Preprimaries in New Mexico:  Out of Date Dinosaurs?

Part I

The pre-primary party convention and straw vote was instituted in New Mexico with bipartisan support during the late 1970s.  It was abandoned during the 1980s, and then reinstated again.  The original argument for instituting the practice was sound, and it had the desired effect for many years.

Background:  during the 1970s single-issue causes--the environment, abortion, gun control, affirmative action for minority groups and women, etc.--began to grow in popularity in American politics.  Single-issue advocates tended to be more focused, more passionate, and more capable of raising money for their followers.  They also tended to embed themselves in one of the two major parties.  This created a good deal of mischief against the interests of party leaders, who were more concerned about winning elections rather than being ideologically pure on various issues.

Pro-choice advocates for women in the 1970s, for example, tended to identify as Democrats.  Their passion, activism, and access to funding often gave them an edge in primary elections, resulting in disproportionate numbers of pro-choice candidates within the Party.  But their positions were stronger than those of the public at large.  Political consultants quickly learned they could successfully brand the Democratic candidate as hopelessly out of touch with common folk on this issue in the general election, raising the probabilities the Republican candidate would win.  These "wedge issues"--issues popular within one party, but not so among general election voters--soon became the battleground in many elections.  The personal qualities of candidates and their skill in campaigning and fund-raising remained important factors in determining an election, but wedge issues were increasingly important, and media attention tended to make sure voters understood these.

This was not welcome news to leaders in the two major parties, where the game of politics was to find candidates who could credibly claim to represent the moderate middle, the "big tent," in the general election, where they had a better chance of winning.

At that time party leaders in each party--those who attended party meetings and got themselves elected as delegates to party conventions--tended to be big tent advocates, hoping to recruit candidates with moderate views on most everything--bland, possibly, but winnable candidates.  But party leaders found themselves often losing a general election race because the candidate was in the extreme wing of a wedge issue, and vulnerable to attacks from the middle or opposite side.  

In New Mexico the pre-primary convention, which gave candidates winning the straw vote the advantage of being first on the primary ballot, was designed specifically to lessen the influence of single-issue candidates and strengthen the hand of political leadership in both parties.  Active party members--far more experienced in finding ways of winning elections--would form the bulk of delegates voting in the straw poll.  In selecting candidates for the favored No. 1 spot they would be more likely to vote for candidates who could win in November, rather than candidates whose views might be popular among fellow partisans, but not necessarily among the voting population at large, including independents, in the November elections.  And--this is a critical point--to the extent voters trusted their party leaders, the Número Uno designation, the party's choice, would serve as a strong insider cue to uninformed voters who to vote for.

At first, the pre-primary process had the desired effect.  Those candidates who were first on the ballot tended to be more moderate, and hence electable, in their views, reflecting the wisdom of experienced party leaders.  And they were proven to have a better chance of winning in a primary race if they were No. 1 on the ballot.  So far so good.  Party leaders were happy, their power now enhanced.  And moderate candidates tended to win in both parties.

Stay Tuned for Part II:  Why Toney Anaya did away with pre-primaries

 Juan Ramón Vigil Wins Española Mayor's Race

Former Sen. Tim Jenning Wins Roswell

 Former Sen. Clemente Sánchez Loses Mayor's Race in Grants to Erik Garcia By 8 Votes

Española:  The rosca returns?

The word "rosca" in spanish means "ring," as in the connected rings of the Olympic logo or a hula hoop or donut; but in politics it also means "clique," as in "The Santa Fe Ring," referring to the self-interested networks of a political power structure that circulate in any community.  The term "political elite" is not strong enough to convey the meaning in English, but the term  "political machine," as in Tammany Hall or Chicago under Mayor Daley, is too strong.  I have found in most communities, whether nation states or villages, a rosca is easy to identify, since informed citizens and journalists everywhere tend to keep track of who is getting away with what.

As pointed out (see below) yesterday, the race between Juan Ramón Vigil and Javier Sánchez was interesting among other reasons because it pitted a bona fide member of the old rosca, descendent from the older political machine, against a youngish incumbent upstart who was part of an ousting by voters of the old rosca in elections in 2018 and 2020.  Predictably, the rosca would try a comeback.  

In another race incumbent John Ricci, a Republican, lost to Aaron Salazar, a Democrat, so it was a clean sweep for Democrats in Rio Arriba County. Republican Richard Martinez lost in his bid to Nanette Smith Rodriguez.

