Gary King's Webisodes

Cows, kids and controversy featured in online videos for low-spending gubernatorial candidate

By SFR

Gary King's campaign coffers may not be enough to allow him to purchase TV time this month, but he's trying to make up for that online.

This week, King's campaign released two YouTube "webisodes."

The first features King in his home turf near Moriarty. It starts with King and running mate Deb Haaland overlooking the land, with a few shots of the rear ends of two cows. It then cuts to black-and-white with King explaining how his grandparents came to New Mexico "in a Model-T Ford," which they traded for land and livestock. Here, King explains his rural roots. 

"I learned to irrigate when I was very young," King says. "I learned to drive a tractor when I was about 12 years old, probably. You had to work hard to harvest the corn before frost."

King then gets to politics, explaining how during his tenure as attorney general, his office prevented a land swap deal of state land "that had been used for all these traditional kinds of things—wood-gathering and picnicking and such" that was going to be sold to a wealthy Texas-based rancher.

King's next webisode is education-focused. It opens with a woman declaring that she's voting for him because she doesn't want her kids "tested to death."

Next, a young girl declares that she doesn't want Gov. Susana Martinez around for another term "because she's going to hold back struggling third-grade readers." It's a reference of Martinez' push to end the "social promotion" of allowing third-graders who can't read to advance to fourth grade.

The web ad takes a shot at state Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera without naming her.

"The person she chose as head of our Public Education Department is not an educator," a woman says.

The ad also features an appearance from Albuquerque school board member Kathy Korte, a noted opponent of Martinez' education policies.

"I don't want Susana back because she's taken control away from local school boards, and we as school boards should be able to serve our communities the best way we know how," Korte says in the ad.

Martinez, of course, has had the cash to air many TV ads over the past few weeks. For SFR's analysis of them, click here.

Santa Fe Reporter

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