Oh Susana, Now Don't You Cry For Thee

Andy Kroll at Mother Jones posts an article revealing that New Mexico GOP Gov. Susana Martinez is petty, vindictive, ignorant, and thin-skinned to almost Palinesque levels.  (I know, shocking, right?)

Despite numerous requests, the governor and her aides declined to comment for this piece. But previously unreleased audio recordings, text messages, and emails obtained by Mother Jones reveal a side of Martinez the public has rarely, if ever, seen. In private, Martinez can be nasty, juvenile, and vindictive. She appears ignorant about basic policy issues and has surrounded herself with a clique of advisers who are prone to a foxhole mentality.

Martinez doesn't look like any of the governors who came before her, and members of her inner circle sometimes feel that she has been subject to unfair attacks. Jay McCleskey, her closest aide, once sent a text message complaining about an opponent's negative mailing: "They're trying to keep the brown girl down!!!"

Still, interviews with former Martinez aides, state lawmakers, Democratic and Republican officials, fundraisers, and donors show a governor whose prosecutorial style and vindictiveness have estranged her from leaders in her own party and from the Democratic lawmakers she must work with to get anything done. Martinez and her staff, they say, have isolated themselves in her fourth-floor office inside the modest state capitol known as the Roundhouse. As one major Republican donor in New Mexico puts it, "They've got this Sherman's march to the sea mentality, burning everything in sight until they get to the finish."

Martinez's office wastes no time proving the core of the piece to be true.

Hours after it was published, Martinez circulated a fundraising email decrying the "D.C. Liberal media."

"We’ve come a long way since the days of Bill Richardson, but now liberals in Washington want to undo the progress we’ve made," Martinez said in the email. "In the absolute height of desperation, one of the most radically liberal publications in the country is now peddling false, personal attacks against me, using stolen audiotapes from our debate prep sessions four years ago.

"Their 'smoking gun'? I referred to Diane Denish using the B-word four years ago in a private conversation with close advisers," she continued. "I admit it — I've had to fund the cuss jar a few times in my life."

Can't make this stuff up, folks.  How dare the liberal media use my exact words verbatim!  Meanwhile...

Martinez's crew saw enemies everywhere. A former staffer recalls the campaign on multiple occasions sending the license plate numbers of cars believed to be used by opposition trackers to an investigator in Martinez's DA office who had access to law enforcement databases. In one instance, a campaign aide took a photo of a license plate on a car with an anti-Martinez bumper sticker and emailed it to the investigator. "Cool I will see who it belongs to!!" the investigator replied.

Nope, not vindictive, petty, or thin-skinned at all.