Defining a good job down

Yesterday I characterized the re-election of Martin Heinrich to the US House of Representatives as demonstrative of the power of the democrat brand, especially in the state of New Mexico. While New Mexico is a right to work state, there are two teachers unions that have a strong presence in the state. New Mexico has a larger percentage of state employees as a percentage of the general population than many other states. Many of these state employees live in the Albuquerque area (witness the existence of the rail runner) and therefore in Heinrich’s district. In Albuquerque their exists Sandia National Laboratories, many federal DoD offices employing civilians at Kirtland Air Force Base, Federal, State and District Courts, an FBI presence, other Federal agencies and the University of New Mexico. Basically, Albuquerque is a giant hub of public sector employment and trends show that all of these groups overwhelmingly vote democrat as a brand and not at a 51/49 split, closer to 70/30. Knowing this it is amazing that any republican can win any elected office in this city. Yet, Jon Barela came close.

Martin Heinrich has a resume as thin as can be and in two years in Washington only distinguished himself by honoring the UNM Lobo’s basketball team in session. Other than that, Heinrich can be considered to be a straight ticket democrat vote. Jon Barela has a much more impressive resume, with actual Private sector experience, has campaigned as an independent thinker that would work for New Mexico first and performed well in debates. He came close but he lost to someone who has only distinguished himself as getting along with the democrat agenda.

This morning on Bob Clark’s 770AM morning show he had a “centrist” political blogger who may as well call himself Captain Hindsight in his political analysis. The point of this blogger and several echo callers was that the result of the election to New Mexicans is that Republicans must moderate and that Heinrich won because he did well by his constituency. This caused me to ponder exactly what each of these points meant.

The first tell of a liberal is that they identify themselves as something else and this blogger was no different. Every “moderate” plank identified by this “moderate” that Republicans must co-opt was a liberal policy. In politics, Republicans describe policies, policies meant to bestow freedom on citizens while democrats push programs meant to keep constituents dependent on their benevolence. With that stark a difference it is difficult to identify a truly centrist position. Dishonest liberals like this blogger, thinking themselves righteous, have co-opted the term “moderate” to hide liberal and progressive memes.

On to Heinrich doing right by his constituents, part of the blogger’s claim stemmed back to his time as a city councilor in Albuquerque. On that question the answer is it depends. Which constituents? This kind of trick is taken because this blogger, being a liberal, paints the entire district with a broad brush and assumes everyone shares the same values and views of government. The constituency that is served well by Heinrich is the kind that is either a recipient of government largess or approves of that method of governance. Plainly, Heinrich is good at giving out other people’s money. It is probably correct that Heinrich won thanks to this trait, that doesn’t mean that he does a good job.

It’s easy to be pessimistic when a candidate like Jon Barela can only get close against a hack like Heinrich but it seems to be the way things are in this district. The only reason why Richard Berry's the Mayor of Albuquerque is because it was a three way race against two democrats who may as well have been clones. The big government agenda put forth by Martin Heinrich and supported by many voters in Albuquerque is unsustainable and the benefits are an illusion, if this kind of candidate continues to win it might be time to take that transfer to Florida.