Gov.’s D.C. Liaison Calls It Quits: ‘I Missed Home’

The liaison for Gov. Susana Martinez in Washington, D.C., has stepped down from the post to return to his home in Clayton.

Brian Moore, a former state representative and Clayton grocery store owner, said he wanted to leave the capital bustle he frequently experienced while working with New Mexico’s congressional delegation and federal agencies on behalf of the governor.

Moore returned to New Mexico last week after working for Martinez in Washington since July 2011.

“I missed home,” Moore said told the Journal. “I’m an old guy. I’m 60 years old. There was a lot to do in D.C., but I’m from a little town. It was just time for me to come home.”

Martinez spokesman Greg Blair said the departure was Moore’s choice.

“Brian never intended to make D.C. a long-term home, and he took on the responsibility of heading the D.C. office in the first place to make sure this administration had the proper relationships established at the federal level so we could work with those contacts successfully over the course of the governor’s time in office,” Blair wrote Tuesday in an email.

Blair said the governor’s office has not hired a replacement in Washington. Instead, much of the federal liaison work now will be done from Martinez’s Roundhouse office in Santa Fe.

New GOP Team: The New Mexico Republican Party says it has new leadership on board.

That team is being headed by party Executive Director Mark Knoop, who has done Republican campaign work in South Carolina and Missouri.

Knoop replaces former GOP director Bryan Watkins, who left the party in February to join a media consulting firm.

Republicans also announced Iris Wilbur as the director of the 2012 New Mexico victory campaign for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Wilbur previously worked as deputy director of the Romney election effort in Kentucky.

New Mexico GOP Chairman Monty Newman said in a statement, “I am excited to have a great new team of professionals to make our ground game operational. It is time to turn New Mexico red and take on the Obama machine.”

Contact James Monteleone at jmonteleone@abqjournal.com.<br> — This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal