community outside of oil and gas. And even those oil and gas companies tend to be headquartered in other states. So a lot of the top executives and whatnot tend to be there.
Paul Gessing:But New Mexico, because you have so many more progressive groups and causes and Democrat donors, it's not always been so stark on the Democratic side. But when you have somebody like Adeb Holland, who, fair or not, she made her name nationally by being Secretary of the Interior, that's a big position, an important job, and it was something that the Biden administration celebrated. So I'm sure that she has attracted the attention of especially kind of those radical environmental groups, their supporters. So whether it's the Sierra Club or their PAC donating directly is going to wind up being people in that that broad interest group who are going to support Deb Haaland. And yeah, there's a lot of environmental groups up in Santa Fe.
Paul Gessing:You go up there and they have some of the prime real estate. They're very well funded. And again, I suspect that most of their money is coming from outside New Mexico. But that's just because you have a lot more money across all political spectrums in places that are outside of New Mexico. So there's no question though that she is going to leverage those dollars and those boots on the ground and those resources to try to win the governorship.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah, and on that note, just a little sidebar, you know, I received a presentation from Consumer Energy Alliance when I was with the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and Emily Hagstrom showed year to year what environmental spend on their policies and in their legislative sessions. And, you know, it's funny, you hear big oil, but what I saw was big enviro. And that's really what I saw. I mean, I'm like, you're saying oil and gas spends a ton of money, they're actually being outspent by Enviros who are spending billions of dollars to push their initiatives and their, you know, new deals. But yet, you know, they're protesting Tesla now and they're God knows what else.
Abe Baldonado:But I find that, you know, very ironic to see that movement happen and, you know, for folks say big oil in New Mexico, we enviro spending way more money here in our state.
Paul Gessing:Yeah. I saw maybe a similar presentation, but the environmental groups, like just the top five or seven of them had budgets that were multiples bigger than the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, American Enterprise. And these are all kind of right wing organizations. But the environmental groups alone had multiple times those budgets. And of course, Heritage and Cato, they don't just do environmental policy, they do healthcare policies, taxes, Yeah.
Paul Gessing:So the money that is flowing in from not just those organizations, but of course, the people who support those organizations or the left wing foundations and that kind of dark money enterprise. Multiple levels bigger than anything we have on the right side of the political spectrum.
Abe Baldonado:Absolutely. And just one last note, the campaign finance reports for Deb Haaland, looking at it, yes, she's raised almost $3,000,000 but what I think people haven't really seen is how much she spent today just on consultants. I mean, she spent about $1,700,000 on just consulting right now with nothing to show for it other than a website. I mean, there's no commercials, there's no ads going on. So to me, I start seeing a little bit of irresponsibility now with her money and Breigman coming into the picture now.
Abe Baldonado:It's like, maybe that wasn't a smart move to spend all your money on just consulting right now and paying your consultants.
Paul Gessing:Well Harris, of course, Kamala Harris spent a lot on the Hollywood, you know, supporters and trying to get those folks organized and of course, having them take her message, which, you know, you kind of understand that Oprah is probably not speaking out in a political campaign
Abe Baldonado:for
Paul Gessing:free and I'm just using one person. But that is something that I could very easily see Deb Haaland trying to replicate. I think she's going to run-in many ways a campaign, smaller scale of course, that closely resembles what Kamala Harris did. You know, while Kamala Harris obviously failed to win the presidency, she got very, very close with a few big disadvantages in a sense that she had no kind of primary or any of those early campaigns to build her name ID. She had a very accelerated campaign.
Paul Gessing:That did enable her though to be very skimpy in the issue department, which of course Michelle Lujan Grisham did as So I think it would be very within her broader expected approach to run a similar campaign. Light on the issues, more on the biography and the politics of race and ethnicity and the DEI kind of stuff, that that's kind of what I expect. And, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what Bregman can do to counteract that.
Abe Baldonado:Well, and I think nationally, I think minorities are getting tired of that, the gender and identity politics of the left. I think Hispanics like myself have seen the left try to utilize minorities as pawns in their whole scheme and think people are getting frustrated with it. I think they're starting to be enlightened to say, Hey, no, this isn't okay. Again, I think this goes back to the, if you keep our people poor, you keep them uneducated, you control them. And I think that has primarily been the target of the far left is to continue taking advantage of that.
Abe Baldonado:Just one last note on Holland, I do wanna move into a little bit of about Sam Bregman. I know his campaign's fairly new, but a big issue I think for Holland as well, and not many people know about this unless you're tracking this as an insider in some of the work that you've done around oil and gas, but she attacked Navajo Nation. Chaco Canyon, her daughter was involved in that. She was protesting keeping folks out of the Chaco Canyon area, but they really hurt a lot of Navajo individuals who are Allottees and who really rely on some of the royalties that come from the oil and gas development in that area. And I think a lot of people don't understand that, you know, Holland has fractured that relationship with tribal entities.