Last night settled one issue:  the rosca is back, and people will be watching to see whether it will be strengthened in the future through other key political positions:  sheriff, state legislature, county commission, school board, etc.  The victory for Vigil was not decisive, with a margin of only about 53 votes out of less than 1500 cast.  And it remains to be seen if Sánchez will make other political moves in the county.  Vigil began his public career at the age of 14 when he was appointed to the library board, and was elected to the Española city council at the age of 22.  He is only 26.

Roswell:  Jennings is back

Tim Jennings, former President Pro Tem of the NM Senate was elected mayor of Roswell last night.  A moderate Democrat, he incurred the wrath of the Martinez administration, and a good deal of money and effort was spent replacing him with a Republican.  At about the same time the Bernie faction of the Democratic Party got funding to go after other moderates, like Jennings, and for a while now moderates in New Mexico, no matter how capable, have been attacked from both the left and the right.  Jennings is very bright, capable, and we wish him well.

Grants:  Another moderate former Senator, Clemente Sánchez, lost his bid to become mayor of Grants, by only 8 votes in a five-person race won by Erik O. Garcia.  In the Senate Sánchez was viewed as a potential powerhouse due to his talent and knowledge of business.  He too was attacked by leftist Democrats for being too moderate, and by Republicans for being a Democrat.

 

Tomorrow's Mayoral Election in Española:  Is This the Start of the Old Guard's Comeback?

Javier Vs. Juan Ramón

Incumbent mayor Javier Sánchez has what appears to be a fight on his hands to retain his position of Mayor of Española in tomorrow's city elections.  Sanchez has a non-scandalous incumbency on his side, and prestigious academic degrees from Yale and Notre Dame, as well as a role in running one of Española's political gathering places, the La Cocina restaurant.  On the other hand he is also openly gay and Republican, two potential liabilities in Rio Arriba County that did not stop him from getting elected four years ago during what appeared to be a revolt by citizens against the ruling Democratic power structure in Española and Rio Arriba county.  

In a brief two-year period between 2016 and 2018, many of the keepers of that power structure--Tommy Rodella, Barney Trujillo, Debbie Rodella, Alex Naranjo, and, via what is becoming a career-killer DWI, Sen. Richard Martinez--lost their seats in key positions of power.  The Naranjo-Cook-Salazar-Trujillo coalition that had pretty much controlled politics since the early 1960s under the tutelage of Emilio Naranjo was on the outs.  Predictably, it was just a matter of time until the old families mounted a serious comeback project.  Juan Ramón Vigil, whose mother Carmela Salazar is of the powerful Salazar clan, is the first test case for this project.  Others are coming in primary and general elections this year.  

Juan Ramón is no slouch.  In spite of his almost adolescent youth--he is 26--he served first as a member of the library board at the age of 14.  He served for years on the Española Fiesta Council, and is thought to be the youngest person ever to be elected in New Mexico to a city council position, at the age of 22.  He was appointed to the board of regents of Highlands University by Governor Susana Martinez, while a student there.  So he is, arguably, as experienced as Javier.  A real-estate agent, he has been in a position to meet many locals outside his normal circle of acquaintences.

The campaigns have not focused on the stakes involved in this race vis-a-vis their meaning for the future power structure in Española, even though the race is seen by some as suggesting just that.  Juan Ramón has denied this aspect of the race, focusing on simply improving the quality of life in a city that is proud of its traditional cultural heritage.  Javier has emphasized his accomplishments as mayor.  Both have strong presences on Facebook.

The Rio Grande Sun, owned by Robert Trapp, has a long tradition of fighting the old power structure, and especially what he viewed as corrupt practices enabled by it.  He recently gave a strong endoresement for Javier.  Peggy Sue Martinez, incumbent city council member, has endorsed Vigil, while incumbenr city council member Justin Salazar-Torres (not part of the clan) has endorsed Sánchez.

Up-and-coming campaign strategist Samuel Ledoux, from Nambé, who was recently awarded an MA in political management from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., has been a key figure in Sánchez's campaign, particularly in the areas of social media and campaign strategy.  His presence beefing up Javier's campaign (click here) is a strong indicator of how seriously Javier takes this challenge.  Juan Ramón's facebook) presence also illustrates Vigil's efforts to succeed in the rapidly growing impact of social media in New Mexico politics.

City Races in Española Test Democratic Strength Among Norteños

While city council races in NM are non-partisan, most people know where the candidates are coming from, so a partisan flavor influences many city council and mayoral races.

