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Who will be Chair of the State GOP? Steve Pearce Sends Unusual Message to Republican Central Committee: Notable for What it Says and What it Does NOT Say. Questions that Central Committee Members Should Pose to Candidates. Moral Concerns Among Some Republicans.

12/04/2018

First things first: We don't have a dog in the fight for the Chairmanship of the Republican Party of New Mexico, to be decided this coming Saturday, December 8. We have described the situation faced by Republicans as akin to having a driver pop the steering wheel loose from the steering column as the car is headed over a cliff and handing it to his passenger while saying "Here, you take the wheel."

We are not sure there are any candidates who have a plan equal to the task before them. To have a say, to have a seat at the table, the Republican Party of New Mexico has to capture a net 12 seats in the State House of Representatives in an election that is only 23 months away.

Whoever the new driver might be, he or she is still facing a catastrophic situation, as we have described the calamity that hit New Mexico Republicans on November 6. The Party arguably faced its most devastating defeat since 1930. They lost everything, every single statewide office, all congressional offices, and an astonishing nine seats in the legislature. 

Such a remarkably thorough defeat of course took very careful planning. We described that exact planning in our November 8 and November 19 issues, as well as the small clique that carried it out, led by Harvey Yates, John Billingsley, Mark Murphy, and their hired help.

What we did not reveal, because we felt the pain and the raw feelings that we knew were present in the wake of such disappointment, was who it was who inspired the ridiculous effort to shove Governor Martinez aside, and to shove aside the three SuperPACs that had led to unprecedented GOP success.

A month has gone by now, and Republicans have had time to face reality. So we can go ahead and reveal the fact that the individual who is seen as inspiring that party division was in fact Steve Pearce. Ten years ago, Pearce, quite irrationally, blamed future Martinez associate Jay McCleskey for his landslide loss to Tom Udall in the 2008 US Senate race. Never mind that the election featured an Obama landslide over McCain and that no Republican could have won the senate seat that year.

[It has to be noted that the McCain landslide loss was far less overwhelming than Pearce's. In fact, Pearce holds the all-time New Mexico record for having the most votes cast against him in a contested statewide race: Udall received an astounding 505,128 votes to Pearce's 318,522.]

Pearce is among those candidate types who look for outside reasons for failure rather than engaging in introspection. And as such he was the perfect kind to inspire resentful types like the folks whose activities we have chronicled in great detail.

Now Pearce Wants to be Party Chair: Here are Some Questions That Should be Asked 

1. In the modern campaign era—the post-Citizens United era—what are you going to do to build the kind of SuperPACs through which Governor Martinez poured some $4 million in support of New Mexico Republicans, including the legislative candidates in 2012 and 2014?

2. What were you thinking when you backed a group of people who wanted to get Governor Martinez's team out of the way, and install a state Republican Party team that had no plan?

3. If your new team at the RPNM did not want Martinez's SuperPACs, why did they not replace them with their own SuperPACs?

4. What was your team thinking when they left incumbent Republican state representatives and other state representative candidates naked, exposed, and defenseless against the Democrat SuperPACs and their multi-million dollar onslaught of negative mail, radio, and TV?

5. Why should anyone have confidence that your same assortment of personal cronies will do any better in 2020 than they did in 2018? 

Of Course, Some of These Same Questions Must be Asked of All Candidates for Party Chair

Again, we don't have a horse in the race, and we would urge central committee members to ask every candidate these same questions. We are not sure any candidate has an understanding of the role of SuperPACs or independent expenditure committees in the modern era. Nor do we believe any candidate has a plan to re-establish what Governor Martinez had—what we described as the goose that was laying the golden eggs for New Mexico Republicans, but which a small cabal sought to kill.

Steve Pearce's Letter

Yesterday we got Pearce's letter which he sent to the RPNM Central Committee. It has some odd passages, including these:

"...I am asking you to share a new vision for our Party with me…”

This seems an odd request in that his team has always included the current RPNM leadership, including Yates and Cangiolosi. So replacing Cangiolosi with himself will result in a "new vision"? Maybe so, but it seems an odd thing to assert.

“…this year’s election was a disappointment…”

This is something approaching the understatement of the century thus far.

“I know there are others who will  want to run for leadership of the party but the big question is, how long will it take for them to develop the people and talent in every county?”

This is the first of several statements which makes it appear that Pearce's main goal is to perhaps go after his old seat in CD2—we are not criticizing that idea, Pearce could almost certainly defeat Torres Small in 2020, it's just that it seems he is saying he would use his organization as state chair to plan his comeback.