Abe Baldonado:And I think Navajo Nation, this last election cycle, really showed that they're starting to open their eyes to a lot of this. And I think Navajo Nation's gonna play a big role in our next election when they start saying, Hey, remember Deb Haaland when she was Secretary of Interior? She did a 10 mile shutdown of oil and gas development around Chaco and really hurt a lot of the Latis there. And I think that's gonna be a big issue for her in 2026.
Paul Gessing:Yeah. And I think it's gonna hit in multiple ways. Obviously, we know anybody here in New Mexico who spent time here, but we're seeing this on a national basis is that each racial and ethnic group has very unique approaches. I mean, can say, well, this group tends to be more liberal. This group tends to be more conservative.
Paul Gessing:Puerto Ricans and Cubans, huge differences across the country. Not a huge issue here in New Mexico, but, Pueblo versus Navajo. Of course, Holland's from the Pueblo in background, a Laguna tribe. But, you know, the the Navajo, folks have a lot of energy interests. And for Holland coming in and really saying, no, no, no, you can't benefit from this even though you're very impoverished and have all these challenges as a community, we're going to place that all off limits.
Paul Gessing:I do think that those attacks, you know, if I'm running if I'm Sam Bregman, I'm going to find as many Navajo Allottes as I can find and really take on that issue with gusto. Now, that may be something Bregman's not willing to do for a lot of reasons that I think are interesting to get into, just Democrat party politics issues. But it's the soft underbelly of some of these Democrat kind of, we represent the racial and minority, ethnic and gender groups, etcetera. And then you find people in those groups, that's one of the problem, you know, black conservatives, they are despised within the Democratic coalition because they defy the expectations of their their so called group. And obviously, Trump made tremendous inroads and we'll see if either Bregman or a Republican in a general election can make some inroads with those groups as well.
Paul Gessing:And certainly the Navajo are there fresh for the picking because they've been negatively impacted by Deb Haaland and her policies.
Abe Baldonado:Absolutely. And you know, it's funny you say that because even as a Hispanic conservative, I'm also judged that I should not be that because, hey, Democrats actually look out for minorities. I'm like, actually, no, they don't because I believe in prosperity and I believe in a free market system. To me, that is the path to prosperity. I'm an Adam Smith Republican and conservative, but I think, you know, point of view and side note, Paul, I'll make a little comment because I think it's timely based on our conversation, when I was early in my career, I was working with a colleague who was from Savannah, Georgia.
Abe Baldonado:Her family had for a long time owned plantations, that was part of their history. Well, she ended up being part of the Green Party, very left. One time in the school admin office, she told me, you can't be Republican, you're Hispanic. And I said, that is why I'm a conservative because that right there and that has always stuck with me. And I'm like, I can't believe someone actually told me this.
Paul Gessing:Wow. Well, there are obviously plenty of Hispanic conservatives there. And I lived in side note myself, I lived in Argentina for a time back in 02/2001. And it wasn't in their kind of redevelopment, re flourishing in Argentina. You could argue, mean, they're mostly Italians ethnically.
Paul Gessing:They speak Spanish. So it just adds to the complexity of all the stuff we're talking about. But now Javier Malay in Argentina is just using basic free market principles to turn that country that's been devastated by socialism and inflation for decades and decades. And I'm of the opinion that what we need in New Mexico is a delay for our state because we're in many ways a lot like Argentina. We haven't had the inflation because of course, we're part of The United States.
Paul Gessing:We don't have our own currency. But Santa Fe was in charge of the currency, you can bet we could be inflating the heck out of that.
Abe Baldonado:Oh, yeah.
Paul Gessing:It would not be going well. But my point is is that whatever ethnic group or however you put Malay into a box, those kinds of policies, not just in Argentina and not just in recent years, but time after time and country after country and state after state, they succeed. And it doesn't matter if you're black, brown, green, purple, whatever, you are going to be better off in a free market, a limited government system. That's just something that I mean, yeah, it's been nineteen years. I've been trying to hammer this idea into Mexicans' heads for nineteen years.
Paul Gessing:It's frustrating as heck, but I am of the opinion that if we just give it a shot here in New Mexico, this state will flourish.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. And that's something I highlighted in my last podcast is that, you know, we have this mentality of we've always done it this way and we're scared of change, but I think we need, it's time that we embrace change because where has it gotten us? I mean, to date, I mean, we are lasting everything good and number one and everything bad. I think I share your frustrations, Paul, and I actually commend you for the work that you're doing with RGF and you've been essential. And I think the top of the ticket's really gonna tell us all next year because I think, you know, not even talking about, you know, progressive, liberal, conservative, I think you just need a messenger who talks common sense, you know, what works for people.
