Read Dennis Domrzalski’s piece on strong arm tactics Republicans use on their own. peace, mjh

Joe Carraro and others say they were threatened with smear jobs if they challenged Darren White for CD 1
Janice Arnold-Jones and Mark Boitano were told to forget running for Heather Wilson’s seat
Arnold-Jones is stunned by Republican smear tactics

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office is checking out allegations that state Sen. Joe Carraro, an Albuquerque Republican, was threatened with a vicious smear campaign—including threats bring up and 20-year-divorce case and attempts to embarrass his children—if he went through with his decision to seek his party’s nomination for the First Congressional District seat.

The AG’s office is analyzing information to see if it warrants a full-blown investigation, said office spokesman Phil Sisneros. …

Carraro, who says the threats amount to extortion, has also taken the allegations to the FBI. He says the feds should be involved because some of the threats involved a former state Republican Party official who now works in Texas.

“These people should be in jail the way they’re threatening people,” Carraro said.

Carraro, who is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Heather Wilson, isn’t the only one who said they were threatened by Republican Party insiders. …

“They threaten to spread rumors and all kinds of things. It’s smear tactics,” Carraro said.

Arnold-Jones said that she went to state Republican Party Chairman Alan Weh last October when she was considering a run for Wilson’s seat. She said Weh told her she should forget the run because she’d never be able to raise the necessary money. She also said she was told that the party had already decided that White was the party’s candidate.

“The Republican Party first started telling me that I couldn’t raise any money,” Arnold-Jones said. “Then there were veiled threats and phone calls to my daughter. I was told that if I pursued this they would go after my daughter. [mjh: WTF?]

“My daughter is at the university. She is young, 20-years-old, and pretty conservative, but not nearly conservative enough. I did get an e-mail that was apparently cut and pasted from somebody else’s e-mail, and it said that they wanted the chairman to explain why I was tearing the Republican Party apart and that if he didn’t control me I would have primary opposition. I was stunned.”

Arnold-Jones said she got five phone calls during the period urging her not to run. She met once with White, who also urged her not to get into the race.

“One phone call said that Darren was a formidable opponent and that it would go badly for me if I pursued this,” Arnold-Jones said. “There was a face-to-face conversation with someone who said that they would go after my daughter.”

Arnold-Jones did not name the people who allegedly threatened her.

f-brilliant: Republican Party Smear Jobs

[hat tip to Democracy for New Mexico]

Finally, some real blood on the floor between Wilson and Pearce. Bring it on! (peace,) mjh 

[From Heath Haussamen’s excellent blog:]

Heather Wilson is attacking Steve Pearce for claiming on Saturday that England is a bigger exporter of Islamic terrorists than any country in the Middle East.

It’s the latest spat in what has become a contentious GOP U.S. Senate primary.

“We must have a moral standard in this country. We cannot be a moral vacuum,” Pearce said at the Valencia County GOP convention on Saturday. “If we try to do that I will guarantee that the same thing will happen to us that happened in England. They export more radical Islamic terrorists today than any country in the Middle East. It’s because they said, ‘We can live in a moral vacuum.’” [mjh: Great Britain could not be reached to confirm this quote.]

You can listen to Pearce’s full speech by clicking here.

Wilson called on Pearce to justify his remarks or apologize to America’s closest ally in the war on terror.

“A U.S. senator can’t afford to offend our closest ally, particularly when he is wrong on the facts. Senators – and people who want to be senators – should not say irresponsible things like this,” Wilson said. “…Great Britain and the United States have had an unwavering, special relationship since World War II. We have a closer relationship with Britain than with any other ally in the War on Terror. To claim that Britain ‘exports’ more terrorists than the long list of countries that actively support and fund terrorism is incorrect and offensive.”

Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics: Wilson attacks Pearce for comments about England

New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan 

Darren White
It appears the campaign of ABQ GOP US House hopeful Darren White has figured out that calling for “victory” in Iraq is not the most persuasive argument to attract needed Democratic votes. When he announced his candidacy in October the Bernalillo County Sheriff had Dems jumping out of their chairs when he said: “Our troops must return in victory.” Not that there’s anything wrong with victory. It’s just that most voters in the moderate district don’t think of victory in the way White intimated. They want the war wound down, not up. It appears White’s campaign has recognized their blunder because in his most recent statement on his Web site the “V word” is gone with the wind.
In October the congressional hopeful said:
“Unfortunately, mistakes have been made by those in Washington. And the Iraqi government has not stepped up like they need to. They must be pushed harder…We all want to bring our troops home. And I will work to do just that. But our troops must return in victory, because Al Qaeda must be denied a sanctuary in Iraq…
Fast forward to February:
It is critical that we deny al-Qaeda a sanctuary in Iraq, which would only provide the terrorists a safe haven to launch attacks against America. Let’s also be honest, success in Iraq involves much more than military action alone. To bring our troops home, we must implement measures of accountability, both militarily and politically….”
The war has taken on renewed importance in the ABQ congressional race because probable GOP Prez nominee John McCain has said American troops could be stationed there for 100 years–a statement the Dems are sure to try to hang around the neck of White. Because the Sheriff is most identified with the public safety and the national security, any inroads the Dems could make on the issue could be unusually rewarding. White’s move to notch down the Iraq rhetoric seems to be recognition of that. It’s not only Dems watching. ABQ GOP State Senator Joe Carraro is also seeking the GOP nomination.