Not since perhaps the 1950's have Republicans controlled city hall in Española, a bastion of Democratic strength at all levels for many decades.  Tomorrow's city elections could change that.  The most iffy race here to make this happen is between former coach  Richard Martinez (not the former Senator), a Republican, and Nanette Smith Rodriguez, presumably a Democrat.  

Martinez coached the level 5-A state Española Valley High School men's basketball team to a state champtionship in 2016.  In a controversial move he was placed on administrative leave shortly thereafter, and an administrative mess followed for the next two years.  Initially, many students believed he was in trouble for praying with players prior to games--something students said was voluntary and a frequent practice on athletic teams.  School Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez then fired Martinez, but the school board immediately fired her, and her replacement, Eric V. Martinez (no relation), reinstated him as coach.  School board elections were held again in 2017 and Gutierrez became school superintendent again.  But by that time Martinez had lost his teaching and coaching licenses as part of an agreement with PED.  Parents had filed a lawsuit against the coach, alleging physical abuse and retaliation against players.  This was settled to the tune of $200,000 in 2018, paid for by the NM Public School Insurance Authority.

Smith Rodriguez  is Director of Adult Services in the Las Cumbres Community Services agency, with a longstanding regional presence in El Norte, now expanding into the US-Mexico border area, including Cd. Juarez.

In another city council race Democrat Aaron J. Salazar is challenging incumbent John L Ricci.  An interesting twist here is that Ricci was initially elected as a Democrat but switched to Republican.  Ricci, a successful businessman is from the Sonoma Valley in California, but moved to Española in 1993, managing the AutoZone franchise before going into business for himself.  Aaron Salazar is Operations Supervisor at NM Gas.  He is not a member of the politically influential Salazar family in Española, so there is not that sub-text operating here.

Incumbent councillor Justin Salazar Torres was also elected as a Democrat but switched to Republican in 2019.  In 2020 he ran unsuccessfully for HD seat 40, won by Valverde resident Roger Montoya, a Democrat.  Salazar Torres is a technician at Los Alamos Labs and also works at his family's funeral business.  He is running unopposed.

Denise Benavides is running unopposed for District 3.

Bottom line:  If Ricci and Martinez win, the city council will have three Republican incumbents, out of five.

 From 1939 to February 23, 2022

Eighty three and a half years ago, on September 1, 1939,  Hitler launched a successful military attack on Poland, initiating a set of events that ended with a nuclear attack on Japan, trials against German officials for crimes against humanity, the creation of NATO and the UN, and the emergence of the US as the Top Dog in the world.  

Top Dog status will not last forever, and, indeed, the attack yesterday on Ukraine is part of a deliberate effort on the part of one of losers of the past 33 years, Russia, to challenge the institutions created in 1945 to stabilize, reasonably well, what might be called the Century of US Supremacy.  Eventually, probably within the next three or four decades, China will assume top dog status, and we hope this change will not, as is usually the case, require a World War to initiate China's ascendancy.  It may well be that Putin's long-term goal is to hasten the West's demise as a coherent community, along with the democratic values and other irritants that still motivate energetic support throughout the West--and, like an obsequious servant, offer the scrapheap to his new Chinese masters in return for desired privileges.  

American political leadership for the past third of a century, in exemplary, if mindless, bipartisan fashion, has contributed to the permissive atmosphere that emboldened Putin.  Historians will not give many free passes here:  leadership led us astray with hyperpartisanship, a shift away from our founding fathers' trust in ordinary peoples' ability to evaluate things on their own, and a fanatic refusal to address pressing problems of ordinary governance here at home.  The piper will be paid.  The bill is coming due.

This is, for the first time since World War II, a tragic situation.  We have moved from the political farce--equally shared by two major parties--of the past few years to tragedy.  None of us will completely escape the scope of needless sorrow that is to come.  Let us hope it will bring out the best in each of us. 

I have posted a piece of the poem, September 1, 1939, by WH Auden, here a couple of times.  It was written as tanks and storm troops were occupying Poland.  Today it seems appropriate to post part of it again.

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night….

….All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

 

Who is the Victim Here?  Marianna Anaya or Sen. Ivey-Soto?

Who Was Victimizing Who Back then?  And Today?

Drum Roll: The Band Plays the Washington Post March (click here to listen)

Now enters Marianna Anaya, a lobbyist for the dark money interests behind the Center for Civic Policy, a non-New Mexico, Liberal Leftist organization with small pockets of money for local community organizations to push national liberal agendas.  She was also President of EMERGE NM, a feminist organization pushing for more female candidates for office.