Abe Baldonado:And I think that's gonna be big. Shifting on, Sam Bregman, I know his campaign's really new, not a whole lot out there just yet, but he did his announcement video, which I thought was interesting. He attacks Trump, attacks conservatives, but then, you know, the progressive movement of his announcement video. And clearly you can see he's trying to attract the moderate voter, maybe some that lean a little bit more conservative, but you know, what do you think his strategy is right now?
Paul Gessing:I've thought about this quite a bit because of course, Bregman, you know, is somebody who, anybody of a right mind if you just say, well, you have to vote for Holland or Bregman. On faith at this point, I would vote for Bregman just because he's not proven himself to be completely out of touch and in a different reality on energy issues. I like a lot of what he says about crime. Of course, he's done some work on crime as the DA here in Bernalillo County. He was chair of the Republican Party Democratic Party, sorry.
Paul Gessing:He and Holland actually share that experience, although he was chair when Bill Richardson Mhmm. That era of Democratic So definitely coming at it from that more moderate era. He hasn't been super involved in economic education policy, the kind of stuff that the Rio Grande Foundation works on. So in order to hopefully show and highlight some separation, not just between those two, but we've got Greg Hall running on the Republican side. Presumably, there'll be another candidate or two.
Paul Gessing:We are definitely going to work as hard as we can to get at least Bregman and Republicans hopefully to fill out some questionnaires explaining where they stand on some of these basic tax issues. It is unconscionable to me that for the last seven, eight years, really, the Lujan Grisham administration, We've had these billion dollar, multibillion dollar surpluses and the money has not been given. None of the money has really filtered its way into New Mexicans pocketbooks. I think that is an issue that Bregman, if he's smart, can say, look, I am Democrat, but I also support reducing the tax burdens on New Mexicans. Bill Richardson did it.
Paul Gessing:He had his issues. Was more of a corruption sort of thing that prevented him from moving further up into the presidency. But you look at Richardson's time in office and moving back, I think Bregman could kind of use that a little bit as guidepost. Maybe say, I'm going to be more like Richardson, hopefully absent like a rail runner or a space porn, which those those are definitely blots on Richardson's legacy in addition to the corruption sort of thing. But Yeah.
Paul Gessing:Pay to play. You can you can do and I don't know how he would go after the education thing. I think, you know, maybe some of the accountability aspects. He's got so many of these tough special interest groups to deal with Yeah. In the Democratic coalition.
Paul Gessing:That machine. Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:I think that machine is probably gonna go against him, even just his announcement video to me, I think they're saying, hey, you're enemy number one right now, we're gonna put the machine to push back against you.
Paul Gessing:Yeah. So I think the I don't want to call it a Hail Mary strategy, but it's definitely a outside the box strategy because it's never probably never been used in New Mexico. It's probably rarely used in in a lot of states. It really amp up the moderation and try to bring Republicans and kind of non committal members of the more moderate and conservative independents and Republicans to him in the primary to overwhelm Deb Haaland and the machine. And of course, the passage this legislative session, the signature by Michelle Lujan Grisham on the semi open primaries.
Paul Gessing:If I'm Sam Bregman, the first thing I'm really thinking about right now is what to do in terms of that new law and possibly setting up some kind of semi independent campaign to educate Republican and independent voters on their rights under this new legal regime when it comes to voting and encouraging them to consider that option and play up, of course, Deb Holland's very left wing record, which doesn't take And I think she'll do it herself. So it's kinda like, hey, Deb, yeah, we know you're really left wing and here we are going to try to run this more moderate campaign. But how you thread that that needle is gonna be really tough because he doesn't wanna be seen as a stalking horse for heaven forbid oil and gas Right. Or heaven forbid the Republicans. And I get I get that.
Paul Gessing:So I bet you he does kind of continue to bang the drum against Trump and hope that those independents and other Republicans will kind of separate him and his clear kind of opposition to Trump, but take on the aspects of his more moderate views on a lot of other things. I'm assuming that he has some of those moderate views. Have to see in this campaign though.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah, we'll definitely have to see. And I think one thing that's gonna hurt Bregeman, and this is where, you know, I look at it is, you're tough on crime now, but you represented criminals. And I think that comes back to haunt you, is that you were a defense attorney before you were a DA. So you actually supported criminals, know, and I think folks will say, well, you know, he defended people, but if you look at some of the cases he had, I think it's, encourage people to go back and look who he represented and what cases he's represented. And it's tough for me to say he's tough on crime with that back with that record.
