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Sunday, July 11, 2010
Political Legacy Weighs on Denish
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
Imagine you're in high school, desperately wanting people to like you, and you have to stand at the bus stop every morning with a guy who's majorly uncool.
Maybe he shakes kids down for their lunch money, or snaps girls' bra straps or hands out wedgies. How are you ever going to be named homecoming queen when everyone knows you're related to that mess?
Such a predicament used to be called "the Al Gore problem."
Gore has other problems right now (see "misbehavior, massage-related"), but remember back to Vice President Al Gore, vintage 2000, and the sour turn his political fortunes took. Instead of comfortably campaigning for president on the accomplishments of Bill Clinton's eight-year administration, Gore found himself trying to distance himself from a lame-duck president personally damaged by a sex scandal and impeachment.
What do you do when your record is linked to someone who's turned toxic?
Today in New Mexico, this is called "the Diane Denish problem."
Before leaping to the conclusion that your ornery columnist is pulling the driver out of her golf bag and teeing off on Bill Richardson again, let's remember that the governor is the first to recognize he's a liability to the lieutenant governor and has said so.
In an interview with the online news site Stateline, Richardson acknowledged Denish does not have the benefit of riding on a popular incumbent's coattails.
"She's going to have to separate herself from me, but define herself as a Democrat moving the state forward on the traditional Democratic issues of job creation, health care and education reform," Richardson said.
It was a sadly pragmatic statement from a once-popular incumbent who can apparently see the taint on his tenure.
Richardson's status is shared by incumbents nationwide in this throw-the-bums-out era. But it also has his personal stamp. His administration has been tarnished by pay-to-play investigations; he started looking wounded and marginal after he lost a seat in President Barack Obama's Cabinet; and his approval rating dropped to 44 percent and lower in recent polls.
Two years ago, Denish looked like she was sitting pretty — King Bill would pass her the baton, and she would easily become the heiress apparent to another eight years of a Democratic administration in Santa Fe.
If life were that predictable, it would barely be worth living. Instead, the economy tanked, Richardson is still around, and Denish and Republican Susana Martinez are in a neck-and-neck race.
Denish's task now is to persuade people she's not Bill Richardson without losing the benefits of incumbency. To call that difficult is like calling our skies blue.
Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, points out that New Mexico's lieutenant governor doesn't get to do much except wait around for the governor to die or get a better job (sad news for John Sanchez and Brian Colón, who would surely like to think of themselves as more than future cabana boys).
But that doesn't mean the caboose doesn't get blamed when the train runs off the track. "That's sort of standard for any incumbent," Atkeson says.
In Denish's favor: Unlike the vice president, who is named by a presidential nominee, New Mexico's lieutenant governor is picked independently by voters. Whatever she thought of Richardson or he of her, the No. 1 and No. 2 got stuck together by the voters.
Denish has never been shy about pointing out, sometimes with exasperation, that she is not one of the governor's employees.
But that's a distinction without a difference for many voters. Or at least that's what Martinez, the Republican hoping to hang her drapes at the Governor's Mansion, hopes.
Martinez's campaign mantra includes the phrases "good, loyal soldier," "corruption" and "failed administration," while Denish takes pains to stress her independence by repeating that she shares New Mexicans' frustration with the status quo.
In Martinez's favor: Atkeson says New Mexicans are unsettled by the recession, like other Americans. When voters are anxious, they are more likely to look for a place to transfer their displeasure, and that is often on whoever is in power.
What lessons might we in New Mexico in 2010 glean from the Gore/Clinton example in 2000?
First, that a term-limited politician who leaves office with a diminished reputation can be reborn. Clinton has found a comfortable perch as a globe-trotting elder statesman.
And, second, that the damage inflicted when you're tied to a tattered legacy can be fatal but doesn't have to be. Depending on how you look at it, Gore either won the presidency or lost it by a whisker.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Reach Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com.
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