Where’s Adlai when we need him?

I turned off the TV after the fourth negative political ad in two minutes and thought of Adlai Stevenson.

Not many people still remember him: He died in 1965 after serving as governor of Illinois, running for president unsuccessfully in 1952 and 1956, and serving as Ambassador to the United Nations in the Kennedy administration. He was best known for his statesmanship and eloquence.

When nominated as the Democratic candidate for president in 1952, Stevenson said: “Let’s talk sense to the American people. Let’s tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains…” He lost resoundingly and no politician ever tried that again.

As we approach the mid-term elections, I am grateful that New Mexico is not a battleground and has been spared the tsunami of political ads that some states are seeing. My adopted home state has one and a half political parties. Democrats dominate and most state legislators run unopposed.

This time around, our Hispanic/female/Republican governor is coasting to an easy victory by default. Her opponent is a second-generation pol whose campaign platform consists mostly of rolling back the Guv’s halting efforts to reform one of the worst school systems in the country. The Republicans have been unable to offer any serious challenge to the incumbent Democratic senator or my local Congressional representative.

I hosted a fundraiser for a Republican candidate for state legislature because I was so thrilled to finally see a second name on the ballot in my district. He’s a good guy, but is running a shoestring campaign staffed by his friends and family with little evidence of party support.

Voter fraud is a political football in New Mexico because a Republican effort to scrub the voter rolls was blocked by a Democratic judiciary. Everyone assumes that fraudulent voters always vote Democratic. So Republicans try to prosecute voter fraud and Democrats claim it doesn’t exist. Because of this stalemate, voter fraud has never been fully investigated. Nobody really knows how many illegal voters are out there or how they vote. So I can’t help wondering: What if they actually vote Republican?

On the other hand, voter ID laws are not a big issue out here. That would be pointless in a state that gives driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Despite the dearth of electoral competition, New Mexicans still must endure tediously shrill political ads accusing candidates of either supporting Obama or opposing Social Security. I’d prefer to see the refreshing candor of the 1991 governor’s race in Louisiana, in which a corrupt incumbent defeated a neo-Nazi Klan leader. Bumper stickers read: Vote for the crook. It’s important.

It’s said that when Adlai Stevenson was campaigning for president, a woman called out to him: “You have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson replied: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority.”