Paul Gessing:That is an excellent point. And, you know, Bregman's been around politics for a very long time in New Mexico. I'm confident that there are opposition researchers busily at work in the Holland campaign also digging up different aspects of his record that are not that they believe will not play particularly well in this campaign. And, you know, just and I'll say it because I think it needs to be said, and I've said it when the governor called her special session, Looking specifically at crime issues where the epicenter is right here in the city of Albuquerque, the largest city by far in the state of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham and other governors are the third or fourth person that I blame for the crime that is happening here. And I'm not talking about the individual criminal or their family and blah blah blah.
Paul Gessing:I'm talking about the mayor is ultimately the person I blame for crime issues and the chief of police and those soft on crime attitudes that they have. I blame the judges that we unfortunately have elected here in this metro area in particular, but across the state. I mean, for the love of God, have a guy in Las Cruces, a judge harboring a Tres De Aragua illegal immigrant who and giving him guns. It just mind
Abe Baldonado:blows my the cartel members.
Paul Gessing:Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, yeah. Someone needs to do some real research into that particular individual. And of course, the DOJ, which thankfully the light seems to be at the end of the tunnel with regards to that. And of course, that can be also pinned on Keller, but it also could be pinned on the previous mayor, etcetera.
Paul Gessing:So, know, Deb Hollins probably, if I'm again, if I'm giving her honest advice, I just kind of ignore the crime issue as I think she'll ignore many issues. But crime is one that she probably doesn't wanna get too tied down on. Maybe she will, you know, offer some of those attacks like you're talking about. It's Bregman's historical work as a criminal defense attorney. If I'm Bregman, I say, well, every criminal deserves their day in court.
Paul Gessing:You know, it's part of the constitution. That doesn't isn't a talking point that drives a lot of people these days. Unfortunately, the red team, blue team, kind of the are you tough on crime or are you whip on Yeah. So it's it'll be interesting. This at least it will be an interesting Democratic primary.
Paul Gessing:And, you know, we'll see if this open primaries law gives Gregman some some legs to really go after Deb Haaland. And if it drags him a little bit politically more to the middle or more conservative side of things, I understand he's not gonna be me. He's not gonna be you on a lot these policies. But we really, really with this state as democrat as it has been for so long, we really need those moderate democrats to kind of come out of the woodwork, flex their political muscle a little bit, and move New Mexico back at least towards the center.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah, and Paul, I think, you know, for me, I think it's just, we want the best of the best at the top of the ticket, right? And I think that's where accountability matters, research matters for the electorate to really know who are you voting for, what is their record, you know, what do they stand for, is there any hypocrisy there. And so for me, you know, I just wanna see the best of the best at the top of the ticket. And I think a lot of folks are frustrated because oftentimes we don't. You know, it's almost like pick your poison.
Abe Baldonado:I mean, it's poison, but you're gonna have to pick one. And so does it kill you faster? Does it kill you slower? I think the semi primaries, I think both sides are still gonna be figuring out what does this look like? And I'm curious to see what it looks like.
Abe Baldonado:Thank you for making that point because I think that semi primaries bill is gonna be something to look at. And I think it's gonna set up precedence this next election cycle. So I'm curious to see how that plays out and what the strategy is from all sides on, you know, what are you doing in the primary season for those voters? What are you doing in the general season for those voters?
Paul Gessing:Think Well, just to be clear, that that law, the way it works is that I basically, if you are considered DTS or independent, you have a superpower. You can walk into the polling place on primary day or whenever you're doing early voting, and you can request the r or the d ballot. If you're registered as a Republican though, you have to vote in the Republican primary. If you're registered as a Democrat, you have to vote in the Democratic primary. This to me is something that does advantage the Republicans somewhat because the Republicans we'll see how their primary shakes shapes up and whether it's got some big differences of opinion in it or or not.
Paul Gessing:But I could easily see some of the Republicans sufficiently fearing a Deb Haaland administration. Because I do I do believe that it is a arrow, a dagger at the heart of New Mexico. If we embrace her and give her four years or let alone eight years in the Governor's Mansion, I think it really will do some substantial harm to this state. So, Republicans, especially, will have to. And it doesn't matter, they could be moderate, they can be conservative.
Paul Gessing:I think it just unleashes a more strategic approach to how you use your party registration and votes. Yeah, it's new to New Mexico. I guess it's been tried in a few states, but New Mexico is always unique in every
Abe Baldonado:single But that's what makes our state beautiful. That's why I love it here. I don't ever plan to leave, but if Deb Haaland comes along, it may make it very difficult to wanna stay in New Mexico because I don't see New Mexico thriving the same way you see it from your economic So Paul, just want to thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise. Look forward to having you on many more shows.
Abe Baldonado:And with that, we'll wrap up episode five of the Chile Wire. Paul, thanks again.
Paul Gessing:Thank you, Abenicio.