Anaya speaks:  "OMG!  Senator Ivey-Soto, a Cuban American who speaks Spanish better than I do, after he disagreed with me about a bill this year I was trying to push, I just couldn't keep quiet anymore:  I have to reveal he actually tried to pinch me in the ass seven years ago!  The shame!  He must resign immediately!"  I've hired a lawyer!"

The picture fades:  Now the music plays the old Dragnet theme: (click here to listen)

I belong to a gym in Santa Fe.  When I am in Santa Fe, in the mornings a bunch of us old farts, anglos and hispanos and an oriental, sometimes get to talking. Some of us are more on the liberal side, some on the conservative side.  We all agree emphatically state political leadership hasn't got a clue.  When I get up there this week or next, how sympathetic do you think we might be to the idea of Ivey Soto yielding to this demand for his resignation?

 The Olympics, Russia, Ukraine, and Beijing

The Moving Finger Writes Even in New Mexico

Fallen Russian skater Valieva

An Omen?  How Will Vlady Look During the Beijing 2022 Summer Games?

Olympic medal counts are assumed to be symbolic weathervanes about the world's pecking order, and perceptions can influence decisions.  That's why dictators try to rig them.  So we can imagine Vlady doing what he needed to do to assure that Valieva would be allowed to skate in spite of the rules--rubbing his hands at the prospect of seeing smiling Russians accepting medals on a global stage, a pleasing backdrop against the larger, more macho-imagined global backdrop of tanks and missiles and electronic chaos rolling with a double axel or two for style points onto the winter ice of Ukraine.

But the best laid plans can backfire.  In1936, with Hitler promoting theories of "Aryan" superiority while planning to invade Poland, Jesse Owens, son of a black Alabama sharecropper, took away four gold medals at the Berlin Games, shooting a symbolic arrow toward the eventual triumph of the United States as the reigning superpower, not Germany.  Two years later Joe Lewis underscored the point by demolishing German Max Schmelling in two minutes of the first round in a heavyweight boxing match heard by radio around the world.  With similar poetic justice, Valieva fell on the ice four times in her last round. 

The world can't wait to find out:  is this a portent of what will become of the kleptocracy that rules Russia?  Or, by the Summer Games will US Republican medal winners raise their fists and take a knee during the national anthem in protest against the Biden-NATO sanctions while Xi and Putin allow themselves to be photographed negotiating over the colors of the changing maps of the world?  This is a quickly shifting global and domestic scene, and anyone who predicts in the short run is simply guessing.  What will happen will depend on what happens between now and then, not on what we see today..

Does any of this matter to New Mexicans?  From the lack of discussion about it one would conclude that it does not.  Or, perhaps more realistically, few New Mexicans can even find Ukraine on a map, or locate Beijing in China, much less follow the dots connecting New Mexico to the maneuverings of the most powerful actors in the world.  I'm beating a dead horse, but this, too is a sorry commentary on the quality of our educational systems in the state.  It might have been better to use the excess cash to create a cabinet agency for global affairs, and for New Mexico to design a foreign policy for state government, instead of raising salaries for teachers.  What happens out there, like it or not, will affect us, and we should level with our citizens about those connections.

Imports and exports through the El Paso-Santa Teresa border crossings add up to  well over $100 Billion, and until the pandemic, growing quickly.  How vulnerable are these numbers to interruptions, say, from China?  How would they affect New Mexico?  The state apparently has no systematic way of understanding the impact of foreign trade on our state's economy, or digging down into the data.  The international order is changing quickly.  Does the state understand what these changes might mean for job markets in the state?  Or how we might adapt to changing conditions?

 The Moving Finger Writes:

Ukraine Situation Reveals Global Power Vacuum

CNN Foto, Dec. 2021

  

The Biden administration announces daily that, really, guys, the Russians might invade the Ukraine any day now, really.  Is there anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world unaware of this by now?  Why would the administration keep reminding us?  So Republicans won't be able to say Biden was caught by surprise?  Is this coming from a 2022 campaign advisor anticipating a negative TV ad?  Why all the warnings?  Surely, the White House doesn't believe the warnings will divert attention in an election year from the rising prices of just about everything?  The campaign spokespersons who seem to be running the White House, including foreign policy, are having trouble with this one, but a lot of talking heads on TV miss the point as well.

