Illustrated Daily; 5019; Judith Pratt: One-on-One Interview

With the days to go before the general election, one last look, the first of two exclusive off-the-campaign trail interviews with New Mexico's major party candidates for the United States Senate this year. Tonight, the 1984 Democratic nominee state representative, Judith Pratt, is coming up next on the Illustrated Daily. The Illustrated Daily, managing editor Hal Rhodes. If we are to believe a pair of privately conducted polls between 30 and 35 percent of all registered New Mexico voters watched the only joint television appearance this election year here on the Illustrated Daily.

Between the 1984 Republican and Democratic nominees for the United States Senate from New Mexico. Not only would that make the Illustrated Daily's Domenogy Pratt Live Television Forum perhaps the most widely viewed program in its time slot that evening at October 15, just a couple of weeks ago, it should also encourage us all to believe there is a substantial interest among New Mexico voters this year in the issues which hang in the balance. We call them television debates even though we know they are not. And despite the fact they produce a good deal of information apparently of use and value to voters come election day, they are not without their shortcomings. They are high pressure situations for all the participants, especially if they are professionally organized and produced. News reporters worry about the questions, moderators worry about keeping time correctly, candidates worry about that most dreaded of all potentials, the gaff. So tonight and tomorrow night, off the campaign trail, one last look at the race for the United

States Senate here in New Mexico this election year. And our guest this evening is the first of two exclusive interviews here at the Daily Democratic State Representative Judith Pratt, her party's Senate nominee this year. Representative Pratt won her party's nomination to the surprise of many season political observers this past June in a contest against the early favorite former Democratic State Chairman Nick Franklin. For three terms, a member of the State House of Representatives, whereas Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, she is a member of her party's leadership in the state's lower house. Representative Pratt is one of a number of women, both a Republican and Democrat around the country this year, out trying to claim a seat in the United States Senate. And Representative Pratt, it's nice to have you back with the old Australian Daily. Well, glad to be here, House. Representative Pratt, tonight both in this conversation with you and tomorrow night in my conversation with Senator Domenici, I'd like to try, if at all possible, to reach some of the issues

which are not easily transacted out there on the campaign trail. For example, you realize I am sure that there are a number of people who consider you to be an ultra-liberal candidate, or what is called up for ultra-liberal. One waggish editor of a weekly newspaper even likes to call you, the Democrat from San Denise to now. You can impression that wrinkles you, but like it or not, doesn't that, it does indeed, doesn't that perception give you some serious political problems with which you have to deal in this campaign? I have never felt very defensive about that kind of labeling. I think that what sustains me politically, and I think what garners so much support for my campaigns, is my commitment to issues. And the fact is, is that I'm one of the few people out there fighting for the little guy, supposedly, fighting for the working people and the minorities and the women and the people who are generally disenfranchised or left out of the political process. Now when someone chooses to label me, it tells me something.

It tells me that they cannot attack my record substantially, that they only can attack me with name calling. Now I call myself progressive, I call myself mainstream, and I think people are beginning to realize, I think this is real important, that when you poll people, and you see where they stand, and you compare where they stand with my platform, we're in alignment. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that people's voting patterns are in alignment with the way they believe. People are very strong for women's rights, very strong for the nuclear freeze, and for funding human needs and social security, and they don't want military involvement in Central America. That's my platform, but then our job, of course, as candidates, is to try to get them to vote the way they really feel and think. That raises an interesting question. What a way to believe that they really feel this way, or perhaps they don't really feel this way, they're just saying that because it is politically proper to say that sort of thing.

