The Day After

There was some good and some disappointing news from the election yesterday. Something I learned last night both in New Mexico and nationally is just how powerful democrat as a brand can be. As the results poured in, locally and nationally, it was a very good night for Republicans but there were many races that just left me a bit let down.

Early yesterday afternoon my wife sent me a text message that she was attempting to convince a friend to vote for Susana Martinez, Jon Barela and Matt Chandler. This friend is very smart and sensible, and the reason why they voted straight ticket democrat after all was due to the nature of their work in renewable energy. In that sector and many others, these employees are told that their jobs depend on democrats in office. Such is the price of big government picking winners and losers in the economy. And democrats are big government and when democrat government picks winners, that same government becomes the best interest of those winners.

Susana Martinez won a resounding and pleasantly early victory. Martinez is a great candidate that the State deserves to learn more about over the next four years. My bet is that she will be a very good Governor. Steve Pearce won the seat in congress that he previously held handily, more so that the predicted toss-up. Dianna Duran won in a landslide (15 points!) for Secretary of State over Incumbent and embarrassment Mary Herrera.

Jon Barela (US House), Tom Mullins (US House) and Matt Chandler (Attorney General) lost close races against mediocre at best incumbents. Was it name recognition or was it the democrat brand? Or both, which may be the same thing? I think it’s the later. Barela ran a good campaign and was a good candidate but never could establish himself. Mullins is an excellent candidate and ran a great campaign considering his district but still lost. Chandler is also an excellent candidate who ran very well against the well established King democrat brand in New Mexico, hopefully he’ll be back.

Nationwide, California and Nevada prove the strength of the democrat brand. Sharron Angle was a great candidate, running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada and lost by a much larger margin than predicted. California sent back know-nothing Barbara Boxer to the Senate and elected re-tread Jerry Brown as their governor against well qualified businesspeople. These results are disappointing because all three of these candidates had low ratings in their districts, but even with all of the problems their districts resoundingly went for more of the same. It is what it is. At least California went against the idiotic proposal to legalize marijuana.

There is now a lot of work to do. There were a ton of great Republican candidates and hopefully the freshman class in both houses of congress will do great things. Electorally, while there were disappointing results in some races, there is something to build on. Voters are more educated than ever and can only mean better candidates and better representation.