Episode 138 - CD3 Race (part 2)

The Democrats

What a wild time it has been trying to get all of the democrats in the Third Congressional District race to sit down for an interview. The situation was immediately complicated by the sheer number of candidates in the race. With a total of six democrats, we had no choice but to divide the candidates into two groups. What we soon learned, though, is some of the candidates were much more flexible with their schedules than others. There may have also been a certain amount of hesitation with some of the candidates, about appearing alongside their competitors. I just know that we offered each of the candidates several different options for coming in, and in the end, only three of them agreed to come on at the same time: Jon Adams, Harry Montoya and Rudy Martin. You can watch David's interview with them here:



As for the other three candidates, that was a much different story. Don Wiviott's camp was hesitant to come on from the very beginning. We gave him several different options, and every time campaign officials said Don couldn't fit us into this schedule. Originally, we had Ben Ray Lujan and Benny Shendo, Jr. scheduled for a joint interview last Tuesday. But, Ben Ray got sick, so we rescheduled for this week. Of course, that was before Benny Shendo dropped a bombshell at a candidate forum in Farmington on Monday. Kate Nash at the Santa Fe New Mexican has more on that story on her great blog, Green Chile Chatter. Needless to say, after that forum, Ben Ray did not want to come on alongside Benny. I can understand the hesitation, but not interviewing deprives voters in the third district of the chance to hear where Lujan is coming from before the June 3rd primary. So, we kept after it, offering Wiviott, Lujan and Shendo one-on-one interviews instead. Wiviott was the first to take us up on the offer, and at the last minute we got the other two candidates to agree as well. Actually, Shendo from the beginning was up for whatever we wanted to do. Out of all of the candidates, he was the most agreeable to going on camera with his thoughts and beliefs.

While I was glad that we got the chance to talk to all of the democratic candidates, I was worried we weren't being entirely fair to the candidates that were willing to come on the show and answer questions alongside their campaign competitors. That is a much different environment for a politician, and I respect that. So, what we decided to do was condense the interviews we did with Wiviott, Lujan and Shendo, which you can see here:



We also decided to post the full interviews with Lujan, Shendo, and Lujan here on our website. To watch the Lujan interview in full, click here.



For the Shendo interview, click here.



And last but not least, watch the full Wiviott interview here.



I also wanted to offer the other three democratic candidates the opportunity to conduct similar, and longer one-on-one interviews. Rudy Martin and Harry Montoya took us up on the offer.

Rudy Martin



Harry Montoya



Jon Adams is planning to come in next week, so you can look for that interview as early as next Thursday.

This is an emotional and hardfought race to say the least. I hope that everyone who is registered to vote will remember to head to the polls on June 3rd to make sure their voice is heard!