If you see a bully threatening to beat up a smaller kid in a second grade playground, why spread the alarm to others?  If you are stronger than the bully, all you have to do is tell him he will have to fight you next.  And you shouldn't reveal beforehand what rules of engagement you will follow.  Those bulges in my pocket just might be brass knuckles, but you will have to wait and see.  Nor do you need to tell others, and poker players will tell you not to.  But if you aren't strong enough to beat up the bully, then telling others makes more sense.  You hope others will join you in threatening collective action against him.  But in Ukraine we've already scoured the neighborhood and come up with only very tepid collective will in Europe for serious deterrance.

Quite to the contrary.  The Germans would rather keep getting natural gas from the Russian pipeline.  The French want an all-European response;  thanks, USA, but no thanks.  Even the Brits are no longer knee-jerking in our direction. Fox News years ago joined the kiss-up-to-Vlady domestic crowd; no help here at home.  It's enough to make you think we need to bow out gracefully, but if we do there will be a huge domestic price to pay in an election year.

US policy makers are in an unenviable position.  The unpunished treason scoundrels like Giuliani created a few years ago in Ukraine raises the visibility of Ukraine in the US, particularly among Democrats.  The cause of Ukranian freedom seems to fall into a moral category:  poor Zelensky, almost blackmailed by Trump, now about to be knocked off by Putin.  Can't we do something about it with the most powerful military in the world?  On the other hand, with Europe looking the other way as troops surround vital areas of Ukraine, just what license does the US have to protect a nation that is not part of our system of allies?  Does this, after Afghanistan and Iraq, warrant another expensive war with only token support from our allies?  The nation seems to be in a dovish mood about foreign wars now that the most significant wars are internal.  Or, in fact is this really an internal issue?

The Biden administration appears to have been acting, at least in public, as though this were an international issue.  But as an international issue, once again, the Biden administration has found itself isolated at home and abroad by foreign policy--the last time was Afghanistan.  Ukraine has uncovered an uncomfortable question, one which the Biden administration (or either political party) refuses to share honestly with the public:  how far has the US fallen in the pecking order of nations in the past few years?

Roughly speaking, if you believe, as Xi's and Putin's actions (in Hong Kong, South China Sea, Ukraine, and election meddling with the US) suggest they believe, that the emperor has lost its clothes, then a reasonable conclusion is that only neighborhood bullies can resolve neighborhood squabbles.  Ukraine is a pretty good test of this hypothesis:  there is no longer a global godfather  looking over the shoulder.  The rules of the game have changed along with the balance of power.

American political discourse has not yet permitted this question to be aired here.  The language of international politics in the US still, insistently, relies on the unspoken assumption the US has the power, should it find the will to exert it, to create order out of the darwinian jungle.  The Biden administration is still stuck with this assumption, and acts as though everyone still believes it, long after powerful interests asked quietly whether it is still a viable assumption.  Ukraine is a clear and powerful metaphor, and testing ground, for the shape of international power in our globe today.  It should not be, but domestic politics has made it so.

Should Biden's approach to Ukraine end as badly as the retreat from Afghanistan, the image of the US as an international power will be irrevocably lowered.  Power is not something measured in dollars, no matter how much Mark Zuckerberg would like you to think so.  It consists of one's relationships with others, and these, in turn, depend to some extent on the images one projects.  Trump projected an image of obsequious subservience to Putin.  That did not go unnoticed in the dark alleyways or glittering palaces of our global neighborhoods.  Biden's approach so far has been to ask others to stand with him against Putin to uphold the American international order, reshaped in the wake of 911.  His lack of success so far, and his stubborn unwillingness to be candid about it, suggests volumes about the viability of that order.  The stakes are high.

 

The Moving Finger Writes

What Happened to the  Post-Cold War American Empire?

 The ongoing shipwreck of the American Empire is gradually coming into focus.  Like all previous empires the term "hubris" hovers in the air as we remember the "Mission Accomplished" sign on the aircraft carrier, and the "I alone can fix it" remark by Donald Trump on July 21, 2016 during a moment Paul Manafort and other Americans were enabling Russian hackers to infect the sacred grounds of legitimacy in the arena of American presidential elections.  In truth those sacred grounds had been tainted by the Supreme Court in 2000 when the justices announced a verdict so partisan they appended a note to the decision declaring it ineligible for the imprematur of stare decisis, a legitimizing piece of the American creed since Marbury v. Madison in 1803.  That began a trend within the court of ignoring stare decisis when it didn't fit the prevailing partisan views of the majority of justices.  Clearly, one of the compartments damaged as the iceberg sliced through the Titanic of the Empire was the one labeled "respect for the rule of law," which protects leaders against hubris.  Lest this be seen as a partisan statement on my part, both parties abandoned established law long ago to maximize partisan advantage during redistricting every ten years.  One outcome of this is the increasing division among legislators along purely partisan lines.  That courts enabled this is only more evidence of generalized disrespect for the rule of law. Students of decline in Ancient Greece and Rome will find this familiar:  it all begins internally.

