By Gwen Roath
All’s fair in love and war, the old saying goes. Apparently, that’s true of politics as well.
When Mad (Madeline) Hildebrandt decided to run for the New Mexico 2nd Congressional District seat, she expected stiff competition; she never expected to have her own party dead set against her. But since the beginning, the state Democratic caucus (I.e. the party insiders, bosses and elected officials) has made it clear she was not wanted; and they made it clear their directive was coming from the national level.
Her story is not unlike other Democrats in other states. In state after state, candidates are speaking out, telling how the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC or D-triple-C) is backing only those who can bring in the money.
But not in New Mexico. The chairman of the DCCC is Rep. Ben Lujan, from New Mexico, and no news outlet has printed this or similar stories. The fact that they are backing any candidate before the primary election is, of course, against their own party rules.
As soon as you meet Mad Hildebrandt, it is obvious she is a caring person. She decided to run for Congress after overhearing a 5-year-old worry to her mother that her grandmother would be deported.
While her given name is Madeline, many of her friends and family call her Mad and she immediately capitalized on that for her slogan: get Mad. She started in January, 2017, seeing if there was support for her candidacy and made that official in March when she filed.
First the state party bosses tried to get her to drop the slogan. And, Mad says, state Democratic Party Chairman Richard Ellenberg called her a number of times to say she really shouldn’t be running for that position. “He wanted me to start by registering voters,” Mad says. In her own mind, she says, she just dismissed it.
In May, 2017, she attended the Pantsuit Power Workshop offered by the New Mexico Federation of Democratic Women during their yearly meeting. The workshop, Mad said, is designed to prepare women to run for office. When she saw Ellenberg at the workshop, he asked Mad to stay and talk after it was over.
“So everyone’s leaving and we sit in the lunch room of the place where we had the workshop,” Mad says. “And he proceeds to tell me that the D-triple-C chairman Ben Lujan has tasked him with the job of telling me that I’m not the sort of person they want.”
Surprised, she says she asked him to explain “What’s that mean?” Ellenberg replied that they wanted a Hispanic male with business connections in Las Cruces.
To clarify what she heard, Mad continues, "I say, 'Because I’m a woman?' And he said ‘Yeah.'
“So I asked him, so what if you have to settle for a woman? and he said, 'she still has to be from Las Cruces.'”
“So then,” Mad continued, “I asked, okay so are you saying that the candidate for the 2nd district has to be from Las Cruces. Are you saying someone from Socorro cannot do this?”
Mad said again his answer was: “We only want someone from Las Cruces. Period…. He said ‘period.’," Mad emphasized.
Mad told him at that time: “I’m in; I’m not quitting.”
But far from being over, Mad has had multiple encounters with the same message. Still, when she was invited by the DCCC to an October training in Washington, D.C., she thought all was well. At the time, there were several Democratic hopefuls, though she and David Baake were the only ones in the CD2 to attend. The training was billed as a way for promising candidates to meet potential financial backers and to help prepare them for the campaign.
“They talked about funding at the training,” Mad said. “At the time it was $100,000. The criterion for the national DCCC training was $100,000 or a path toward that $100,000…. Everyone had met that criteria except one who was invited because she has an exciting story to tell,” Mad said. And since she at that time only had $5000 in her campaign chest, Mad figured they were talking about her.
While she was in Washington D.C., however, she began getting calls from Democrats in New Mexico saying that the state party bosses were looking for someone to replace Tony Martinez, a third nominee hopeful who was not at the training. Mad texted the New Mexico vice chair asking if that was true. In reply, Mad got an invitation to get together with staff after another county meeting in Deming.
“So this is right after the Washington D.C. training and (husband) Richard and I go to this meeting.” Mad said when they arrived in town, they were directed to a local restaurant. There they were met by two state party members in addition to the staffer, who immediately and very publicly starting chastising Mad for challenging the party on their selection process.
“I couldn’t understand why they were chastising me in public over a private message,” Mad said. “It was a very embarrassing public display.”