In other words, could it be they vote their convictions and say something else? No, I think they vote against their own interests many times, and I believe the reason they do that is because the other side, my opposition, the Republican Party, the right wing, has captured the political platform temporarily in this country. They've been able to do that because, primarily, they're well-funded, and when you have unlimited amounts of money, you can create illusions, you can create an aura that there's a recovery that everything is rosy, that everything is fine, and that is building super weapons and Star Wars weapons, and so on, is good for our defense. You can deceive people. And my point in running a campaign is to try to give people an opportunity to see the truth and ally themselves with it. Well, do you think you have successfully dealt with this image problem, shall we call it? This perception of Judy Pratt as the ultra-liberal in this campaign. Well, I believe I have, and the reason I think so is because of the kind of tremendous

support that's built up around my campaign, because people recognize me as someone who will fight for their rights, and who will fight for peace, and will fight for jobs, and a better quality of life in this country, and that is definitely mainstream. Well, you've raised an interesting point. You argue that people, indeed, can be deceived through the contrivances of images and the like. What does that say about us as voters that we are so susceptible and gullible, assuming you're right? I think voters are changing. We've had a pretty passive voting population, I think, for many, many years, because when you really got down to it, it didn't matter a whole lot who you voted for, things generally got better. I mean, there's some differences, but you could expect that your children would do better than you economically. That is changing. People are not as confident in the future.

People are beginning to be fearful about whether or not their children will get an education or whether their own retirement program will be secure. When people are fearful, there's two things they can do. One is they can pull in their horns and not try to think and not try to involve themselves. The other thing, though, and I think this is what most people are doing, is that they decide they'd better get involved in politics. They'd better get interested and they'd better get activated and they'd better get out there and fight. That's the sentiment that we're working with. All right. Let's be candid here, Representative Pratt. Out there on that campaign trail, you have, indeed, taken some lunch. You've encountered hostile audiences on occasion, some nasty people saying nasty things to and about you. One gets the impression they're having a hard time seeing what it is. Judy Pratt here at the Illustrated Daily is trying to say, and I want to know why. I think I do. The negative experiences are such a small proportion of the kinds of experiences I have out

there. When you're committed to the issues and fought around the issues for as long as I have since high school, I started with civil rights in the 50s and have always been someone who's fought around issues like civil rights and for peace and so on, you expect to encounter opposition. And in fact, you want a certain amount of opposition to emerge so that you know that you're getting your message across. And in fact, when people disagree that what our senior citizen should have health care, I figure, well, I probably don't need their support anyway. Well, you have made a good deal about the issues in the campaign. You mentioned just the moment ago, yet there's an awful lot of evidence out there, Representative Pratt. Many people really do not want to be disturbed this year with matters like issues, the size of a portion of the voters simply aren't interested, personality, what might be called just old-fashioned hope, faith, trust in the future, hoping for the best, do not disturb me, seems to have

settled in into a very large portion of the body politic. How can you buck that trend? One thing is that I never have been cynical about the American people. I feel that... That's a cynical view. Well, I think it's cynical only if we carry it so far as to say people are... They're mindless. They're not going to vote. They're ignorant. They're not going to vote for what's right and good. And I can see politicians getting very cynical. And I don't. I have such a strong feeling of the sense of decency and fairness in the American people that that's what sustains me. And I think my whole campaign in this process, our morale is extremely high. When we go out and talk to regular people, door to door, there's nothing more inspiring. But on the more serious point that you are making is that the thing that might allow the electorate to make what I think is a very serious mistake this year.

If in fact, they do what the polls are saying. It may be explained by this fear. This fear that there's not going to be economic security and this fear of war and potential of nuclear holocaust, that those kinds of fears may, we hope it doesn't happen because we've got a few days to turn it around, may convert into voting for the warm fuzzy feeling. Well, all right. Let's talk about some fairly concrete things which appear to have factored into this year's campaign. Like it or not, things have, at times, been simplified this year. But that's characteristic of all political campaigns, I believe, isn't it? It is because you have to distill complex issues into slogans and it's hard. Sizeable body of American voters who otherwise share your party's values, for example. See the Democrats as the party of high taxes, big spending, big government, all this at a time when these very ideas are under attack and even on the run one might say, doesn't

that put you in a difficult spot in 1984? It's a challenge and certainly has been the challenge in this whole campaign to try to turn that around and say, who are the big spenders, who is advocating big government involving itself in your most personal decisions in your life, if you think about personal sexual behavior and so on, that this administration wants to control, that's big government. It's big government to have a $200 billion deficit and it's big government to have a $315 billion military budget. I mean, this administration is taking our money, our tax dollars and spending it freely. Now that's the, it is a challenge to turn that around and it's what all of us Democrats are up against is saying, hey, wait a minute, let's pin the blame where it belongs. Have you done that?