“I have been constantly "on the ground" in this state for the past 2 years and in the 2nd District for the last 16 years and have personally established a network of supporters and workers in every county. We have built a great organization and, yes — we are going to keep it going.”

This is the second statement that makes it appear his goal of becoming state party chair is to lay the groundwork for a comeback election to Congress.

"Looking at the raw numbers, I received more votes, with a total of nearly 300,000, than the winning candidate received to be elected Governor in 2014.”

This may be the most bizarre statement contained in the letter. Yes, Pearce got 298,091 votes this year, more than any candidate got in the 2014 election cycle which had a record low turnout. So what? Two Republican candidates for Court of Appeals, Steven G. French and Daniel Jose Gallegos, both got even more votes this year than Pearce got. Does that make them more viable statewide candidates than Pearce?

In 2016, Nora Espinoza, Judith Nakamura, and French all got more votes than the "winning candidate for Governor in 2014," (and much much more than Pearce got this year). What does that mean?

Pearce's reference to these figures borders on sounding kind of dumb. What is a candidate for State Chairman of a major political party doing picking random vote totals from random election years and trying to make some point with them? Anyone who knows anything about elections knows that what matters is how you do against your opponent in the year, and in the turnout universe you are running in. No one gets elected to office by saying "Oh, well, I got more votes than this guy who ran six years ago." People would look at such a candidate as if he had lost his mind. It's just not how elections work. 

The letter goes on with some boilerplate phrases, including all kinds of goals and objectives that make you wonder: if he couldn't accomplish these things he's talking about in the letter with the $5,000,000 he had this year, how is he going to do it with the $1,500 the state party had a month ago?

We don't know. And to be sure, for all we know Steve Pearce may be the best candidate for state party chair. Again, we're not picking sides. But we do believe the voters need to ask some tough questions, especially about fundraising—of Pearce and all the other candidates as well.

Finally, Some Other Moral Concerns People have Raised

We have heard from a number of Republicans and moderate Democrats who expressed concern about Pearce's "moral" approach to politics. A Doña Ana County voter told us, "Those Republican staffers who hated Martinez and who got involved in the stolen email scandals, actively worked down here to defeat Republican Party nominee for District Attorney Amy Orlando, just because she was a close friend of Governor Martinez. And Steve Pearce hires them? Hires them to be on his staff? That's wrong. It's immoral. That's why I couldn't vote for Steve."

Another Republican told us, "He deliberately hired people who leaked stolen emails and worked against Republicans just because he also personally dislikes Martinez. What kind of man does that?"

The names Anissa Ford and Andrea Goff have come up over and over again—from folks in Lea County, as well as Otero County. 

Readers also don't like the fact that there is extreme coziness between the Pearce team and anti-Republican blogger Joe Monahan. "All of that just looks like the national scene where there's a big swamp," said one Republican, "New Mexico has a swamp too, and Monahan, the Democrats, and Republicans who work with both of them are all part of our own swamp."

Our Take on Some of This

It has not gone unnoticed that Steve Pearce affects (and we are not in any way questioning his sincerity on this) some degree of piety in his speeches and in his communications with voters and fellow New Mexicans. In other words, he does openly and actively express the idea that he is someone of deep Christian faith. (Again, we don't question that, or his sincerity. In fact, where genuine, it is seen as a very positive thing.)

What is incongruent is not only the toleration of the immoral—but the active promotion of it. Several people have pointed out the extreme inconsistency involved in outward expressions of Christian morality on the one hand, while on the other hand aggressively pursuing people to hire who have willfully engaged in the most heinous crimes—including efforts to personally destroy people and destroy careers—just for the sake of political revenge or out of hatred. 

"A sincere, honest Christian just does not do those kinds of things," said one voter, "I just couldn't support that."

Whether these views are shared by very many Republicans, or whether they matter to them, or whether such actions will hurt Pearce, we have no idea. But these things have long been, and still are in the ether. We report. You decide.


Email us (at nmpj@dfn.com) with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas.


Intelligent Political Discourse—for the Thoughtful New Mexican

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2016 Presidential Campaign - Republicans

Jeb Bush gets religion.

"They said he got religion at the end, and I'm glad that he did."  — Tom T. Hall. The Year Clayton Delaney died.

Well, it's official.  Jeb Bush has changed quite of few of his positions on illegal immigration.  The single most significant is that he no longer endorses the "path to citizenship" for those who came here illegally. 

This is, after all, the key portion of any proposal aimed at "reforming" our existing illegal immigration situation.

No sensible citizen can see any point in trying to deport between 12 and 16 million people currently living in America illegally.  And no candidate for any office that we know of supports that.  What the average American wants is for the country to "get a handle on it."  They want it stopped, our borders secured and future illegal immigration prevented.  It is a national security issue.

