Yesterday, the governor's favorite blogger (Joe Monahan) announced that Albuquerque City Councilor Martin Heinrich was the Guv's pick to run against Congresswoman Heather Wilson. By this morning KOB, KRQE, and the Albuquerque Journal (Subscription Required) were all reporting the "report" by Joe Monahan.
Heinrich could be considered the darling of the left side of the Democratic party. He's young, well spoken and extremely, uh well... "progressive." He's the type of candidate that would be hard to beat in a Democratic primary. It makes perfect sense that the Guv would implicitly endorse Councilor Heinrich as Richardson is in the process of wooing the same group of "progressives" that Heinrich represents, for his (Vice) Presidential bid.
Democrats believe that Congresswoman Wilson is vulnerable because of her narrow victory over former AG Patricia Madrid. They also hope to stoke the David Iglesias non-story for the next year and a half, further weakening the congresswoman. What they have failed to calculate is that Wilson's victory over Madrid can also be seen as a sign of strength and even with the aid of Chuck Schumer and Joe Monahan (who seems to be able to make everything about David Iglesias) in the end, the David Iglesias story is a story about nothing.
Madrid also had a number of things that Councilor Heinrich does not. First, she had incredible name id. Second, she had no real legislative record that could be hung around her neck. Third, she was riding what turned out to be a wave of discontent with the Iraq war and Republican mismanagement of congress. Madrid failed, narrowly to be sure, but failed none the less.
Despite serving as city council president, Councilor Heinrich isn't well known outside of his district. We'd argue that half of his own constituents in District 6 would have a hard time naming him (not that it's that unusual for a city councilor). Councilor Heinrich also has a long legislative history of supporting things like the minimum wage and the use of condemnation to further his environmental goals (some of you make think that it's noble... we think it's a tyrannical abuse of governmental power).
Lastly, who knows what will happen in Washington or Iraq for that matter... The Democratic leadership seems determined to press the position of troop withdrawal and have tied their future to an anti-war position. This could easily backfire. Terrorist attacks at home, a nuclear Iran, or general instability in the Middle East could leave the Democrat leadership holding the bag. And if they don't succeed, they'll be held accountable by party leftists who are already unhappy that the troops haven't started "re-deploying" stateside.
Either way the DCCC and the Democrats are busy fighting the last election with a potential candidate that couldn't have won that one either. The only difference... 11 seconds. Heinrich will not be caught with his mouth open and nothing intelligible coming out.
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