Editor’s Note: Early results are about to start rolling in, and Steven Robert Allen of Common Cause says his volunteers stationed at the polls saw a rush of voters there at the the end. Before we descend into vote-count madness, please enjoy these pithy reviews: Each candidate for Albuquerque Mayor must choose with great care a video to post on his campaign website. Richard Romero’s video, a surveillance recording of a meeting of city officials, looks something like the blair-witch campaign ad. From a jumble of oblique complaints we are meant to intuit that the ghost in City Hall is the incumbent mayor Martin Chavez. But what makes the video clip a truly minimalist work is the complete reticence exercised in support of candidate Richard Romero. There is no mention of him.The Albuquerque Journal’s endorsement video on Chavez’s site is much more direct. Excellent music. The mayor has my vote any day to join an elite squad of fighter pilots. Richard Berry’s video speaks more of his party endorsement than anything else. In the span of half a minute, an average TV campaign ad can transmit quite a lot about a candidate using a language of clichéd images and vague, uncommitted claims. For Berry’s website video, imagine this, only 10 times longer. Toward the end of the clip it seems like Berry needs to strain to hold his casual pose, one leg up on his desk and the other planted firmly on the ground. Or maybe he just has a bad back from hardworking work in the construction business.
And The Emmy Goes To
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