The Path to Legal Status

The only way to accomplish the above goals, is to identify current illegal immigrants, get them accounted for, have them documented, and placed on a path to legal status.  Neither they nor their children or spouses should live in a state of fear or anxiety.

But a path to "citizenship" is not the right course.  It is not morally or legally correct.  A merciful and compassionate nation can provide the safeguards of legal status without sending the message to the rest of the world that all you have to do is cross our border and you will eventually get to become a citizen, thus circumventing the legal framework scores of millions of Americans have followed, honored and respected.

If someone who is granted legal status eventually wants to become a citizen, that person should have to return to his or her country of origin and wait in line like 20 million people around the world are doing at any given time.  Failing that, America will forever send the signal that anyone in the world can "jump the line," and that there is no reason at all to obey our immigration and naturalization laws.

We Like Jeb Bush

We are glad Jeb Bush has learned this lesson.  He is a fine speaker, and can eloquently explain his positions on complex issue.  If he were not named "Bush" he would be an actual top tier candidate—in all that that title would entail, including likelihood of acceptance and support of and from the American people in the primaries, and in any theoretical general election.  

We also recognize that he already is a de facto top-tier candidate because of his fame and his fundraising.

If he were to be the nominee of the Republican Party we would heartily support him and endorse him.  We hope, however, that he is not, as he does not give the center-right coalition the best chance of winning.

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    Selma   ????? We have now seen the Oscar-nominated movie Selma.   Our earlier allusion to criticism that sounded as though it was in an Oliver Stone category for historical fabrication is some...

Sports

Sports

The Major League Baseball Playoffs are not realistic, and destroy the actual meaning of the sport. 

Major League Baseball is unique in this respect—its postseason is markedly different from the way the game is played normally.  No other major league sport suffers from this flaw.

Not that much is wrong with baseball. In some respects it's the most well thought-out sport there is.  The "perfect game" many aficionados say.

But the Major League Baseball postseason experience is unique in the world of professional sports, and not in a good way. 

In fact the playoffs are flawed in such a way as to detract from the sport itself and diminish the game and what it means to be the world champion of the sport. 

Among the Big Four team sports of North America: football, hockey, basketball and baseball—and all the 122 professional major league teams competing in the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB respectively—it is in baseball alone that the postseason turns the sport itself on its head and makes it reflect something that it is not.  This article will explain why that happens and why it is wrong-headed.

 

Background on the The Frequency of Play

The 30 teams in both the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association teams play a very similar schedule.  On average, each team has a day off between games, sometimes two days off.  Though there are back-to-back games, they are relatively infrequent.  NBA teams play between 14 and 22 back-to-back games a season, and for the NHL it usually ranges between 9 and 19. The NFL has a full week between games, the exception being the new Thursday games that each team plays once, leaving them only four days' rest once a year.

But baseball players play every single day.  Ten days straight, then a day off, then seven more games, then a day off, then ten more games.  Typically a baseball team plays 27 games every 30 days.  For the NHL and NBA it would be 14 per month, and for the NFL the number would be 4.

 

Getting to the Playoffs:  It's a grind

In all four sports, getting to the postseason requires a total team effort—in fact an all-out total organizational effort.  Teams must be deep, have bench strength and the capability of moving players in and out of the lineup, and on and off the roster, who can take the place of key players who go down for an injury, or who have to miss games for whatever reason.  While this is true of the other three major sports as well, it is most certainly even more of a concern for baseball teams because of the sheer volume of games in which a team must field a competitive lineup.

Each league's regular season* is a marathon, not a sprint.  NFL teams play for 17 weeks, 16 games.  The NHL has an 82-game season over six months, paralleled by an NBA season of 84 games over the same timeframe. Baseball is the biggest marathon of all—a true test of resilience and endurance—162 games usually starting around the beginning of April and finishing about the end of September.

NHL teams carry 23-man rosters, of which 20 can be active for any particular game.  The NBA is similar, with 15-man rosters of which 13 can be on the bench for a given game. In the NFL, the teams have 53 players on a roster, but only 46 can suit up on game day.  In Major League Baseball, teams have a 25-man active roster, and all 25 are at the park every day.

 

The Postseason Playoffs:  Sport by Sport

The National Football League:

Of the 32 teams, 12 qualify for the playoffs.  The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season.  Each team plays once a week, the exception being that the four top teams get the first week off.  For a typical qualifier to reach the Super Bowl, the team must play three consecutive weeks.  At that point both remaining teams have two weeks off before the Super Bowl.

In short, the playoffs, with a game each week, reflects the same means of advancement as is present in regular season grind.

