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Scrutinizing candidates’ pasts is important
Heath Haussamen
Policy issues are critical, and NMPolitics.net will keep devoting resources to telling you about candidates’ positions. But it’s also important to scrutinize issues like Eric Griego’s arrest warrants and Marty Chávez’s relationship with a woman under indictment.
Democratic 1st Congressional District candidate Eric Griego’s campaign manager recently told NMPolitics.net that Griego’s past traffic problems – which include a drunken driving conviction and a number of arrest warrants for failing to appear in court – aren’t important.
“Thousands of New Mexicans are looking for jobs and worried about who’s going to fight to protect their Social Security and Medicare, and our opponents’ biggest concern is 10-year-old traffic tickets,” Yoon said. “This is what’s wrong with Washington, and why New Mexicans are rallying behind Eric Griego, because he is the one Democrat in this race who would rather talk about the issues that are important to the voters.”
That sounds pretty similar to what Griego opponent Marty Chávez’s campaign manager, Alan Packman, told NMPolitics.net in March in response to questions about his relationship with a woman who is under indictment:
“Marty believes that candidates should be focused on all of the pressing issues facing New Mexican families right now – like rebuilding our economy – and not concerning themselves with making negative, personal attacks,” he said.
I’ve got news for all candidates: Your backgrounds are important. How you handle difficult situations speaks to the type of leader you are. Character matters.
That’s why I spent so much time working on articles on the U.S. Senate candidate’s backgrounds. I hope those articles help New Mexicans understand who the candidates are and how they became those people. I wish I had found time before the primary to put the same level of work into telling the 1st District candidates’ stories.
The fact that backgrounds matter is why NMPolitics.net looked into 1st District Democratic candidate Michelle Lujan Grisham’s past as state health secretary and how she dealt with problems at Ft. Bayard Medical Center. And it’s why Griego’s traffic problems and Chávez’s relationship are relevant.
Issues that needed exploring
I don’t consider one DWI newsworthy, unless there’s something highly unusual about it. Neither are a handful of traffic tickets. What’s interesting in Griego’s case is the pattern of problems that includes his repeated failure to deal with simple traffic citations before judges issued warrants for his arrest.
Griego disclosed the issues in a 2005 Albuquerque Journal questionnaire, saying, “due to family issues, including my mother’s death, I missed traffic school for speeding tickets.” Fine. But it happened again after that. Why? These are fair issues to explore, especially for someone who writes and votes on laws in Santa Fe and wants to go do the same thing in Washington.
Chávez may be nothing more than a victim of circumstance, but his relationship with a woman under indictment in a massive hospital-fraud case still required scrutiny. Among the obvious questions were whether Chávez has been implicated in the alleged crimes in any way (he has not), whether he knew anything about the situation (he says he did not), and whether he might have profited from her alleged embezzlement, through campaign contributions, living expenses or otherwise.
Loretta Mares has donated $5,000 to Chávez’s campaign. Given that she’s alleged to have embezzled a great deal of money, the question about whether Chávez planned to keep the money was a fair one to ask. His campaign manager told NMPolitics.net he’ll donate it to charity if she’s convicted.
Policy issues aren’t all that’s important
NMPolitics.net has scrutinized these issues not because I or we are trying to sway your vote to or away from a particular candidate, but because our role is to help you make informed decisions. Those decisions are your own.
Two people honestly trying to find their candidate could learn about Griego’s past traffic problems, for example, and be divided on whether to vote for him, with one saying he would be the best champion for the people in spite of those issues and the other opting for another candidate because he’s concerned that Griego didn’t deal with his citations until judges issued warrants to force him to do so.
That’s democracy. We all decide who to vote for based on our own prioritizing of what’s important.
Policy issues are critical. It’s why NMPolitics.net has devoted resources to asking some of the most specific, detailed questions of these candidates that any journalist has posed throughout the campaign.
