Editorial: Colón's caucus debacle

The New Mexican 2/16/2008 - 2/16/08 The bathos is complete: New Mexicans watching the Brian Colón show on television Thursday afternoon couldn't help feel queasy as the besieged Democratic chairman arrived more than half an hour late for the press conference announcing — at long last — the results of this state's Feb. 5 presidential caucus. Spiffed out in patriotic colors and sunglasses, the Albuquerque lawyer lost no time antagonizing reporters, then launching into wisecracks worthy of a second-rate awards presentation — until he went third class, maundering about the number of caucus volunteers and confusing the term "score" with "gross," both immaterial to the topic at hand: telling New Mexico and the rest of the nation who won the caucus that took place nine days earlier in our lightly populated state. Our Dems were last in the nation to tally the results — owing to abysmal guessing about turnout atop poor party organization and execution. When finally we found out that Hillary Clinton had defeated Barack Obama by fewer than 2,000 of 150,000 — or maybe many more — votes cast, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, who'd been watching through glazed eyes along with the cable network's political commentator Jack Cafferty, quickly recapped the results. Then the sarcastic Cafferty let loose: "I slipped into a coma listening to that guy in New Mexico; that guy in New Mexico, please, he was awful!" Mm-hmm. Colón, it must be said, serves (?) the state party in a purely voluntary role. But he botched this business from the bad beginning to the bitter end. Signs of trouble first appeared when Colón blithely predicted, even after Gov. Bill Richardson had dropped out of the presidential race, ending "favorite son" factors and making the contest count, that turnout would amount to maybe 40,000. No biggie, guys; our state will be a quiet backwater on Tsunami Tuesday ... With Clinton and Obama neck and neck in a matched race of thoroughbreds for the nomination to an open presidency? With more than half a million Democrats in our state, at least some of them with a pulse? Why didn't Colón's glaring misperception catch the eye of the governor — who, after all, is his party's real leader here, and who, after all, cooked up the caucus supplanting the state primary in 2004 as a way of making New Mexico a player in presidential politics? Well, because Richardson, it turns out, had other things to do. And we don't mean dealing with the Legislature, which happened to be convened to cope with a long gubernatorial wish list in a short budget session — and which he didn't do. No, the governor had a Super Bowl date with his tocayo and ex-boss, former president Bill Clinton. And there was Lobo basketball to attend. And Extreme Cage Fighting to witness. And after that, no doubt, women's mud wrestling. This is a busy man. With nothing to run for at the moment, Richardson's smiling face was not to be seen behind Brian Colón Thursday. But he's not going to be able, forever, to dodge his majority share of responsibility for the latest Bad New Mexico Moment. The least the governor can do is lead an effort for 2012 at a true primary election — presidential and maybe the rest of the ball of wax — to be held far earlier than the first Tuesday in June.