New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan

Republicans gather for Pre-Primary Convention

By: Bryan Gibel

Posted: 2/18/08

The polls may show Rep. Tom Udall beating his Republican opponents in New Mexico’s 2008 Senate race, but the party is working overtime to make sure that doesn’t happen.
About 1,000 Republicans met at the party’s Bernalillo County Pre-Primary Convention on Sunday, where they heard campaign speeches by Republican contenders for the November congressional elections.
Republican Party of New Mexico spokesman Scott Darnell said the stakes are high in the 2008 congressional races.
“The fact that we have three open House seats and one open Senate seat means that Republicans are going to be energized and will have a lot of choices to make before now and the primary,” he said. “They have excellent candidates in each race.”
Reps. Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce are running against each other in the Republican primary for the Senate seat being vacated by Pete Domenici, who will not run for re-election.
Wilson, who spoke at the convention, said she is the Republican with the best chance to make it to the Senate.
“It is up to the Republican Party to nominate a conservative who can beat Tom Udall in the race for the Senate,” she said. “They’ve thrown all kinds of polls at me, and yet I’ve shown I can win in a tough district again and again and again.”
She said she is stronger on issues of national defense than Pearce and voted to beef up New Mexico’s border protection while Pearce voted against it.
Wilson also said she has done more than any other candidate to support the military in New Mexico.
“Tom Udall brought forward a spending bill that would have cut 3,000 jobs from our national laboratories and devastated our ability to secure our nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile,” she said. “Steve, you voted to cut an extra $1.3 billion and thousands of more jobs from our nuclear deterrent. And to me, that defies common sense.”
Pearce said he is more conservative than Wilson and can do a better job than her rallying the party’s conservative base.
“I stand proudly as a conservative and say that my core values are my faith, family, my service and freedom,” he said. “In our hearts and souls, we must decide the moral basis for this country. I tell you that in that cultural struggle, we’re either going to choose rightly or wrongly, and our nation is going to ride on the outcome of that.”
Pearce said he polls well among conservative Hispanic voters because he has taken a strong stance against abortion.
He said he has also fought tax increases more aggressively than Wilson and has done a better job cutting waste on spending.
The differences between the two candidates are clear in their voting records, Pearce said.
“I am the only New Mexican in the delegation in Washington to vote against cloning and stem cell research on embryos,” he said. “I am the only member of the New Mexico delegation to support the (troop) surge (in Iraq) without exception. I believe that we must be on offense in the war on terror.”
Darnell said the convention Sunday chose 156 of the 437 total delegates for the Republican Party’s state pre-primary convention, which will be held March 15.
He said the convention will determine the ballot order for New Mexico’s Republican primary.
It will also indicate who will be the front runner for the party’s nomination for Senate, he said.
“The winner of the state convention will be on top of the ballot,” Darnell said. “That also has some media importance, because the winner is the candidate who obviously won the most support from the Republican Party’s activists and the party as a whole, which dictates what it means to be a Republican.”

Daily Lobo – Republicans gather for Pre-Primary Convention

– – –

New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan 

All eyes were on US Senate candidates Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce. Our GOP Alligators report there was some good news for each. Heather, teaming with ABQ GOP Congressional candidate Darren White who is seeking the seat she is giving up to pursue the Senate seat, scored a big win in the Bernalillo delegate count. Pearce was unable to dent her in her home base. Meanwhile, Pearce picked up more delegates than expected in neighboring, but much smaller Sandoval county.
The only poll we’ve seen is a mid-January survey that had Steve at 38% and Heather at 33%, but the poll’s margin of error was enough to make the race dead even. Wilson was acting like the underdog in her Sunday speech before several hundred GOP delegates at the ABQ Marriott. Wilson attacked Pearce for allegedly supporting the proposal to mothball Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis. The Pearce campaign points out there were high profile news releases showing the state’s entire congressional delegation supported converting Cannon to a new mission, and that’s what was approved. KOAT-TV news reported Pearce chose not to fire any volleys at Heather.
The ABQ US House primary between Sheriff White and ABQ GOP Senator Joe Carraro was also on the weekend agenda. White is perceived to have a wide lead. Talk at the Marriott was whether Carraro will be able to win the required 20% of the delegates at the March pre-primary to get on the June ballot.

New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan

Elephant Warfare 

According to a poll of 500 likely general election voters taken late last year and provided to SFR, Tom Udall leads Heather Wilson 52 percent to 36 percent with 12 percent undecided. In the same poll, Udall leads Steve Pearce 50 percent to 33 percent with 17 percent undecided.

Elephant Warfare