But policy issues aren’t all that’s important. NMPolitics.net will keep working to give you a more complete understanding of the candidates in the future.
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Character is not actions. Character is something that is inferred or somehow derived from observed actions. Character is meaningless – but actions are meaningful.
Consider Heather Wilson. She’s brave, loyal, intelligent, hard working, and for all I know she’s kind to animals. All of those are attributes of character. But do they tell you how she would vote on a bill that, for example, increased taxes on the carried interest earned by hedge fund managers?
But say you look at her actual voting record, and discovered that (hypothetically) in 100% of the instances where her vote mattered, she voted to reduce taxes on people who make over $250k per year, and never ever once voted to increase taxes on that group. Those are actions, not character. And that would tell you a lot about how she’s likely to vote in the future.
Heath has been wasting his (and our) time with these articles on character.
I hope those articles help New Mexicans understand who the candidates are and how they became those people.
Stories, narratives, are great. Everyone likes stories. Politicians like to tell stories. Audiences like to hear stories. Titanic, the movie, was a great story and people loved it. The Just-So stories were great, and people love them. The Horatio Alger stories were wonderful, and people loved them. Stories always have characters, and character often drives stories, and everyone loves great characters in great stories.
But I’ll tell you a secret: Stories are just stories. They aren’t facts, they aren’t true, they’re just stories.
So Heath repeated Heather Wilson’s great story, a story about strength, and perseverance, and all those other important attributes of character. But it’s just a story. It doesn’t tell you a thing about whether she’ll vote in favor of things that make this country better, and whether she’ll vote against things that make this country a worse place.
Only by looking at how she has actually acted when faced with deciding whether to vote for or against actual bills can we get some glimpse of how she’ll vote on similar bills in the future. If you think that because she’s a wonderful person with a wonderful story that she’ll always vote for things that make this country better – well, if you think that, you’re wrong.
Look at LBJ. By all accounts he was a real S.O.B. A bully, a cheat, and a nasty person all around. And yet, he pushed through major civil rights legislation that made the country better.
Look at George W Bush. A nice guy, by all accounts. Pulled himself out of an alcohol addiction, family man, religious. Likeable. And yet he conspired to commit murder, torture, and other war crimes, invaded one country on the basis of what he should have known were lies, invaded another country and then lost interest halfway through, and generally made the country a whole lot worse.
When EW-aif is talking about Martinez below s/he is talking about specific actions related to specific legislation. I’d say that’s not an argument about character, but an argument about how she’s likely to act in the future in similar circumstances – that she’s likely to try to take credit for others’ legislative achievements.
So character is nonsense – you have to look at actual actions in the same (or very very similar) recent circumstances.
‘nother topic:
J, I’m sorry that you have trouble with reading comprehension. Perhaps that’s because you’ve co-authored papers on artic ice cores as well as having done graduate work in economics, and are a true and real scientist (by your own claims). I’m just a plain spoken fellow.
IP, the rest of that post reminded me of lawyer babble
IP, it depends on what you think “mean” means. Like “character” it is just a matter of opinion and thus not important, right? Lazy people use it so as not to have to think.
Dr. J:
I’ll take that to mean I’m correct; you really don’t bother to read what you attempt to reply to.
IP, the rest of that post reminded me of lawyer babble, lots of words with no point, it depends on what you think “is” is.. I can only respond to what is intelligible.
The character that matters to me is that displayed in the public sector.
Let us look at Governor Martinez’ claims about the Baby Brianna bill during her gubernatorial campaign (approximately September 2010). From her TV ad, it would appear that she single-handedly created that bill and got it passed. The truth is that Democratic senator Mary Jane Garcia of Las Cruces introduced SB 166. Democratic representatives Joseph Cervantes and Ken Martinez (no relation to Susanna) pushed it through, and Democratic governor Richardson signed it into law.
