Monday, August 30, 2010

Martinez Doesn't Take Audience Questions at Large Event

Susana Martinez, Republican candidate for governor, spoke today to the 2010 New Mexico Real Estate/Construction Gubernatorial Candidate Event. Several hundred attended the luncheon event, held in Albuquerque at the Marriott in the Uptown area. Sponsorship came from 13 real estate groups.

Citing a scheduling conflict, Diane Denish, Democratic candidate, did not come today, but will appear at a later event.

After her presentation, Martinez did not take questions from the audience. This is striking because, in my experience, the only time NAIOP meetings do not allow questions from the audience is when the program has run over the allotted time.

At about 12:30 P.M., the program was declared done.

There remained was plenty of time for questions, perhaps a half hour.

Lacking further information at this point, I believe Martinez was avoiding questions.

The situation today interests me because the Martinez campaign, specifically Ryan Cangiolosi, the campaign manager, declined to make Martinez available for a one-hour interview, citing scheduling complexities. Yeah, right, Ryan. The interview was to be the basis for two of my columns that go to ten newspapers around the state.

Martinez therefore becomes a statewide candidate seeking a top office who is unwilling to talk to the media. For me that’s somewhere between dumb and bizarre. But then I’m media.

Today the real estate groups had prepared ten questions. Martinez simply ignored one and part of another. She gave a short but specific answer to three and did talking points, relevant or not, in response to the others. She was allowed time at the end to say what she wanted because time was available. She chose talking points.

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