Winter weather is cold and politics can be colder. Decisions will be made without the input of progressives, unless we rise to the challenge.
At the grass roots level, policies adopted by state government are not abstractions. They have immediate and very real impact. What a concept, that people who really are progressive, capable and experienced at making public policy work should be leading state government.
Please pay attention to progressive activists as they bring efforts to your attention to try and deal with the realities on the ground in places other than Washington, D.C. They need your help most of all.
This is a You Tube video put together by volunteers, who attended a campaign event for progressive Democrat Jerry Ortiz y Pino who is running for the New Mexico Lieutenant Governor's slot. Diane Denish, the current officeholder, is running for Governor. Bill Richardson is at his term limit.
New Mexico Independent:
Ortiz y Pino says Progressives Need to Assert Themselves
One result of the recent Supreme Court decision on corporate donations: It is more imperative than ever to pay attention to who is getting funded well enough to plaster the landscape with advertising and to count that against candidates as suspicious behavior.
As a rule, the more money someone is spending, under apparent advice from conventional consultants, the more likely that is not a progressive, grassroots candidacy.
WHY SHOULD ANYONE CARE WHO THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF NEW MEXICO IS?
First of all, it matters if you want to see the progressive movement actually get anywhere.
This is hard core grass roots organizing. Networking. Talking person-to-person. Phone calling. The precinct conventions at which delegates are selected and that then vote for the Party nominee have already begun, leading to a statewide convention in March. The voters get to vote in the party primaries June 1 - but by then, the race will have mostly been set. That's early and quick. It will be over before most people are aware.
This is the problem progressives face everywhere. One might complain about the process. Indeed, it normally tends to favor insiders and people with money. But five people showing up, out of a possible pool of 2,000 registered Democratic voters in one precinct is usually a lot. 15 people could seem like a revolution.
Again: It should be especially obvious after the recent Supreme Court decision that there is not a substitute for human beings standing up for what they believe in. If there is to really be a progressive movement, then the mastery of the process has to be practiced at every opportunity, at every level and every possible race has to be won.
Jerry Ortiz y Pino came to politics after a long career as a professional social worker. In New Mexico, as in every other state, social workers are on the front lines of economic reality. Most of us hear stories on the TV news or from other sources. Social workers are there in situations of intense stress so they know the impact of budgets in a way that is matched probably by only police officers, or maybe cab drivers and beauticians.
As a State Senator, who serves on the state budget committee, Ortiz y Pino is right in the thick of it as the New Mexico legislative process unfolds in the current 30 day term. There is a large shortfall. There are serious proposals in the headlines about cutting teachers' pay. People on the state payroll face job loss. The social fabric is at risk, especially in a state with a lot of poverty whether in urban areas where unemployment is ravaging communities, or out in the rural areas where the economic atmosphere is always thinner.
For legislators deliberating on these issues, who do not have experience in dealing with the consequences of a deep recession the way they really come home to communities, these can tend to be abstractions. Worse, at least in some states, the Lt. Gov job is really a kind of Grand Poobah whose job role is generally not real obvious and who may just not be too motivated to promote progressive policy concerns.
The Lieutenant Governor's role has grown through the time that Diane Denish served in the office. New Mexico has a Mortgage Finance Bond authority, an effort to assist in low income housing unique to the state. The Lt. Governor oversees this office.
It is crucial that someone fulfull this office who has been involved before with the legislative budget process and with the on-the-ground realities outside the hothouse environment of politics or bureaucracy.
A lot of people have political ambition. Getting elected sometimes is a function of the ability to spend money on billboards and TV advertising. A lot of times Name ID generated through advertising is enough.
But in hard economic times, it shouldn't be.
Jerry, despite devoting a lot of time to being a State Senator, also writes a weekly column for a local alternative weekly in Albuquerque, the Alibi.
Here is a recent column:
Dropout Rate or Pushout Rate? Education Politics
You can search for more columns and letters to the editor reactions to them at www.alibi.com
Here's Where You Can Help Spread the Word As a progressives one thing you can do is to email your lists of friends and spread the word whenever there are progressive candidates like this who deserve attention.
Here is the Jerry Ortiz y Pino website which is still under development.