Jones staying in land commissioner race
Sandy Jones
Democratic Land Commissioner candidate Sandy Jones says he’s staying in the race even though he didn’t get 20 percent at the party’s preprimary nominating convention on Saturday.
“Literally two minutes after the results came in we were getting phone calls,” Jones said. “We’re in. We got inundated with people calling and telling us to make sure we stayed in.”
Jones said he’ll have the necessary signatures to stay in the race “in the next couple of days.”
Ray Powell easily won the land commissioner vote at the convention, winning the support of 44.43 percent of delegates. Harry Montoya came in second at 19.32 percent, while Jones finished third at 18.64 percent and Mike Anaya came in fourth at 17.61 percent.
By law, those who fail to get 20 percent at the convention have to collect twice as many signatures as those who do get 20 percent if they want to appear on the ballot. And no candidate who has failed the organizational test of getting 20 percent at the convention has gone on to win the primary.
Jones doesn’t sound intimidated by that fact, pointing out that Powell won the Democratic Party’s convention in 2006 and went on to lose the land commissioner primary to Jim Baca.
“A lot of the calls that we got last night, not many people thought Ray could win this thing,” Jones said. “There are people who weren’t really actively supporting us (before) who climbed on board last night.”
Montoya and Anaya haven’t yet announced their plans.
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Got dirty hands? Look out this fall. Voters are getting cranky about corruption and sliminess (Cryin’ shame, I know..)
Pat Lyons & Sandy Jones want to pull a nifty job switcheroo so they can both keep wallowing in the bipartisan cesspool! Dems are too dumb to toss incumbent “madam” Mary Herrera so look for a Republican landslide in the Secretary of State race. The GOP should mop the floors with in-office Dems this year, but there’s a little glass house problem with the (how do I put this delicately/) “ethically challenged” Lyons. Hard to run against slimeball Dems on the PRC when you’ve been the greased pig at the picnic all these years. Powell might not be too exciting, but that could be the the ticket for 2010 — never a whiff of corruption about him (we have GOT to work on that boy if he gets back in).
Sandy Jones is the only candidate that can raise money with the republican and need to stay in the race Ray Powell time has come and went, he did beat Jim Baca 73% to 24% in the democratic convention four year ago then Baca beat him in the prime. but lost to Lyons in the general. We are supporting Jones in this race .
Here is an interesting factoid: No candidate, who has failed to get 20 percent at a preprimary convention, has ever won the June primary. However, that $90,000 salary for Land Commissioner is attractive.
Politica, you are joking, right? First of all, the Republicans need only say “PRC” and Sandy Jones starts hemorrhaging voters.
That, however, is not the point. Ray Powell can’t win the general? You seem to have a very poor grasp of both history and math. Did you, perhaps, move to New Mexico in 2003 or later? Ray hasn’t lost a general election in his life, and he won his last general for Land by the largest margin EVER. As for the 2006 primary, there are reasons that Ray didn’t campaign for that race, none of which are valid any longer. Your point about Southern New Mexico isn’t valid, as Ray has a historically large following in Southern New Mexico, and as for helping Harry Teague, it would be a fascinating and unprecedented reverse-coat-tail effect for a Land race to somehow help a Congressional race.
Ray wins all the typical Democratic strong-holds and demos (something Sandy can’t say), and he also plays well with moderate Republicans (what’s left of them), independents, and ranchers (a typically Republican group of voters).
Matt Rush, by contrast, can only carry conservative Republicans and the oil folks. Will he spend a lot of money? Of course. Can Ray beat him? Handily. Saying that 56% of the Party faithful voted AGAINST someone just because they voted FOR one of three other candidates – NONE of whom qualified for the ballot – is both nonsensical and misleading. What on Earth makes you think that none of those people will vote for Ray instead?
Hemingway, we can’t keep putting Powell up as our candidate time and again. He can’t win the general!
We HAVE to support Sandy Jones in this. He is the only democrat who can take on the republicans in this race. He is the only one from southern New Mexico which helps Harry Teague. Matt Rush from the republican ticket will chew up Ray Powell and spit him out. The results from the convention show that 56% of Democrats at the convention voted AGAINST Powell. We will lose this seat if Powell comes out of the primary.
Ray Powell is an outstanding candidate for Land Commissioner – so experienced. He will finally bring sanity and reform to the State Land Office! I don’t think Mr. Jones has a clue about the workings of the State Land Office. It is time for Democrats to unite behind Mr. Powell to ensure victory in November.