Heather Wilson: New Mexico's Queen of Slime

Marjorie has a great post about Heather Wilson's vote-buying scam. She links to F-Brilliant, who has a fantastic and disturbing rundown of the whole situation. There was a time when Wilson was considered the rising star of New Mexico politics. As tough as they come, she consistently fended off Democratic challengers for her very purple Albuquerque area congressional district. Then she was tainted in the federal prosecutor scandal--both her and her mentor Pete Domenici directly pressured the US attorneys to prosecute for supposed Democratic corruption and then had US Attorney David Iglesias fired when he refused to cooperate. With Domenici retiring, Wilson is running for his Senate seat. But she is facing tough opposition from Steve Pearce, the congressman from southern New Mexico. But it hardly matters who wins the primary for Tom Udall will almost certainly crush either like a bug.

But now Wilson is in even more hot water and showing her worst side. She paid delegates at the recent Bernalillo County Republican Party convention to vote for certain delegates. Also implicated is the man hoping to replace her in Congress, County sheriff Darren White. If that wasn't crazy enough, her staff pressured Albuquerque news radio station KKOB to pull the story, which led to the resignation of news anchor Laura MacCallum.

Although New Mexicans are by no means adverse to corruption, it's hard not to see this as extremely damaging to Wilson's political career. Her utter lack of ethics is flabbergasting. If I were Steve Pearce, I'd be running on her consistent ethical violations, something that may play well with the large numbers of rural New Mexico Republicans as well as the defense industry folks, a strength of Wilson's.