Martinez was one of many who worked on the bill, like unsung donor Edgar Lopez, who paid to rent the busses that took Las Cruces citizens to Santa Fe to lobby for it.
In her TV ad, she COULD have emphasized the teamwork that led to the bill’s success. She COULD have promised that as governor she would work with all New Mexicans, regardless of party affiliation, to keep our children safe. It speaks to her character that this did not occur to her.
Dr. J:
Do you just read the first couple of lines of posts of people you’ve already decided to disagree with, create entire fake positions around the few statements you bothered to read, and then argue with those instead? I only ask this question because this is hardly the first time that you’ve come to a conclusion about someone’s position that you could not possibly have reached if you had read the entirety of the post you were responding to.
w, I was just quoting what Mr. Schneider, a self confessed liberal, said here:
““charactter” is nonsense
Character mattersNo it doesn’t. Chracter tells you very little about how a person is going to act in the future, nor does past action tell you very much about some atemporal, vaguely defined attribute called “character”.”
I take it you disagree with Mr. Schneider, as do i. character matters, as does science. But some liberals disagree with us, I think character and past actions are good predictors of future actions and attitudes, people do not change frequently or easily, it takes significant problems and insights for people to change, just look at all the almost lifelong addicts of various things from drugs to adultery. As for somehow changing the political world to make politicians and our fellow citizens non-partisan, objective, and serving all citizens equally, well that is far beyond my pay grade. I can work on myself, but no one else, I am not my brother’s keeper, as Obama says he is, and isn’t of course, no one is. And of course even if I change, that will do nothing for the millions of others. It is not in my hands.
True, to liberals character doesn’t matter, nor does science, only politics matters and pleasing the left wing base and winning at any cost, that cost usually supplied by the left wing special interest groups to buy the electorate.
Dr. J; Your definition of a liberal does not fit this “liberal.” Your definition is a political one and could easily apply to conservatives by replacing liberal with conservative and left wing with right wing.
Character does matter, not as a predictor of future behavior unless one uses lifes’ lessons to change ones behavior and one who is willing to share those experiences and behavior changes with others. People seeking the trust of others, which is what political candidates are asking of voters, would do well to exhibit character traits of honesty and trustworthiness when requesting our trust in them to be our elected representatives.
As for science mattering, data and information derived from sound scientific research subject to the scientific method of investigation and the highest of ethical principle’s is very important in my view and should be the foundation of all policy making. I suspect that your life experience as has mine has suffered some frustration in trying to interject “good” science into policy making.
My question is, when do we who believe in data, information, facts, truth, honesty, and trustworthiness get past the political finger pointing and demand the attributes from ourselves, our elected officials, and our fellow citizens in developing and operating our government system that serves all citizens with equality?
When a person is running for public office, I believe it is very important to know their criminal and civil court histories. I think voters deserve to know if a person has a drinking, drug or psychological problem which is reflected in such histories. I also believe if a person who is constantly in court over some issue or another whether it be bankruptcy, a suit for non payment of debt, IRS problems, liable, slander, fraud, extortion, filing false police reports, harrassment, etc… the voters who they seek should be aware and knowledgeable of this lest they end up with a hood in office. And this is especially true if the person has a pattern of such history. I highly recommend http://www.nmcourts.com and http://www.nmpolitics.net as a reference point. http://www.google.com is also a valuable tool as many news articles can be found in regard to political candidates’ track records.
For gays and lesbians it is also interesting to know about a political candidate’s marriage history(s), just as it would be for minorities to know if a candidate has a history of bigotry, racism, or hate of any sort. If a candidate might end up in an Office were accounting is a primary responsibility, it would be important to know if the individual has a problem with accountability and debt. So too would it be a concerning if a candidate’s future responsibility included vote counting but is already known to have a history of lying. Look at recent past New Mexico Secretaries of State, who now would want them to have access to voting machines and vote tabulations?
