NEA New Mexico Political Ad Omits Small Detail
NEA New Mexico is running a television ad supporting Democrat Diane Denish for governor. The ad features Las Cruces special education teacher Freda Trujillo and claims Republican candidate Susana Martinez would cut public education funding (the original ad is apparently unavailable on the Internet). What’s so unusual about that? Nothing, except the union failed to determine if using Trujillo in the ad might present some complications.
Oops. Martinez was the district attorney in Las Cruces and her office was responsible for convicting Trujillo’s ex-husband. They married in 2004 – after the crime – but it isn’t known when they divorced.
NEA New Mexico responded, attributing this to Trujillo:
“‘I hope that the Martinez campaign is not behind this personal attack on me and my integrity as a public educator for exercising my First Amendment rights. I hope that the Martinez campaign has better things to do with their time than attacking teachers who support Diane Denish. There are important issues to talk about in this campaign. The public deserves to hear about these important issues. Discussion of my private life adds nothing to this discourse. And I call on the Martinez campaign, if involved, to stop attacking me. I also call upon the press to cover the important educational issues, in which I so strongly believe, rather than my private life and personal pain.”
