During the noon hour today, Democratic Rep. Tom Udall (NM-03) formally announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate in New Mexico at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Salon Ortega was packed with supporters, local and national media and a slew of New Mexico politicos, as well as Tom's family -- his wife Jill Cooper Udall, his daughter Amanda Cooper and her husband Jim Noel, and his legendary dad Stewart Udall.
Below the fold are eight short video clips of parts of Udall's rousing speech from today's event.
Rep. Udall also reached out to local bloggers with a conference call this morning. He spent about an hour with us talking about his background, his reasons for running and what he wants to bring to the Senate. Then he took questions from us. (In my clip number 1, Udall mentions that he talked so much on the blogger call he got hoarse.)
In the call, Udall stressed that he would campaign in a positive mode and leave what he called "pandering," "political nastiness" and "appealing to people's fears" to others (we know who) -- tactics he said New Mexicans don't like and will see right through. Instead he said he intends to concentrate on discussing his positions on major issues including bringing our troops home from Iraq, FISA protections, Patriot Act revisions, reducing our carbon footprint, renewable energy development, restoring our constitutional and privacy rights, achieving universal health care and others. He said people are hungry for candidates and members of Congress to "speak out forcefully" and "tell it like it is" and he intends to do just that.
Udall had much more to say to bloggers, but I haven't had time yet to put it all together in a narraive. I'll be working on that tomorrow and will try to post the highlights.
In the meantime I thought Udall fans might enjoy seeing the vid clips. Not the best quality, as they were taken with a regular digital still camera, but I hope they're enjoyable all the same. We are psyched here in New Mexico! And he won't back down....