Seven hopefuls state their cases to become party's nominee

Investment adviser and West Point graduate Greg Zanetti summed it up in one word: water.

“Without water, we got nothing,” he said. “Do you know that New Mexico, by some estimates, has 15 billion — billion — acre-feet of brackish water? It’s amazing. Now, some people say that’s too high. Some people say it might be a tenth of that. All right, let’s just say it’s 2 billion acre-feet. That’s enough for Albuquerque to have water for 1,000 years.”

Zanetti said the technology to desalinate water is available and could turn New Mexico, which has multiple large brackish groundwater basins, into “the water state.”

“We could become the state that isn’t aching for water, but we could give water to others,” he said.

Louie Sanchez, a medical sales representative and shooting range owner, said New Mexico would become “a Second Amendment rights sanctuary state” if he’s elected governor.

“Everyone up here is saying, ‘I’m the only candidate. I’m the only.’ Well, I’m the only candidate who actually owns a gun store,” he said, generating laughter at the expense of his competitors, each of whom bragged about skill sets that set them apart.

Sanchez, who sought the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in 2020, also claimed to be the only candidate to have a health care plan. He said he’s worked in the industry for 27 years.

“Why aren’t we talking about health care?” he asked. “That’s the only thing we really have good going in this state. We’re 33rd in health care.”

Business owner Karen Bedonie said the state needs a forensic audit of the 2020 presidential election results.

“Without a forensic audit, none of this matters,” she said. “None of it. ... We need it here in New Mexico. We are dirty, very dirty. And right now, nobody wants to get any county done because they say, ‘Oh, it costs too much money.’ But guess what? There’s people out there that are willing to help us. I have been on the ground. We need at least one county or two counties to actually go through this forensic audit to trigger the rest of them.”

Ethel Maharg, a former mayor of the village of Cuba who now serves as the executive director of the Albuquerque-based Right to Life Committee of New Mexico, said she “totally [believes] we have got to get our voter rolls cleared up.” But for her, stopping abortion is her top priority.

“We say it’s OK to kill babies in the womb,” she said. “You see, we can save schools, the economy. We can do the audits. We can do Border Patrol, all these different things that we’ve been talking about. But when it comes down to it, I want to ask you this question: For who? If we do not take care of the most vulnerable, it won’t really matter.”

Tim Walsh, a retired teacher who worked as an education adviser to former Gov. Gary Johnson, said he would “reconfigure and consolidate” state government.

“It has grown exponentially for 25 years, thanks to [former Gov.] Bill Richardson and then on and on and on,” he said. “Currently, [there are] 27 Cabinet positions. I’ve already done the work. There would be nine.”

Walsh called the Children, Youth and Families Department a “cancer sore” that has “never worked appropriately” and said if elected he would place the agency under the Public Safety Department.

Jay Block, a Sandoval County commissioner who retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force in 2016 after working for more than two decades as a nuclear weapons officer, rattled off a long list of priorities. He said there are “a lot of things” he could do as governor within 10 minutes by signing executive orders.

“I will get rid of critical race theory in the state of New Mexico,” he said. “I will also get rid of vaccine passports and forced vaccines. ... I as your governor will never shut down your business, your church or your school, and I will never overrule a school board. That is for you to decide on the local level. You elected those school board members. You vote them out if you want to.”

Block also said he would “never ever vote for one state budget that has one dime funding abortion in the state of New Mexico” and that he would also reimburse “every business, church and person who was fined by [Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s] tyrannical mandates.”

“If you’re in the middle of paying those right now, don’t pay it. Wait for me to get elected,” he said, generating laughter.

Three-term state Rep. Rebecca Dow, a businesswoman and consultant to for-profit and community-based early childhood providers, said she “definitely agreed” that water should be a focus, as well as land, vegetation and forest management.

But Dow said it’s critical to elect a governor who understands the Constitution.

“This is a divinely inspired document; this is nonnegotiable, and so many of the other things that the candidates have talked about, I agree with,” she said. “And when we have a governor who has a reverence and a respect for our constitutional republic, who understands what it means to fight for individual state rights, especially as a Western state, that will be my priority.”

Whoever wins the Republican nomination will face off against Lujan Grisham in next year’s general election.