(From the diaries. Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP. – promoted by James L.)
Albuquerque mayor Martin Chavez has been touting his roots to New Mexico. Just take a look at his bio on his campaign site:
A native son of New Mexico, Martin Chávez was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His family’s roots in New Mexico have been traced to the 1500s.
Many New Mexicans who have had family in the state for generations are proud of their “native roots”. These are the people who can name their family back to the Spanish settlers. But the Albuquerque Tribune asked an interesting question: What role will being the only “native son” play in the Senate election?
After doing a bit of research, probably not much.
“When given a choice, New Mexicans usually prefer a native son.”
-Mark Fleisher, Martin Chavez Campaign Manager
It sounds great. Sounds completely plausible; after all, even Stephen Colbert planned on running for President (but only in South Carolina) as a “favorite son.”
But in New Mexico, where you were born or grew up does not seem to make much of a difference in whether or not New Mexicans will vote for you. After all, as the Tribune article wrote:
[A]ll three of the other leading contenders for the Senate – Reps. Tom Udall, a Santa Fe Democrat, Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, and Steve Pearce, a Hobbs Republican – were born outside New Mexico.
They are all Representatives with multiple elections under their belt — and have defeated “native sons” along the way.
Most recently, Heather Wilson defeated Patricia Madrid in the 2006 election by less than a thousand votes. While Madrid was born in Las Cruces, NM, Wilson only moved to Albuquerque in 1991.
In the Second District, Steve Pearce defeated native son Gary King (Stanley, NM) in 2004. And King even has the pedigree of a father (three-time governor Bruce King) who was also born in New Mexico. Pearce did, however, move to Hobbs at the age of two.
Udall has easily defeated all comers in the Third Congressional District in recent years, but his closest call came against then-incumbent Bill Redmond; a Chicago native. Before Redmond, the seat was held by now Gov. Bill Richardson.
Richardson was born in Pasadena, CA, and did not move to Santa Fe, NM until 1978. He ran for Congress against longtime incumbent Manuel Lujan in 1980 and lost. He succeeded in 1982. Richardson defeated John Sanchez (55-39) in 2002; Sanchez was a native of Albuquerque. He then easily defeated Santa Fe-born John Dendahl in 2006, with a record margin.
The last time Chavez ran for statewide office, for governor in 1998, he lost to Gary Johnson. Johnson was born in South Dakota. I could not find, however, when exactly Johnson moved to New Mexico.
While Chavez will continue to tout his nativeness to the state, in the grand scheme of things… it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of a difference.
All we really care about is how well you will do in Congress, in fact, I get this sneaking suspicion that we don’t trust people who were born in New Mexico.
Its my main reason against Al Franken.
But you have to look at the context, New Mexico is a state with a huge influx of people, how many people are honestly born and raised there? And then, you have to look at how long has this person lived in the state. After a few years, it becomes pretty negligible.