You think? You've done it every chance we've had every place I talk and everybody that we speak to. Why does it work? Well, I think probably because I have a limited platform from which to speak. I have not had an opportunity to have a commercially televised debate with a senator and the debate on your channel, fortunately, was well, even with Monday night football on, it was, it was, well, if the polls were right, it was most widely viewed television program in its time slot. I doubt you could have done better, frankly, on commercial television. I'm really proud of that. I'm proud of public TV, I can tell you that, but, but it does, it is difficult to find enough places to speak from, enough platforms to speak from when, in general, the media is not going to, to lean your way. Do you think the media has not treated you fairly in this campaign? I think the media has been remarkably kind to me, but there are omissions, particularly real missions.

There are, take, here's one example, I think it's classic. When the budget reconciliation bill came up, the 1984 Civil Rights Act came up for consideration, and Senator Domenici voted against it, Jeff Binghamon voted for it because he's committed to Civil Rights. Know where that I found, and either one of our major newspapers, was it mentioned that they voted the way they did it? Now, that's a serious omission. Jeff, in fact, the press had decided that was important enough issue that they should mention how those men voted, they would have done it, but they didn't. I am often left out of articles completely. There are articles in the paper every day describing how the election is going, and the Senator has mentioned, without even mentioning the name of his opponent. Now, those kinds, that's not a direct attack on me, and I can't say that, but it does, in fact, begin to discredit my campaign, in some sense, then it's not taken seriously. All right, on another matter, it's a difficult and somewhat delicate subject, I suppose, back

to the primary. I heard a number of Democrats in the course of the June primary arguing, representative Judith Pratt actually could be our strongest candidate against Republican United States Senator Pete Domenici precisely because she would be in a position to exploit Senator Domenici's perceived gender gap, yet some of the, and therefore, track a large number of women's votes. Yet, the fact of matter is, as you well know, a number of leading women Democrats in the state of New Mexico, quite publicly are supporting Senator Domenici's bid for reelection. Why do you think it has been so difficult for you to attract that large block of women voters, who way back in the primary, it looked like you should have a clear shot at? Well, on the contrary, all of our experience tells us that we have enormous support from the Democratic women and other women.

In fact, a number of Republican women have quietly told me that they're voting for me and to keep it quiet, that, in fact, that is probably one of the strongest points that we have in the campaign, is our appeal to the women voter. I'm not breaking any news to you, though. There is a perception that an awful lot of Democratic leading Democratic women are indeed supporting Senator Domenici's bid for reelection. Am I correct about that? The only one, I've only heard of a couple that have publicly stated that. There have been, one thing about our campaign is that it sort of flushed people out. We know where some people stand now, then we didn't know before, and in a way that's good. Explain that. Where your opposition comes from. What are you telling me? Well, I think we've had a lot of Democrats who haven't really been loyal Democrats, and this allows us to see who we can count on and who we can't count on, and I think that's good. I mean, you have to walk. That would be good. Because then you know where people stand. It's much easier to know where people stand, and then you can vote, know where they stand.

