Looking westward and north to Arizona and Colorado, New Mexico should count itself lucky three days after Election Day. Vote counting continues in those states.
Here in New Mexico, no major disruptions marred Election Day and the vast majority of contests, including the governor’s race, slipped into history Tuesday night without any drama. Even the state’s marquee federal race, the 2nd Congressional District featuring Democrat Gabe Vasquez and Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell, with its potential national implications, ended quietly with Vasquez winning by 1,300 votes and Herrell conceding defeat.
At the risk of speaking too soon and jinxing us, kudos, New Mexico, good on you.
But, of course, nothing’s perfect and in every ointment swims a fly. And New Mexico’s fly goes by the name of Couy Griffin.
The disgraced, damn-the-facts-conspiracy-spreading former Otero County Commissioner couldn’t stay away from the spotlight Thursday, disrupting a meeting of the government panel he once sat on (go to the 1 hour, 13 minute mark in the video). After a rant by Griffin in which he called his replacement on the commission, Stephanie DuBois who was chosen by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a “loser,” Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt asked Sheriff David Black to clear the room
As the Albuquerque Journal reported late Thursday night:
DuBois was shaken and upset.
“I am not a loser,” she retorted. “You’re a criminal. Shut up.”
About 10 minutes after the room was cleared, the commissioners re-convened the meeting, allowing Griffin to continue.
Griffin asked the two Republican commission members to remember that anything DuBois recommends while on the commission might come directly from the desk of Lujan Grisham. He called the judge’s decision to remove him “fraudulent,” never acknowledging that his own decision to trespass at the U.S. Capitol during a riot on January 6 that left one person dead and threatened the lives of Congresspeople and their staff was the precipitating factor for his removal. And he speculated that he would still sit on the commission had county commissioners Marquardt and Gerald Matherly and Sheriff Black stood with him to oppose the judge’s decision.
Yes, it’s everybody’s fault but Griffin’s. And they are found wanting for not sacrificing themselves to make his fevered, conspiracy-addled visions a reality. Sounds like a certain former U.S. president who has asked the Republican party to follow him over the cliff in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
I’ve covered politics for a long time, both Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, and one character flaw I find more grating than any other, is a grandstander who blames everyone else for their problems rather than acknowledging their role in the heap of trouble they find themselves in.
Hopefully. Couy Griffin will ride off into whatever sunset disgraced politicians find enticing after Thursday’s outburst. But something tells me we haven’t heard the last of Mr. Griffin.