Pearce and Carson at San Felipe

The jousting between the camps of Michael Lujan Grisham and Steve Pearce is getting more intense as each passing day takes us closer to the November 6 election.

On Tuesday campaign kerfuffles broke out between the duo over a visit by a Trump cabinet secretary and the release of photos of Lujan Grisham partying in Puerto Rico at a luxury hotel while on a two day congressional fact finding tour last week to assess hurricane damage there.

The cabinet secretary in question is Ben Carson, head of HUD, who Pearce trotted out for a visit to San Felipe Pueblo to inspect low income housing and learn about pueblo culture, but the Dems called it a ”fake visit" and demanded to know why taxpayers dollars were being spent spent on what they asserted was an obvious campaign event.

Pearce did enjoy the pics that showed him with the African-American cabinet secretary taken amid the San Felipe community, groups that this GOP nominee believes he can appeal to more than those of the past.

MLG in Puerto Rico

Meanwhile, the R's acted like their summer lemonade was spiked with Puerto Rican rum as they relished photos of MLG having a drink with a fellow lawmaker and enjoying some dancing with with New York Representative Adriano Espaillait.

While the pics were innocuous (the campaign says she had one drink and paid for it herself) the R's felt they scored on the optics--MLG partying on an island gripped in a humanitarian crisis that Congress has oversight over isn't exactly what you would call a campaign photo op.

Ironically, R operatives were saying that MLG reminds them of outgoing and unpopular Governor Susana Martinez whose holiday pizza and drinking party a couple of years ago started her long downward polling descent. But Dems cackled that rather than a political hurricane, this was a tempest in the teapot. Former ABQ mayor Chavez weighed in on Facebook about MLG's trip which was also attended by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi:

Let's see, the day of work was done and she went downstairs for a drink with her colleague and someone asked her to dance. Not much of a scandal. The real scandal is Steve Pearce's slavish loyalty to Trump and his absolute disregard for the well-being of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the horrific hurricane. Nothing funny about that.

All of this is the prelude to the main event when the negative TV ads will start raining down like a nonstop monsoon, probably later this month. As Mayor Chavez might, say--nothing funny about that.

NOSTAGLIA CORNER

Call us nostalgic but ABQ today often seems like a city we don't recognize:

Mayor Keller unveiled a plan to clean up improperly disposed needles and syringes around the city. The new program, called SHARP – Safe Handling and Routing of Paraphernalia – is a coordinated effort among several city departments, along with Bernalillo County, to cut down on the number of improperly disposed sharps in public spaces.

And then the drugs lead to cases such as this over and over and over again:

An Albuquerque mother and her boyfriend who are facing child abuse charges in a case that left a 1-year-old boy in a medically induced coma will not await trial in jail, a judge ruled. Dahn Leidy, 24, and Florencio Mendoza, 35, were arrested last week on suspicion of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm and tampering with evidence. They will now be released with certain conditions they will have to follow. 

And, of course, once again CYFD:

The state Children, Youth and Families Department was investigating Leidy and her son at the time of alleged beating, Cabinet Secretary Monique Jacobson told the Journal last week. Police had been called to the home in early July when the child was found walking alone and without shoes, pants or a shirt at Leidy’s apartment complex.

Heaven help us if MLG or Pearce puts another political appointee in charge of the agency. Or we should say Heaven help the scores of endangered New Mexico kids.

FAST TRACK

After slowing down the decision making process for the state's sixth and final racino the state racing commission has quickly put it back on the fast-track:

The state Racing Commission, reversing a decision made just 11 days earlier, voted at a hastily called meeting Monday to restart the process of licensing a new horse track.The commission met in secret before setting a new deadline of Aug. 17 for applications for the racing license. “We did this because the commission decided to, plain and simple,” Commissioner Chairman Ray Willis told an attorney for four tracks when the lawyer asked why the commission was changing course.

You gotta love that line "because the commission decided to." This racino selection is up to a horse's neck in politics, with Gov. Martinez's administration appearing to want to make this decision before her term expires at the end of the year. All the groups that have applied for the racino have political connections to Martinez (primarily campaign contributions) so if she is trying to wire this deal (like the Downs at ABQ racino lease at the start of her term) she may have to make some friends mad.

This is the home of New Mexico politics.

E-mail your news and comments. (jmonahan@ix.netcom.com)

Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here.

(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2018