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Opinion: Gov. Val Kilmer sounds good to him. As for New Mexico’s voters...

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Well, he’s already got the beard for the job.

Why shouldn’t Val Kilmer run for governor of New Mexico?

Clint Eastwood’s been a mayor and Ronald Reagan won as governor and president. But he had a lot of sales experience in refrigerators pre-politics.

The 49-year-old LA native Kilmer is telling the Associated Press, in a chat over tea, that he’s pondering a run to head his adopted state. ‘I’m just looking for ways to be contributive,’ says the movie actor, showing he’s already learning obtuse political lingo.

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‘If that (Santa Fe) ends up being where I can make a substantial contribution, then I’ll run.’

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who doesn’t have the beard, might have something to say about that; she’s already been running.

In fact, she already thought she’d inherit the state’s top job when President Obama tapped Gov. Bill Richardson to be his secretary of Commerce.

But then Richardson untapped himself upon revelation of a federal grand jury investigation of alleged pay-to-play operations in state government including his office. In the video below, KNME anchor David Algire Garcia interviews Denish on a range of state issues, including Kilmer’s potential candidacy (right around the 16-minute mark). She is, uh, quite polite.

Either way, Richardson is gone after next year, thanks to term limits.

But given Kilmer’s confidence, any further political discussion may be unnecesaary and the voters virtually irrelevant. ‘If I run,’ he pronounced, ‘I’m going to be the next governor.’

-- Andrew Malcolm

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