(The following article by Leslie Linthicum was posted on the Albuquerque Journal website on August 4.)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Democratic presidential ticket will spend 24 hours in New Mexico this weekend on an old-fashioned, whistle-stop campaign swing.
John Kerry, John Edwards and some members of their families will stop in Las Vegas, N.M., and Gallup to meet and greet voters for their only scheduled public events in the state. They will spend some time relaxing in Albuquerque in between.
Campaign spokesman Ruben Pulido Jr. said the Kerry-Edwards Express, a special train running on its own schedule along the path the Amtrak takes, would stop at the station in Las Vegas on Saturday evening for a stump speech from the back of the train.
The candidates will pull out of Las Vegas and head by train to Albuquerque, where they’ll stay in a hotel overnight, then spend most of Sunday relaxing in Albuquerque— down time that includes no organized events but will be spent sightseeing, eating, shopping and going to church.
They’ll get on the train again in downtown Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon and head to Gallup, where they’ll take in some of the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial before heading west again on the train that night.
In a political era of six-cities-in-a-day airport photo opportunities, the New Mexico trip is unusual, Pulido acknowledged.
New Mexico’s five electoral votes are small potatoes, although Kerry and President Bush have both promised to fight for them. And the Kerry-Edwards campaign will be passing up an opportunity for a rally in big-city Albuquerque for events in smaller towns.
“They decided they wanted to come in and see New Mexico and see rural New Mexico,” Pulido said. “It really is important to see New Mexico, to see the places you want to represent.”
Kerry and Edwards, both members of the U.S. Senate representing East Coast states, will get to see a lot of New Mexico on this portion of their two-week, coast-to-coast 21-state tour.
The train enters New Mexico at the Colorado border and goes through Raton before the Las Vegas stop. It will be dark when the train passes through the Lamy station and then passes through pueblos along the Rio Grande Valley before pulling into Albuquerque.
From Albuquerque to Gallup on Sunday, the train passes through Laguna Pueblo and the red-rock country of western New Mexico.
Pulido said the stops in Las Vegas (population about 15,000) and Gallup (about 20,000 people) will be open to the public, although details of those events are still being worked out.
Kerry and Edwards both want to see the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial, the famous four-day Native American pageant that wraps up at Red Rock State park outside Gallup on Sunday night.
The Inter-Tribal, in its 83rd year, brings dances, arts, rodeo and lots of Indian tacos and fry bread to Gallup along with thousands of tourists from around the world.
Depending on when the Kerry-Edwards Express gets into Gallup, the candidates will be able to catch the last of the dances or the All-Indian Rodeo finals.
In Albuquerque, none of the Kerry-Edwards events has been scripted or will be announced or open to the public, although anyone who runs into the couples is welcome to visit with them, Pulido said.
Pulido said security measures do not allow the campaign to announce the candidates’ down-time events, but the Kerrys and Edwardses are eager to explore Albuquerque and will be out and about.
“For the folks who are in Albuquerque, as long as they go to church on Sunday, do some shopping and have some lunch, they might have the opportunity to see them,” Pulido said.
Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, are Roman Catholics. John and Elizabeth Edwards are United Methodists.