Pete Domenici, Jr., a son of former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and currently a candidate for governor of New Mexico, made a very amusing gaffe — with his campaign seemingly bragging in advance about his great performance at the state Republican convention, only to crash and burn at the event itself.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Domenici’s campaign mailed out a flier that arrived at some homes on Saturday, the same day the convention was taking place: “The 2010 Convention Was A Great Success! Thousands of Signatures Put Pete On The Ballot!” However, the convention turned out to not be quite a success — Domenici scored less than five percent of the delegate vote, far short of the 20 percent needed to gain an automatic place on the primary ballot, and thus requiring him to gain ballot access through a petition drive.
The Journal reports:
Domenici campaign manager Doug Antoon said Monday that the flier referred to gathering enough signatures to make the ballot — a fallback method allowing candidates who do not receive the requisite 20 percent to still get on. And he said the convention as a whole was run very well, making it a success.
Antoon said criticism about the flier was stirred up by other campaigns that weren’t happy about how the Domenici camp characterized the results.
“I think what we’re looking at here is that some campaigns would have rather spun our literature to what they wanted us to say. We’re not going to run their campaigns for them,” Antoon said.