Furthermore, would any one want to elect an individual who has been charged with cruelty to an animal? What about theft? Forgery? Yes, civil and criminal histories do reflect a person’s character and it does give insight for voters to consider when they elect someone to represent them. I think it is also important to know how the candidate was punished for the crime(s) committed, for if a candidate was allowed to skate it is highly likely the candidate will re commit crime and that is another reason to look at the candidate’s pattern of behaviour.
Excellent blog Mr. Haussamen. you certainly benefit the voters and citizenry in your truthful commentaries and extraordinary coverage of the news.
True, to liberals character doesn’t matter, nor does science, only politics matters and pleasing the left wing base and winning at any cost, that cost usually supplied by the left wing special interest groups to buy the electorate.
“charactter” is nonsense
Character matters.
No it doesn’t. Chracter tells you very little about how a person is going to act in the future, nor does past action tell you very much about some atemporal, vaguely defined attribute called “character”.
Lazy people like to talk, and to think, in terms of character because it’s easy. There’s no logic necessary, you don’t actually have to understand anything, you don’t need any facts, you don’t have to have explicit theories – you can just run off your mouth repeating prejudices.
Kahneman talked about this at length in his recent book “Thinking Fast and Slow”, and he’s right. Character is what you talk about when you don’t want to actually learn enough economics to know that DrJ is wrong when he says “[student loans] can’t add to the monstrous debt we already have”. It’s what you talk about when you think that the following makes sense: if we call greenhouse gases “Tyndall gasses” then global warming won’t cause droughts in the SW. It’s what you talk aboiut when you think that someone saying ‘the american economy is like a family, and we all have to tighten our belts’ is not utter nonsense. It’s for people who like arguments from authority, who like inapt but simple analogies, who believe that common sense is better than all that fancy book learning stuff. People who find thinking to be too much trouble.
Character is easy for lazy people to talk about, because there’s no correct or incorrect. Everyone’s opinion about character is as good as everyone else’s. Unlike global warming, or economics, or education, or city planning and transportation, you don’t actually have to do any diificult thinking. Thinking is hard. So to avoid thinking people talk about haracter.
Welcome to the triumph of the lazy electorate.
I didn’t think this issue of traffic tickets would have such long legs, but since it does, I will mention state senator Rod Adair, who got several speeding tickets WHILE he was in office (he has resigned and will be out of the state senate at the end of the year). He too neglected to pay tickets, and it made the news, at least in the Roswell Daily Record, when the police actually came to his door to arrest him. I don’t remember whether they handcuffed him or not, but I do remember that he was doing 85 in a 55 mph zone.
Didn’t seem to faze anyone….
Public officials need to be vetted and their past behaviors exposed so that we can gauge their qualifications and abilities for public office. But some of Mr. Foley’s points are valid regarding certain news outlets in the state.They often act like judge and jury, attacking their targets without mercy and ruining lives. Yet they go on with little or no accountability.
Heath has maintained the highest level of credibility in his reporting than any other NM political blogger. That’s why I read Heath’s column every morning. Unlike Joe Monahan who uses so called “alligators”, and who doesn’t provide for reader feedback except through emails, Heath openly allows readers to debate and present their views (like Mr. Foley did today.)
In any event, NM Politics.net is the best around!
Heath I agree you are doing a good job I disagree that people are able to hold the networks accountable since they are given a pass from te government that allows them to have an artificial worth. I can’t go and bid the Super Bowl or NBA Finals or NASCAR unless I get a license from the Government and approval to start my own airwaves. Sure I can start my own Blog but once I post something on that blog and it is used by someone as a “Third Party Impartial Source” it is hard to dispute that in such a short window. Tell me how you would suggest a person take on say KRQE and Larry Barker or The ABQ Journal? It would cost a large sum of money and if you are a person running for office your time and resources are better spent trying to get elected. So my point is they have protections built in by the Government bestowed license they were granted and the fact that people just believe they are telling the truth. I beleive it isn’t going to change until media folks take on the bad media folks themselves! When folks like you hold that worthless blogger accountable it allows people to call him into question and protect themselves and their reputation.