For me the most surprising casualty was the abandoned compartment known as "the authority of truth," shattered decisively when the incumbent president denied he had lost re-election and promoted the use of clorox to protect against Covid.  But here, too, there were preludes:  climate change had been denied for decades before the forest fires and hurricanes hit us.  Torture was redefined two decades ago to exclude a textbook example of torture known as water-boarding.  And a lack of respect for truth is evident in the systematic dismissal of scientific expertise and the increasing tendency for politicians in both parties to rely on election strategists instead of experts to determine policy decisions.

New Mexico for the most part has been spared from hubris and disrespect for the truth.  The political class is highly dependent on the knowledge industry, health care, the labs, Intel, and the military bases.  These institutions may play games with the truth as they lobby in Santa Fe, but they deeply resent political interference in the content of their work, which rests on trust to reach an agreement about facts.  The authority of demonstrable truth, even, at times, in the legislature, has held firm.  This places New Mexico in a competitive position vis a vis many other states as we view the future of states in the Post-American-Empire era.  If you locate here politicians won't meddle with your thoughts.

As for hubris, aside from moments in the Richardson administration--and remember, Big Bill was from Boston and learned his spanish through his mother in Mexico City--there has been little evidence of hubris out of control.  A major reason for this is the unhappy situation of New Mexico's ranking among states along many different measures.  A governor may be able to point to a few relatively trivial accomplishments, but s/he cannot escape the underlying, usually unspoken, and overarching issue:  New Mexico is last in education, last in child poverty, with a declining age of death, an health care system in need of a serious upgrade, and an economy that promises few choice jobs or careers for the kinds of college graduates New Mexico produces.  Whatever pride a leader might have in legislative success, the state of the state in relation to other states prevents this pride from becoming hubris.  This, too, could become a positive, competitive talking point--we try harder--but only if the political class makes clear it intends to tackle these issues with seriousness, something that has not been the case for well over two decades.  On the contrary, this year teachers will get a sizeable raise without the slightest hint of accountability for the bottom place New Mexico holds among states in student achievement.  Rewarding poor performance is not something you want to see in a state you might think about moving to.

New Mexico's Place in the New Global Reality:  Part II 

Putin and Xi at the Olympics Last Week:  The US Official Presence was Conspicuously Absent

 New Mexico suffered a major downturn in governance and quality of life during the nationally touted--by Clinton, Bush, Obama, Mainstreet news media, and both major parties--heyday of the New Global Economy (also called The Washington Consensus).  During that period (mid-1990s until 2017) a good portion of the non-war-driven cruelty suffered by marginal areas (including New Mexico) was due simply to the doubling--and globalization--of the world's labor force, exploited efficiently by the world's major money-makers taking advantage of the globalization of manufacturing toward low wage countries.  Less developed countries  (and, in the US, states and regions) with low-skilled workforces and economies simply could not compete with the super-low-wage, compliant workforces in India and China.

New Mexico's state government did little in response to these new conditions, except, under bipartisan rule, to protect entrenched interests.  A prime example is education.  While experts told us we needed a much more targeted, well-trained workforce to compete effectively in the new environment, our public education system simply closed political ranks, refusing to retool.  Teachers' salaries under Richardson doubled in order to have the NEA declare him "governor of the year," as part of his presidential fantasies.  But the scores of students continued to drift downward compared with the rest of the country.  The same failed formula appears headed for another heavy investment this year, as teachers' salaries, with much less accountability than before, are about to go up.

Higher education continued to supply New Mexico with unneeded social workers, two-year nursing graduates, and criminal justice majors, and recruitment of the largest (and under-educated) ethnic group in the state--hispanos--into higher education was not enough to move the needle.  Young people voted with their feet and a brain-drain began as our higher education institutions were no longer among the best in the surrounding states.  The proportion of persons in New Mexico with PhDs continued to drop, as older or retired New Mexicans who already had them were simply not replaced by younger cohorts.  By 2016 Mississippians could for once say, "thank God for New Mexico," as quality of life measures here continued to decline.  In spite of the rapidly unfolding global political environment, there seems to be no movement today to make our higher education institutions more responsive to statewide needs.

