Let’s face it, many or most LT Governorships are useless positions. He has little to gain by just staying there so I can’t blame him for taking this opportunity. Obviously he’s ambitious having run for Governor against the heavily favored Bill Richardson during his first and only term in the State House (the only general election he’s won on his own, he beat the sitting State House Speaker). You could could say he jumped the gun then.
He’s more conservative than her, but she’s not all that bad. Mildly pro-choice I think (for the partial birth ban) but otherwise about the same as Pete Domenici, the last GOP Senator. Obviously the choice is clear if abortion is one of your top issues.
Which is the stronger candidate I don’t know. Being Hispanic should help Sanchez win in November especially if the rats nominate their White candidate (Rep Heinrich) instead of their Hispanic one (Auditor Hector Balderas). But some people point to his landslide loss (albeit to the heavily favored Richardson) for Governor in 2002 and Wilson’s success for several terms in a swing district.
Based on some of his comments I think Sanchez has good leadership potential (if he had beaten Richarson and been reelected Governor he may have run for President). If I lived in NM I’d vote for him unless it was clear that Wilson had a markedly better chance of beating the rat.
Thanks, Impy. Good perspective.
Sure, John Sanchez is ambitious, perhaps even more so than your average politician, but I don’t think that it’s reason enough to oppose his candidacy. He is generally considered to be more conservative than Heather Wilson, and he may or may not be a better general-election candidate than Wilson; being Hispanic is a plus for him, as is his statewide name ID from his ill-fated gubernatorial campaign against Bill Richardson and his successful Lt. Gov. campaign on Gov. Susana Martinez’s ticket, but Wilson is the more experienced campaigner and has shown greater ability to attract a winning coalition in her swing Albuquerque congressional district.
As for Wilson, I would describe her as a moderate-to-conservative Republican, not much different, really, from Pete Domenici (as Impy mentioned). While she is not 100% pro-life, her House voting record on abortion can be fairly described as being 80% pro-life, straying from the right path only on votes dealing with (i) embryonic stem-cell research, (ii) the phony human-cloning ban that would allow cloning of embryos so long as they were for research, not implantation, purposes, (iii) funding for the UN Population Fund (which devotes a portion of its budget for “reproductive services”), and (iv) the “morning-after” pill. Wilson’s voting record on abortion-related issues can be found here: http://nchla.org/keyresults.asp?state=&locale=checkcongper&congper=Wilson&zip=&plusfour=&year=1997&year2=2009&issue=&terms=-1&bills=-1&vote=&displaysize=10&displaystarts=1&displaystarth=1&submit=Search+Key+Votes&displaystarth=61&displaystarth=1. Wilson appears to believe that human life does not begin at conception (fertilization of the ovum), but at implantation in the uterus, a position that I find abhorrent but that unfortunately appears to be shared by many politicians who are almost universally described as being pro-life, such as Orrin Hatch, John McCain, David Dreier, Jim Gerlach and Connie Mack. Heather Wilson is a bit to the left of those congressmen on abortion.
So who to support? Close call, and in the end it should be decided by NM’s Republican primary electorate. Right now, I’m leaning towards Sanchez, but if he doesn’t seem to be getting traction or if he acts foolishly on the campaign trail I’ll switch to Wilson. One thing that we can’t do is waste our golden opportunity to capture a Senate seat that has been in Democrat hands for the past 30 years and for 67 of the past 75 years.