近距离内射合集

New Mexicans don't get a vote on who becomes the other lieutenant governor candidate, one of two people who will compete for election in November. Only about 500 people do.

That's the reality Democrats are living with this week, as roughly 500 members of the state Democratic Party's State Central Committee prepare to cast votes between July 25-29 to pick a replacement nominee. Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who won the Democratic primary, dropped out last month. Now, instead of returning to voters, the party is settling the matter internally, and even Democrats are admitting how ugly that process has become.

State Sen. Antonio "Moe" Maestas, a Democrat from Albuquerque, didn't mince words this week describing his own party's process. He called it a "power grab by the ultra-left鈥� 鈥� his words, not mine 鈥� and said it "does not serve the party or the state." A sitting Democratic state senator, on the record, calling his own party's selection a power grab.

He's not wrong.

The two contenders are state Sen. Harold Pope, who lost the Democratic primary to Toulouse Oliver by 60 points last month, and Public Lands Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, endorsed by gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland. Pope is backed by the Albuquerque and Santa Fe chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America. Garcia Richard just picked up an endorsement from Jane Fonda, who told supporters it's time for two women to lead New Mexico.

A candidate who lost his own primary by 60 points. A socialist organization's hand-picked favorite. A celebrity commie from California. None of that is New Mexico voters deciding who should be one heartbeat away from the Governor's Office. It's insiders and activists deciding for them.

Maestas also raised a substantive question: While Pope has been positioning himself, in Maestas's words, as a "progressive deity," he hasn't distributed any of the roughly $4 million a year in discretionary capital outlay funding available to him for his own district's schools.

I don't have a preference for which Democrat wins this selection process. I plan to run the best race I can against any of them. But either way, my message is the same: This is what one-party rule looks like up close. No primary voters weighing in. No public debate. A closed vote among 500 insiders, while socialists and Hollywood celebrities fight over who gets to claim the mantle of "grassroots."

New Mexico's real economy runs on oil and gas production in the Permian Basin, on ranching families who've worked this land for generations, on the law enforcement officers who keep our communities safe, and on innocent and vulnerable people we have a responsibility to protect. It doesn't run on which candidate the DSA prefers or who gets Jane Fonda's seal of approval.

I believe leaders should answer to the people who elected them 鈥� not to 500 party insiders in a room in Santa Fe. That's the choice this November: leadership accountable to New Mexico voters, or leadership accountable to whoever wins this week's backroom fight.

New Mexicans are watching. And they will remember in November who trusted them with a vote 鈥� and who didn't.

David Gallegos is the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of New Mexico. Gallegos, R-Eunice, represents District 41 in the New Mexico Senate.