The global edifice created by the finest generation in the 1950s is under severe assault from China, Russia, and major sections of Europe, and by the most serious internal divisions since the Civil War.  While talking about our decline as a global power is still a taboo subject (it should not be), our internal divisions are fueled gleefully by our corporate-driven media institutions, which now include Facebook and other high-tech money-makers as well as Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.  To make matters even more complicated, the global pandemic has underscored weaknesses in US occupational structures in low- or medium-skilled occupations such as farming, meatpacking, tourism, construction, and sales.  All of these issues are relevant to New Mexico, which has wallowed in recent decades precisely in these sectors.

After squandering an entire generation of possibilities for the state in the now-defunct New Global Economy, this would seem like an appropriate moment for New Mexicans to have an honest conversation about our economic possibilities in the forseeable future, and to make plans to adjust to the new, harsh, realities we face as a nation.  A nation can be sloppy about things when it sits on top of the global pyramid and can create the rules of the game for others to  play.  There are serious advantages to being Numero Uno.  But when the Top Dog starts slipping these advantages quickly disappear.  The US is in that "quickly disappearing" phase, and New Mexicans need to think clearly about how to adjust.

I will offer some suggestions about moving forward, but this conversation should involve all sectors of our society, including the poor, the rural forgotten, and each of our different regions.  Gerrymandering the East Side into three separate congressional districts, as our legislative and executive branches did two months ago, was not a step in that direction.  If New Mexico as an organized state is to have any future meaning, we need to work together.

 New Mexico's Place in the Global Labor Market:  Part I

Background:  I presented a paper a few years ago at a conference on the "New Global Economy" at the University of Tokyo.  I was asked to report on Latin America's role in this "new" global economy, characterized by globalization, free trade, and the information and the communiction revolution.  As a first step in research I looked up the proportion of global labor that was Latin American.  It was much smaller than I expected.  I set out to understand why.  As luck would have it, I turned first to Richard Freeman, a first-rate economist at Harvard, and immediately my paper fell into place.

Freeman had pointed out as early as 2004 that about the time of the Soviet collapse in 1990 India and China both opened up their economies to global competition.  Labor (and capital) in these two countries was now exposed to global competition.  This, in effect, doubled the size of the global labor force from about 1.5 billion to about 3.0 billion between 1990 and 2000.  

Wow!  After a quick glance at wages in China and India, compared with Latin America, the paper wrote itself.  Latin American economies and 1990s could simply not compete on the global labor market with lower wages in these two giants.  The  timing for Latin America wage earners could not have been worse:  Latin Americans, for once, had reluctantly accepted the developed world's recipe for economic growth in those latitudes:  leverage low wages; create conditions favorable for foreign maquila plants; join the global economy.  But with 1.5 billion new workers offering services for lower wages, Latin America's competitive edge was gone.  A lot of other negative effects in Latin America also fell into place, including the willingness of many political leaders to look the other way from drug trafficking, an industry generating a lot of cash.  Would you rather join a cool, secret organization with limited (but potentially heavy) risk for a hundred thou a year, or work in a maquila plant for $2.00 an hour at a job that might move to China next year?

It has taken nearly three decades for the balance between labor and capital to return to its pre-1990 levels.  But, yes, labor shortages are beginning to show up throughout the world.  The pandemic will hasten this rebalancing, due to our much more acute awareness of the vulnerabilities of long-distance supply chains. In the US the "great resignation" of workers from their jobs is one symptom of this rebalancing, as more workers leave their jobs for greener pastures.  Real wage rates are going up (yes, this will contribute to inflation) and it appears this will be a long-term trend.  Labor unions, surely, will become more potent.

What Did The Great Doubling Mean for New Mexico?