Well, sure, I'd like to win over their votes. But in many cases, they are frankly people who are not going to influence that many other votes anyway. And I'm so proud of all of the really strong, solid, hardcore Democratic Party support that I do have. If you've ever seen our steering committee, I mean, we have everyone from Dorothy Reynolds and we've got Dorothy Klein, and we've got Mr. Governor and Mrs. King, and we've got Gladys Hansen and really fine people on that steering committee who have given us the help we need to run a good campaign. I mean, by far the majority of the Democrats have been supporting me. Why don't I show up in the polls? The polls are a mystery. I swore, by the way, I was not going to talk about polls tonight. I feel I have been pulled senseless in recent weeks, but I'll ask a lack. It is a part of this general election campaign formula, is it not? The polls are mystifying because the reason they're mystifying is because when you're running

the kind of campaign we are, which is very grassroots, people-to-people, organizationally based. Since we don't have the money for expensive media, we spend an awful lot of time making people-to-people connections, and you don't want to, I mean, it's not completely scientific, but the feeling that we get when we're out there and we're talking to people is that there's a lot of people with us. And we keep little informal polls. We'll go out into a conservative community stand, a grocery store, keep track, and it'll be the other day, one grocery store, 64 for me, 37 for him. We'll just keep these little counts, and we know we've got a tremendous base of support out there. I don't understand the polls. I can understand it, it represents to track how that would give you some personal encouragement. But at the same time, it would seem to me that polls would be very discouraging at this point in the campaign. The gap is quite wide, according to those polls, and still, as I say, mystifying, we can't

quite figure out why they come out that way, and it's more mystifying than it is demoralizing. Our campaign is, I mean, we haven't let up a second. I must say, I have watched both your campaign and Senator Domenici's campaign, and I am most impressed by the enthusiasm in both your campaign, immediate campaign organization, and in the senators, immediate campaign organization. I assume all the participants directly in the campaign are enthusiastic about their candidates and the job they're trying to perform. Do you mind if we go back to the women's issue? Well, as you know, some fairly sophisticated political analysts, both in the Republican and the Democratic Party, are beginning to reassess some of their earlier assumptions, both about the women's vote and women's issues in general, that is in our larger political line.

Just where, as you see, it does genders stand today in American politics. At this point in the campaign. I think the jury's still out. I think we'll have to see what happens on Election Day. I still perceive it as an extremely strong factor in this election that somehow has gone unassessed. Many women are not saying what they're going to do. They keep it quiet when they get in the voting booth they do. Many times women don't want to make waves. They don't want to start a controversy within their family or among their friends. They just want to keep it quiet. I have a feeling that they're going to go in and pull the lever for Geraldine and New Mexico. Many of them for me. As Geraldine Ferraro, Congresswoman Ferraro, helped or hurt represented the Judith Pratt this election. I think the effect of her candidacy has only been positive. The tremendous enthusiasm that she's generated being a woman candidate and being the first

woman running for the vice president has spilled over into my campaign. I think in a couple of years it's not going to matter whether you're a man or woman running for office. I think that's what we want to achieve. But 1984 is a banner year. It is a year to break down some of those final barriers for women to share power in this country. I believe that it's unassessed yet. I think we have to wait and see after November 6th. I just have confidence that it's a very powerful factor. You mentioned the polls a moment ago. I don't know whether you mentioned or I mentioned. I think you mentioned because I had made a vow not to do that. I brought it up for you. Did I bring it up for you? I wouldn't have brought it up for you. There is another chorus out there which you must certainly have heard in recent days. A chorus of newspaper editorial endorsements for your opponent. What kind of impact does that have on your campaign? When we look at the context in which that comes, it comes from newspapers who had declared their allegiance to the Senator long ago.