So my point is I believe it is equally impotant for media types to police themselves and issue articles calling into question bad reporting or false stories just like they should bad bills or stupid spending. Thanks for what you write, I don’t always agree with you but you are fair and work hard to get to the bottom of a story.
Griego wants to live by his own set of rules.
“It is important that th people who make the law be subject to the law. People who are not subject to the laws will make harsh laws because they don’t have to live with them. Having the people who make the law be fully covered by the law is a safeguard against unfairness. Well that’s a fundamental principal on which our democracy was in part built.” Representative Barney Frank
Hypocrisy is a term that accurately describes Griego. He wants to make rules, but he wants to live by his own set of rules. I do not believe he is a stupid man, so he must learn from his mistakes. We need to know what he learned from his DWI. He obviously did not learn that traffic laws exist to protect people on the road and can do so only if we all follow them. What did he learn after he received his first warrant or the warrants he received when he served on the City Council? What did he lean after his 5th, 6th, or 12th warrant?
Griego also claims to be a champion of change when it comes to campaign finance laws. He has even made it part of his platform in this election. He is a vocal opponent to Citizens United, but he will not ask Progressive Kick to stay out of the primary. He is complicit with unlimited money in campaigns if he is the beneficiary. He demands from others what he refuses to do.
There is a pattern of practice and the more people are exposed to his hypocrisy, the less they are likely to vote for him.
I never thought I would say this, but Dan Foley I agree with you. When a “newspaper” prints and Op-Ed up front above the fold is it still a newspaper or did it turn into a tabloid? Journalism has gone to crap in this country, editorial boards are more interested in being an agent of change than reporting the facts.
Health, keep up the journalism, you are one of the last resources we have in this state.
Mr. Griego is the ideal candidate for Congress. He can join a long list of members of Congress who have numerous traffic tickets.
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_101/Parking-Tickets-Members-Congress-204386-1.html
If elected to Congress, he will have immunity for DC traffic violations.
Heath,
Well said. Character matters. How can we trust anyone to do what they say they are going to do if the questions raised are not honestly answered.
It is really amazing that no one is looking at the relationship between the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool and Ms. Grisham’s Delta Consulting Group – it is a lucrative business. The contract supposedly went thru a competitive RFP process. See attached:
http://www.hsd.state.nm.us/pdf/hcr/A%20New%20Mexico%20Response%20to%20HRP%20Solicitation.pdf
It is complex but deserves the highest scrutiny!
I don’t disagree, D Foley… I think the American public is holding those media outlets up to scrutiny right now with its distrust and money – or lack of money – spent to subscribe to newspapers.
As for me, I try to be as transparent as possible, disclosing my donors, publicly listing advertising rates so you know how much candidates are paying, and posting an ethics policy that makes clear the standards for this site. More media outlets should do that, IMHO.
Heath I ask this question not because I am insinuating there is something wrong with you or your background, I want to make that clear. Who will scrutinize the ones asking the questions or doing the scrutinizing? We continue to see how quick a story or a post can become part of a mailer or TV ad yet there seems to be a puch back when it comes to asking about those asking the questions? There is a certain blogger who depends on “alligators” ior refuses to tell you he is actually on the payroll of certain candidates? How about the media folks who are raising money for candidates or supporting certain candidates. How about the “gotcha” reporter who runs loose with the facts or twists his story to make it look you have done something wrong? How about the Editorial Board of a news paper that takes a stance in a campaign and then their endorsement is backed up by weeks of front page news headlines that turn out to be false and they refuse to apologize or correct those headlines?
Heath I agree that the background of a candidate should be looked into but I also feel like the folks doing the “looking” should be held to the very same standard they are trying to impose on the individual running for office. Just a thought.