Here in New Mexico labor has experienced a slightly softer version of what happened in Latin America during the past two decades.  The political power of labor unions declined.  There was severe pressure on wages in such areas as call centers as the state seemed to imitate the low-wage economic model of Latin America.  Legal and illegal migration from Mexico increased these pressures in low-paying service jobs for hotel workers and other non-skilled occupations, generating tensions between legacy hispanos with low occupational skills and newly arrived mexicanos.  Public and higher education institutions continued to use an outdated business model that could not connect the supply of labor they were producing with the demand for higher paying jobs; a massive brain-drain ensued and many industries were forced to hire out-of-state temporary or permanent workers to fill jobs New Mexicans could not qualify for.  Retail drug traffickers sought out new markets in rural areas of New Mexico and in big cities.  Would you rather peddle drugs in Northern New Mexico or work at a call center in Albuquerque for $9.00 an hour?  Entrenched interests with skilled lobbyists bought a state government that entertained the public with glittery promises instead of managing public affairs, ignoring changing economic and political environments.  Etc., etc.  You know the rest.  New Mexico drifted in the past 20 years from the top of the bottom third to the bottom of the bottom.  Albuquerque, 50 years ago one of several dynamic cities in the Southwest, suffered serious decay.  The state as a state lost its ganas, as it did in many other states.

Can New Mexico Prosper Under the New Labor Market Conditions?

The short answer is yes, but only if New Mexicans are willing to retool the grossly out-of-date institutions we created after World War II, and demonstrate the ganas New Mexicans demonstrated during the golden age of New Mexico growth between, say, the 1940s and the early 1980s. 

Stay tuned for Part II, which will discuss possible projects for a better New Mexico under conditions of rapid global, national, and statewide economic and political change.

The New Mexico Legislature at the End of the Beginning: 2022

We move into Act II of the 30-day legislative session.  The early movidas have been duly noted.  All hands, that is to say, the lobbyists, are on deck hoping for a slice of the unusually high $9 billion surplus.  The usual early posturings, like a love-hate pair of Tango dancers, between the Senate and the Fourth Floor, have been acted out, to the delight of the informed onlookers.  Commentators rush to inform us about the electoral significance of each move:  Is the tax cut for social security just an election-year feint by the governor to the public?  Is the hydrogen hub bill, which hit the average legislator by surprise, a kind of election-year tranquilizer for an angry East Side or, after years of suffering, a kiss on the cheek to the Northeast Corner?  Are the proposals to increase state employees and teacher's salaries really intended as insurance payments for a sizeable pocket of votes?

The rules for NM political discourse are pretty rigid.  You can argue for or against a proposal on the basis of whether it will really address the problem it is purported to address.  (Will the hydrogen hub actually increase carbon emissions?) Or you can argue for or against a proposal on the basis of whether it fits within the straight-jacket of current Conservative or "Progressive" ideology (Will the increase in salaries for public employees just increase the size of NM government, a no-no for "common-sense" conservatism?).  Or you can evaluate a bill according to its sponsor or who is lobbying for it. (I'm for--or against-- the hydrogen hub because it originates with Rep. Patty Lundstrom, from the Northwest Corner, Chair of the LFC).  There are many such rules, and a brief glance at the blog world, newspaper opinion pages, or the serious journalists who follow the legislative session, will reveal more.

What is not part of the system of rules governing political discourse during a legislative session is how a bill might fit into the larger scheme for moving New Mexico out of 50th.  Will raising teachers' salaries improve student scores that place New Mexico 50th in public education?  How will the education system--not just teachers--create goals and deadlines for this to happen?  What might those goals and deadlines look like?  By the way, didn't we try this twenty years ago with Richardson only to see the scores continue to drift at the bottom of the barrel?  Does NM have a realistic chance of winning a piece of the $8 billion Congress has designated to create four "hydrogen hubs" across the country?  How will raising state government salaries improve the wait lines at MVD?  By how much?  who will be held accountable for this?

Perhaps the most pessimistic note in our currently disfunctional political system in NM is the acceptance by virtually all of us that moving New Mexico out of 50th is not going to be part of our public discourse.  Making government work better, and how this or that particular bill might move us in that direction, is a side-show, one of 7 or 8 or more talking points, to lay on an unsuspecting legislator.  It is not the main dish.  

Is this not a concession by all of us that deep down inside that we have accepted our status at the bottom of the barrel?  A glance at national politics or changes in the balance of power away from the US at the global level is revealing:  the old international order, created by the US at the end of World War II, is crumbling, and the new order being created is not necessarily democratic or solicitous of US input.  The national consensus about the rules of the game as embodied in the clear language of the US Constitution, has come to an end.  We have no sacred rules, nor many honest rule-enforcers.

The forces at work creating global mischief and national self-destruction are not going to go away.  It is just a matter of time until they reach full-force in New Mexico's political community. If we can't agree on what we want as a political community, it seems unlikely we will negotiate the push and pull of of these forces with any kind of coherence at all.