Every press release he turns in, he gets printed, he gets praised editorially all the time. We knew we were up against a press that definitely had already made up its mind a long time ago. We've been grateful for whatever crimes have been thrown to us. In the context of the endorsements of President Reagan and that endorsements of some of the other, I think some very conservative and I don't think particularly admirable candidates that they have endorsed, it fits the pattern. They've endorsed Reagan and Domenici that ties him right with Reagan and the Reagan administration and everything they stand for. And as far as I'm concerned, we would probably not find too much in common then anyway. We about a year ago at this time, actually a little longer than a year ago at this time, you and a Republican counterpart of yours, Representative Lynn Titler helped me inaugurate

the new season of the Illustrated Data. I think it was our fourth season there. At which time, obviously there was a difference of opinion between the two of you, but you shared many common values. One of the issues that came up was that it is quite conceivable that conservative women political candidates would have an easier time breaking some of those barriers you mentioned the moment ago than perhaps those who come out of the more progressive mold of your tradition. Have you given them any reflection to that in the course of this campaign? Interesting. That conversation? Yes, I do. It's coming back to me. When you look at the United States Senate, there are two Republican women who have been elected to the United States Senate. No Democratic woman has ever been elected to the United States Senate. One of those women is very, very conservative and then Nancy Kassenbaum, I think, is slightly more moderate.

But the Republican Party has, in fact, heavily funded women candidates and has used in a sense. No, that's a harsh word, but in a sense, used conservative women to promote the conservative point of view, set up a woman candidate to be the one to carry the message. And they have been messages that have not been helpful to women or to the people of this country as far as I'm concerned. So the Democrats, on the one hand, need to get their act together and get some more women elected, no doubt about it. But in fact, are not using women to promote their issues, their women candidates are still quite independent. And for the most part, pretty progressive. All the six women Democrats who are running for the Senate are strong and progressive and running against very, very strong incumbents. All of them. All right. One last question. If you win next Tuesday, you're off to the United States Senate for six years. If you don't win, political future due to the Pratt. One way or the other, no matter what happens in this election, we feel like, in my campaign,

that we've changed the face of politics in New Mexico. How so? Well, we think we've raised the level of organization of the various constituencies that we're most concerned with. And we've raised the level of understanding of the voters. When you have an election that is so polarized and with such divergent points of view as ours, you allow the public to really examine the issues. So I think we've got a more sophisticated electorate as a result of this campaign. And no matter which way the election goes, that level of organization and sophistication will serve my political goals and my political future, another which are to always be involved in politics. I mean, I'm completely hooked. And I'll probably run for other things all through my whole life. It's a disease that I must have for which there is no known cure. No known cure. No known cure. That's for sure. And I want to be in a position to represent what I think is the best in the people of the

state of New Mexico. And they're better organized to fight for what they need and want. You know some Democrats would have liked you to have pulled your punches in terms of your views on a lot of issues in this campaign. In retrospect, do you ever wish a hand? Well, on the contrary, I feel like probably I've held back maybe a little more than I should have. I have tempered my style and you need to do that because you don't want to just put people off. Like the debate that I was in today earlier, it was, I was in an audience that I knew was not particularly leaning my way. And I determined that there's no sense putting those people off and making them angry. So I tempered my remarks. So you're taking all my time away from me. Thank you so much for coming by those three days. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Thanks, Hal. That will have to be it for tonight, tomorrow, Republican United States Senator Pete Domainejie takes his turn off the campaign trail for one last look at his bid for re-election

this year. Meanwhile, thanks for joining us. I'm Hal Rhodes. Have a good night. Local presentation of the illustrated daily is made possible in part by grants from Southwest Mortgage Company, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Farmington, Los Cruces, and Hobbes, and Stubblefield Screen Print Company, decals, bumper stickers, labels, signs, and other

custom screen printing in Albuquerque. Back to back on the illustrated daily. Last night, Democratic State Representative Judith Pratt, tonight, Republican United States Senator Pete Domainejie in an exclusive in-depth interview. Not the campaign trail, but on the illustrated daily at seven right here on K&M-E-TV-5. Alan Bates is Guy Burgess, the spy who defected to Russia in 1951. Coral Brown plays herself, an actress who appeared in Moscow in 1958, and this is the true story of a brief encounter. You know, there's no one in Moscow at all. It's rather like staying up at Cambridge for the long back. What makes do with whoever's around? Me.

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