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Sometimes things get lost in all the swirls of an election campaign. When I read that there were some "targeted' Senators in the election of 2008, and that absent that list was Senator Pete V. Domenici, I sensed the forming of a campaign of a sacred cow rather than a campaign on the course of the nation.Despite being at the core of the Republican rubber stamp Congress of Bush's first six years, and at the center of the Republican obstructionists to defining limitations on the President's war in Iraq , the Senior Senator from New Mexico has yet to engage in campaign calling him to account. His recent announcement that troop withdrawal beginnext March sounds rather hollow . It acts to postpone or defer what leadership need do --beginning with taking responsibility.
I guess we should remind ourselves that the Senator has a long history of being behind the war and aligned with those interests that defines war as another day in saving saving America from the enemy.
Back in 1972, long time incumbent Democratic Senator Clinton Anderson was retiring and the New Mexico "Fall" Senate seat had no incumbent running for the first time since 1948. Pete Domenici had succeeded in Albuquerque circles and Republican politics and found a Senate candidacy which rolled in a crest of Nixon's national referendum on the war in Vietnam.
Back then speaking about bombing the Vietnamese into the stone age as a measure to bring them to the peace table was a commonplace in republican circles as the need to get government off the backs of small businesses and restore law and order to the streets of America, in the demonstrations in the Universities. Kids shot at places like Kent State had it coming. Translated it was if demonstrated against the war, you didn't love America.
And on that crest came the Senator to Washington.
In 1978 Senator Domenici was reelected. He had kept up on contacts and a vitality of incumbency in the Senate. Republican numbers in the post Watergate era diminished. But there was a republican resurgence, in the backlash of the perceived inadequacies of the Carter ( Democratic ) administration and the growing "Reagan revolution". The rhetoric surrounded the continued need for the National labs and their work in nuclear deterrence to the Russian ballistic and nuclear threat. The institutional government of defense was often transposed as the priority and good of government, while programs such newly formed department of education or environmental protection agency were ridiculed as being overbearing, regulating public safety responsibilities from distant offices in Washington DC without knowing the people, air, lands and waters of NewMexico.
By 1984, crest of the 1972 Nixon coattail was next to nothing as the surge of a political coattail was wrapped in a Presidential re-election of Ronald Reagan . The campaign theme was the popular hit" I'm proud to Be an American >as proud as you can be. " and anyone attached was riding a momentum of America. And the two term Senator Reelection coincided that campaign and was riding high. He had efficiently maintain a constituent mechanism and with same party support, senior status in the senate and its Finances, it assured a core of support and federal financing in the defense aligned industries. The Russians were Still a real threat to the security of the world. All measures must be taken counter the threat-- including a certain acceptance to clandestine or covert operations.
By 1990 the iconic status of the Senator began to appear. The fall of the Russian sphere and the perceived victory over the threat of nuclear catastrophe between tow super powers all but assured reelection to a fourth term. And then the senior senator wasWas lauded with a Chairmanship as the Congress has changed powers. Combined with Presidential election of George W. Bush , the Senator from Mexico held a check of the greatest proportion for the President. Following the 2001 attack there was the reelection -- which was tantamount to supporting America in those hors of despair and injury.
And supporting 'patriot acts" that dismantle the civil liberties enjoyed by Americans.
And supporting Supreme court justices who hold narrow views in favor of elite interests Rather tan a public interest.
This campaign the Senator should answer as to whether that is the direction of America and New Mexico. For while the Senator has repeatedly assured funding and supplemental funding for the President's war in Iraq, the education of New Mexico's children continues to lag. The priority of the global war on terrorism hasn't raise the standard of high school graduates-- which statewide is just over 60 per cent. Nor has New Mexico moved from being 50th in terms of poverty, conditions which a powerful Finance chairman could have reversed if he was so inclined away from the war mongering and devils play of Iraq.
America needs a senate that holds the President accountable. Not one that obstructs the calamity of continued undefined mission. That the war is over there is not good enough.
Efforts against global terrorism cannot be meaningless sound bites surrounding a pattern of effect which assaults the fundamental workings of government.
International politics is a complex plethora of subjects. It cannot be simply maintained as a use of force-- or a subtle taking of the national resources of a sovereign nation.
America's character is not the belligerence and arrogance that the President and republican Senate have displayed. That character is far more a peaceful progress using ingenuity, technologies and forthright assistance. Liberation does not mean occupation.
Civil Liberties does not mean the individuals have no rights in society. New world order does not mean the demise of traditional institutions, such a family structure or religious values. There is a moderation at which one can be pro Arab, or Pro Israel, or pro English or Canadian or pro LANL or Sandia and still remain within the diversity and understanding at which the peaceful progress is made. It is sort of sacrifice of selfish interests and an ability to bear a mission to that of economic success and progress.
We get no such sacrifice or leadership . Just continued rhetoric draped in the flags of iconic America . The Senator should answer. And now is the time.