Things seemed to quiet down for a time after that, Mad said. After a forum in Truth or Consequences, at which she and David Baake spoke, a young woman approached her and introduced herself as Fran Sisneros, the DCCC representative. “She said she was assigned to me,” recalls Mad, who told her “great” and gave her the dates for a couple of her events. But the woman didn’t attend the events and her Facebook page showed she was in Las Cruces. Then, Mad continued, “she called and wanted my volunteer and donor lists. That’s when I got suspicious and called David. I asked ‘is she here for you?’ and he said no.”
Up to that point, Mad said she and David had a cordial relationship but then he became “cagey.” In another phone call, he admitted that the DCCC had “found someone else.”
Mad thought perhaps that “other person” was Angel Pena who also was throwing his hat in the ring. Mad, noting his experience and archaeological expertise, said she felt she could back him if he became the Democratic nominee.
“So all of a sudden, I get a phone call from Xochitl," Mad remembers. Torres-Small talked about how she was joining the race and a little of her background. “She talked about how great she is. She seemed to be sounding me out, trying to intimidate me.
“You can’t intimidate me," Mad laughs. “I survived boot camp. You’d have to match that. So she didn’t initiate me and I said I was staying.”
“The first day I ever saw Xochitl I was in Cibola County and she was there.” Xochitl was supposedly in an exploratory phase but she still insisted on speaking, Mad said. And when she heard her speech, Mad thought: "Wow, she just delivered Angel Pena’s speech. I was shocked. Later, I found out that Angel Pena and Xochitl’s husband, Nathan, are business partners.”
About this time, New Mexico’s Democratic Party Chairman Richard Ellenberg was forced to step down because he did not follow the party rules, including "using dishonest and discriminatory recruitment methods in the case of CD2 Congressional Candidates Race," according to charges against Ellenberg by the Eddy County Democratic Party. He was replaced by the lone nominee, Marg Elliston. Elliston had visited Socorro a couple weeks before the state caucus was to meet to vote for a new chairman. After summarizing her background and accomplishments, she spoke about the party's direction. And as for Progressives, she remarked, "Well, we're all progressives now, aren't we?"
Far from being a progressive, however, Xochitl has not signed the state party’s platform, “which is very progressive and which I signed,” Mad says. Xochitl signed for the core Democratic values. And, while Hildebrandt has prominently displayed her position on issues on her website since she began a year and a half ago, Xochitl’s website gives only broad brush to three major issues.
In order to pass the DCCC litmus test, Xochitl not only had to show she could raise enough money, she most likely signed a document that she will follow DCCC bidding, including how to spend those funds.
The fact that Xochitl Torres Small has been “anointed” as the chosen candidate is obvious from the endorsements she says she has including one of New Mexico's Senator. While she points to her experiences with her former boss Sen. Tom Udall, he is not publically backing her.
Her finance report submitted at the end of the first quarter shows Torres-Small raised about a 5th of her funds from PACS, with Democratic candidates and attorney's kicking in large contributions. And, with $300,000 in Xochitl’s campaign war chest, she is sending out slick mailers and buying television advertisements, touting her supposed accomplishments and how she can take on Trump.
Mad, who refuses corporate donations (“Actually I haven’t gotten any which is a good thing since I would send it back” she told a rally recently) has been tirelessly traveling around the district, meeting with groups and individuals to get her message across. Her budget limits her campaign messages to social media including her website and Facebook and Twitter pages.
While Torres-Small's campaign pumps out the glowing praise for all she has done for New Mexicans, Mad supporters have dug up the "alternative facts": Xochitl Torres-Small is a water attorney with Kemp Smith Law, corporate attorneys who represented Texas in its lawsuit against New Mexico.
And, while Xochitl is getting praise and endorsements and funding from Democratic insiders, Mad is getting first-hand experience about other strategies she learned about during her DCCC training last fall:
Hatchet men and trackers, people who try to trip the candidate up or point to discrepancies in their talks; people whose purpose is to undermine the campaign, to place doubt in voters’ minds.
“I’ve had these things happen to me since (Xochitl's) been in,” Mad said. "It's bizarre. It really is."
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Gwen Roath is a former editor/publisher who left the news business and formed her own company . She currently mostly enjoys her grandchildren, ages 6-months to 20-years, and hopes there will be a future for them.