Susana Barracuda: Does Bigger Stage Await Martinez?

Like Palin, Martinez was elected on an anti-corruption platform. Upon entering office, she took a page from the former Alaska governor’s playbook by putting up for sale the state-owned luxury jet that had become as much of a symbol of waste and abuse in Santa Fe as had the Juneau-based plane that Palin put on eBay four years earlier.

Mirroring her backer’s early legislative successes, Martinez has worked with adversaries in New Mexico’s state capitol, known locally as the Roundhouse, to build a budget surplus while keeping income taxes down. As a result, she has at times earned some of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country, just as her benefactor from the north once did.

And when it comes time for the 2016 Republican presidential nominee to consider potential running mates, Martinez is likely to be a strong contender -- if not the consensus early favorite -- to become the second female Republican vice-presidential nominee in the nation’s history.

But here in the Land of Enchantment, interviews with strategists, state legislators of both parties, and longtime observers of New Mexico politics highlight a unique challenge she will also confront, as the 2008 experience continues to linger over Republican presidential politics.

Sarah Palin’s blessing may have raised Martinez from relative obscurity within New Mexico politics, but the association with Palin these days threatens to keep her there instead of elevating her to the national stage.

“She looks great on paper, and that’s what the national operatives see,” Joe Monahan, who publishes a widely read blog about New Mexico politics, said of Martinez. “I think really the Achilles’ heel here that she has to overcome is that perception of being the Sarah Palin-type figure. The national political community is not going to risk that again.”

Hard to excerpt or provide a synopsis of this 4,100-word article. Starts off describing her relationship with Sarah Palin and tries to compare styles of governing. Then describes Susana's balance sheet during the past four years in office - one in which both branches of the NM legislature are controlled by staunch Democrats.

Her main failure has been in trying to reform NM's dismal education performance with teacher evaluations, merit pay and other changes all of which are opposed by the teacher's unions and their backers in the Legislature. Her education secretary has never received confirmation despite having received numerous hearings, but neither has her appointment been voted down.

The other failure is her yearly attempt to convince the legislature to repeal the Richardson-era law giving illegal aliens driver's licenses. One year it did pass one branch but was denied in the other.

Though NM's economy generally is barely breathing, the bright spot has been the oil and natural gas industry which provides the lion's share of money for education and the general fund. What has helped that industry remain robust are her replacements to state environmental boards and commissions which were formerly staffed by radical environmentalists appointed by her predecessor, Bill Richardson. The current Environment Department head wants to work with industry rather than continue to strangle them with ever increasing regulations. Of course that continually incites the Santa Fe tree-huggers who take every chance to let their supporters know when a public hearing is scheduled on a rule change or permit opposed by them.

But her attempts to make the state friendly to new business are shot down by legislators who would rather tax than give tax incentives to business, and seek to create more programs and spend money to help the poor.

Some minor problems, not of her own making, have to do with aides and former aides, and campaign funds from racino (racing/casino) applicants. These are being seized upon by her potential Democratic opponents but have not gained traction and pale in comparison to the "pay to play" articles about Richardson that ran almost daily in the local papers. However, Democrats, as they usually do, will exaggerate the charges or outright lie in the upcoming campaign and NM has lots of low-information voters. To counter this, especially among Hispanics with large extended families, she will show ads with children and families and talk about how education must be improved to give them a future chance in this technological world.

As far as national politics goes, she is staying out of the national spotlight, turning down interviews and the Sunday TV shows that would give her the appearance of being a national candidate in 2016. Her focus is her reelection this fall and maintaining her current popularity of 55% going into the election season.

She's not going anywhere outside NM:

Martinez: Will she or won’t she?

To the Journal at the same time she issued the same denial but for a different reason – care considerations for Lettie, her older sister in Las Cruces who is developmentally disabled: “The family has to be a consideration, and for me to take (my sister) to Washington would be to separate her from … the family that’s down there, and that would be devastating.”

~~snip~~

Earlier in the summer, Martinez made one of her strongest denials ever that she would relocate to Washington, D.C. Martinez told KRQE-TV that keeping Lettie in Las Cruces, where she is comfortable, is paramount: “I have to make sure that Lettie is happy,” she said. “Lettie is 56 years old, and if she lives for 20 years, Lettie and I will live here in the south for 20 years.”

She's not going anywhere outside NM.

Unfortunately CedarDave, you are probably correct. The GOP would resist because Martinez, unlike Jindal, Haley, Rubio, or Cruz, is a natural born citizen, and might break the protective dam of silence protecting both the Democrat and Republican party oligarchy, both of which are complicit in boycotting the Constitution to serve political ends. Obama told us he was born a British subject and naturalized, and the Democrats made the legal case many times between 2005 and 2007 that McCain was ineligible. Senate Bill 2678, Obama and McCaskill's "Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act" failed to pass in February 2008, and Obama-McCaskill-Leahy-Clinton' "Senator John McCain Natural Born Citizen Resolution", SR 511, April 2008, while signed by everyone, is a resolution carrying no legal authority. He needed SB 2678 to be submitted as an amendment, and passed, to be legal. Anyone who hasn't read the reasoning must wonder why Obama, McCaskill, Clinton, Menendez (who, with Conyers, Frank, Hatch, Rohrabacher, tried to amend Article II Section 1, several years before, all of seven of which failed to pass) would try to make McCain eligible if he was already?

Karl Rove and his CPAC crowd, Grover Norquist and his buddy, Suhail - "There is no Muslim Brotherhood in America" - Khan, were silent about Barack's alien father so Dems, though they failed or refused to turn their SB 2678 into an amendment to make McCain eligible, explained in SR 511, April 2008, why they withheld their previous certainty that McCain was ineligible; the Canal Zone was not sovereign territory until 1937, while McCain was born in 1936, but they thought McCain was nevertheless worthy. While I agree, they have to authority to reinterpret the Constitution. It is an amazing con job, which if we reverse the trend, and acknowledge the Constitution some day, will be honestly discussed. For now, most cover their asses with ignorance or lies, afraid of Alinsky ridicule - 'birther" - or afraid of the IRS.

Martinez would be a great president, does have experience actually managing a state, and has sterling character. Yes, she is Hispanic too, but her parents were citizens when she was born, and worked their behinds off to take advantage or our constitutional guarantee of individual sovereignty. Their allegiance is what our framers and 14th Amendment author John Bingham knew a parent usually passes to his children, and why our framers required that our presidents be natural born citizens, common law. Common law is what most commoners believe. There are not definitions in the Constitution because as Madison explained, definitions change over time. Terms in the Constitution are only meaningful when understood as our framers understood them. The definition used by John Jay and Washington in the 1787 Constitution was confirmed in 1875, Minor v. Happersett. Most citizens are natural born. The Republican leadership has, not surprisingly, with the aid of the state-run media, floated one naturalized citizen after another, because to admit their culpability would, or should, end the party, or at least its current leadership.

Her accomplishments and reforms are scant. Granted, she inherited a really messed up government from Richardson but in year four there should be some measurable success and I don't see it.

When the gun registration proposal came up last year, she said she would sign it.

Those are some major negatives in my book, and I'm not sure I would vote for her for a second term as Gov. for any reason other than to keep a Dem out (and I'm tired of feeling like I have to do that).

Senate maybe as a warm body with an R, but I fear the whip would have to be on her for every vote.

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