Wiviott: Emphasizing his working-class roots and spending big

Businessman has spent more than $1 million of own money on campaign

Steve Terrell | The New Mexican

5/17/2008 - 4/30/08

Don Wiviott, the son of two Navy officers, grew up on military bases around the world. Born in Spain, his first language was Spanish. In speeches, he stresses his working-class roots — pouring concrete as a union laborer to work his way through college.

"You want to fix anything, you go in with jeans and a T-shirt and work with the people on the line," he said. "You ride in the trucks, you unload the trucks, you meet the customers. That's how you figure out how to fix things. You never start at the top. I don't know if there's that many people in Congress who've actually done that."

Yet instead of being known for these things, most headlines about the first-time candidate have concerned the huge amount of money he's infused into his campaign.

The "millionaire amendment"

According to his campaign finance reports, Wiviott has written checks to his congressional campaign totaling $1,090,000, the most recent self-contribution being a $100,000 check Tuesday. Wiviott donated enough to trip the "millionaire amendment" in the federal election code, allowing his opponents to triple their limits for individual contributions.

The fate of "millionaire" candidates isn't encouraging for Wiviott. According to a recent report in Congressional Quarterly, 62 candidates in the past two elections have spent enough of their money to invoke the amendment. Of those, only eight won.

And Wiviott actually has spent more than $1,090,000 getting his name out in the political arena.

Last year — when everyone assumed Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico would be seeking re-election — Wiviott announced he would seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat. He contributed $400,000 in the form of a loan to his senatorial campaign.

But in November, Domenici shook up New Mexico's political landscape by announcing he wouldn't seek re-election. Longtime U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., announced he would run for Senate, prompting Wiviott to drop out of the Senate race and run for Udall's House seat. According to his most recent campaign finance report for the Senate campaign, as of March 31, that campaign had repaid Wiviott $145,961 (which he "reinvested" in his Congressional bid). This means Wiviott spent more than $254,000 of his own cash last year on his Senate race.

That, on top of the $1,090,000 he's put into his current campaign, means, as of the end of March, Wiviott is out more than $1.3 million in the last year or so on his two campaigns.

But he says it's worth the money.

"I've been thinking about doing this for 30 years, and it doesn't do me any good to have that money if the planet, the economy, the country and my fellow citizens are getting the short end," Wiviott said. "This is the highest and best use of my life. ... If I have the ability to make change happen and run in this race to the best of my ability and win, and then remember why I'm doing it, then it is the most purposeful thing that I could possibly be doing with my time here. ... What good does it do to have money in the bank if our community and our environment are going down the drain?"

A successful businessman

Before he started running for federal office last year, Wiviott was best known locally as a real estate developer, or, as he prefers, a "green builder."

Wiviott's 61-unit The Lofts at Camino de los Marquez — which consists of residential/work units — conformed with the city's master plan.

However, a neighborhood association and other opponents said The Lofts would increase traffic and block views with its tall buildings. The City Council voted against the project in August 2000. Wiviott appealed the denial to state District Court, where the council's decision was overturned when a judge found the project met all city requirements.

More recently, Wiviott's plan to renovate the old Healy Matthews and Club Luna buildings on Cerrillos Road hit a major snag when the City Council voted against approving a proposed third building that was part of the project. (The city had approved plans for renovating the existing two buildings.)

Wiviott chaired the city's Economic Development Review Committee under two mayors and is a member of Our Communities, Our Future, a state task force appointed by Gov. Bill Richardson to study "opportunities for public-private partnerships for 21st Century prosperity and community growth."

Before moving to Santa Fe in the mid-1990s, Wiviott ran businesses in several states. He was hired about 20 years ago to manage Quality Trailer Products Corp., a company in Azle, Texas. He said he was recruited to turn around the company, which he said was losing money. "We not only made a profit, but we doubled the size of that company," he said.

But all was not smooth during his time at that company. According to 1992 news releases from the Federal Trade Commission, the agency charged the company with inviting a competitor to fix prices, saying, "Such naked attempts to collude, where there are no resulting marketplace efficiencies, pose a significant risk of anti-competitive effects."

According to the news releases, the complaint charged that "representatives of Quality Trailer visited a competitor — American Marine Industries (AMI), based in Shreveport, La. — and invited AMI to fix prices on its axle products. The Quality Trailer representatives allegedly told AMI that AMI's price for certain axle products was too low, that there was plenty of room in the industry for both firms, and that there was no need for the two companies to compete on price. Quality Trailer also allegedly promised AMI that it would not sell certain axle products below a certain price."

The FTC in November 1992 prohibited Quality Trailer from "engaging in similar unfair methods of competition in the future," according to the government news release.

Asked about the case last month, Wiviott told a reporter, "No, there was no price-fixing." However, Federal Trade Commissioner Deborah K. Owen said in a concurring statement to the consent decree, "the facts of the case compel a conclusion that an attempt was made to engage in hard-core, price-fixing."

Another commissioner, Mary L. Azcuenaga, according to the FTC, concurred that "the evidence showed that officers of Quality Trailer, unambiguously invited a competitor to fix prices for certain products, and offered no justification or excuse for this conduct."

The FTC news releases note: "A consent agreement is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission of a law violation."

Indeed, Wiviott insists there was no violation of the law.

"One of our customers was receiving our products — like parts for axles like hubs and castings and spindles for axles — assembling those axles and then selling them for less money than they sold our axles ... and I had a salesman ask him how he could do that."

Wiviott said the customer kept ordering parts from Quality Trailer. "Then he shipped out maybe a half-dozen truckloads of axles, collected money COD for those axles and then didn't pay us for those parts." Wiviott said the customer closed his shop, reported Quality Trailer to the FTC for attempted price fixing, then disappeared. There is no telephone listing in Shreveport for American Marine Industries.

"You talk about American industry and manufacturing and losing our manufacturing base," Wiviott said. "I've actually run manufacturing companies."

The Wiviott mobile

Besides his television ads, the most visible aspect of the Wiviott campaign undoubtedly is his vehicle, a green and blue 2006 Dodge Springer, five-cylinder diesel van featuring the candidate's face and logo.

The van runs partly on used cooking oil Wiviott obtains from local restaurants. That goes along with the slogan printed on the side, "New Energy for New Mexico."

"It has the ability to run on cooking grease, but typically we run it on bio-diesel," Wiviott spokesman Webster Cash said. "The bio-diesel is canola oil-based. It drastically reduces our carbon emissions, and so far, the campaign has taken it about 14,000 miles in the last three months."

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com.

Don Wiviott

Age: 52

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Environment Studies, Dartmouth University, 1977; master's degree in business administration, Harvard University, 1984

Career experience: Worked as a union construction laborer; owned and managed several businesses in Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and other states before moving to Santa Fe, where he began his career as a "green" developer. His local projects include The Lofts and The Lofts at Marquez Place.

Political experience: Volunteered in national campaigns of national political candidates, most Democratic presidential candidates beginning with Jimmy Carter

Personal: Married to Kelly Owen Wiviott; two grown stepchildren

Ever arrested? Yes. Arrested while photographing an anti-government protest in Spain in the 1970s. Spent about a day in a Spanish jail

Web site: www.donfornewmexico.com