The National Hockey League: 

16 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason.  The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season: a game, a day off, a game, a day off, a game, a day off, and so on.  Just as in the regular season, there are occasionally two days off.  But the playoffs require the same stamina, the same approach as that required to make the playoffs.

 

The National Basketball Association

16 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason.  The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season: a game, a day off, a game, a day off, a game, a day off, and so on.  Just as in the regular season, there are occasionally two days off.  But the playoffs require the same stamina, the same approach as that required to make the playoffs.

Major League Baseball

10 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason.  (Although four of those teams qualify only for a one-game do-or-die play-in game.)

Here is where all similarity to baseball ends. 

Unlike the other three sports whose playoffs mirror the test of the regular season, and whose conditions are the same as the regular season, Major League Baseball playoffs in no way resemble the sport itself.  In hockey, basketball and football, the teams win playoff games and reach the pinacle of the sport in exactly the same way that they qualify to try to do so. 

Not so in baseball.  They are two entirely different concepts.  Teams make the playoffs only because they have depth, five-man pitching rotations and can play day-in and day-out at a high level.  But the baseball playoffs suddenly become a kind of "all-star" game within each team's roster.  MLB playoffs are conducted in a way that more closely follows the NBA and the NHL.  Teams have enormous numbers of days off. 

Here's the key point:  No Major League Baseball team could even qualify for the postseason if they played the same way during the regular season that they do in the playoffs.  None.

In the regular season Major League Baseball teams have to use a 5-man starting rotation, with pitchers pitching every 5th day.  There are not enough days off to have even a four-man rotation, let alone a team with three pitchers.  Even the best team in baseball using only a 4-man rotation, would wear them out, and most likely end up with a record of something like 66-96, or 70-92—and that would be if they were otherwise teh best team in the sport.

 

The 2014 Baseball Postseason is Typical

As examples, last year's World Series teams the Kansas City Royals played only 15 games in 30 days, and the San Francisco Giants played only 17 games in 30 days.  The 12 to 15 days off in the non-baseball fantasy world of the MLB postseason, means that teams can turn to three pitchers and give all of them plenty of rest.  But it isn't the way baseball really works.

At one point, the Royals had 5 consecutive days off, and the Giants had 4.  This never happens in the regular season.  Even the All-Star break is only three days.  Very rarely is there anything beyond a one-day break, and even that happens only a couple of times a month. 

What this means is that neither team used the team that got them to the playoffs.  (The NFL, NBA and NHL teams ALL used the very same teams that got them to the playoffs.) 

Baseball teams use a three-man pitching rotation in the playoffs.  Sometimes, they essentially opt for two pitchers only—conceding the likelihood that some of their games are going to be lost—when their third-, or rarely fourth-best pitcher has to face one of their opponents' two-man or three-man rotation members. 

Imagine an NFL team using only one running back and three wide receivers, instead of rotating through their roster in the course of a playoff game—or using only 4 defensive backs and 4 linebackers, instead of rotating 8 or 9 DBs and 6 or 7 linebackers?  In hockey, would a team use only two or three of their forward lines?  Would an NBA team use only the starting five?  They would never make the post season if they tried to present that product to their fans during the regular season.

Those are the equivalents of what Major League Baseball sets up every fall.  No other sport drags its playoffs out in such a way as to completely change the playing field—completely change the dynamics of its game.

Why Does Baseball Do This?

MLB does this because the TV networks want to drag out the games so that they can try to have one game each day  This requires an unnecessary staggering of games, and creates the phenomenon of 15 off-days in a month.

What about travel days?

What about them?  Baseball has travel days constantly.  A team may play in Chicago one day and in Miami the next, or in New York one day and Phoenix the very next day.  Travel days as a routine part of the game are again, a phenomenon of television, and stretching out the playoffs.

In years past, travel days were employed only when necessary. The famous "subway series" games were played on seven consecutive days.  Why?  Because there was no "travel day" required to go from Brooklyn to the Bronx.  Today, they would put in artificial travel days.

Even fairly long train trips didn't necessarily matter.  The 1948 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Braves was played in six consecutive days, October 6 & 7 in Boston, October 8, 9 & 10 in Cleveland, and October 11 back in Boston.

This reflects actual baseball, the way the teams play day-in and day-out, and the kind of unique test that baseball presents to its athletes, its managers and management, and to its fans.

In the modern world of charter planes, teams fly from coast to coast to play games on consecutive days.  The artificial "travel day" should be eliminated so that teams can play in the playoffs in the same way that got them there in the first place.


*All these leagues also have pre-seasons and training camps, which add an additional 6-8 weeks to each player's year.


Email us with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas. 

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