New Mexico Starts New Year With New Governor

New Mexico residents woke up Thursday morning with a new governor, while Govs. Mario M. Cuomo of New York and James J. Blanchard of Michigan began their second terms.

In Santa Fe, N. M., Garrey E. Carruthers was sworn in at 11:55 p.m. Wednesday, five minutes before the term of outgoing Gov. Toney Anaya officially expired.

Carruthers, who became the state’s first Republican governor since 1970, repeated the swearing-in at a formal ceremony Thursday, calling on the state’s residents to resolve that “this will be our finest year together.”

Images of Patriotism

Cuomo, widely viewed as a potential 1988 Democratic presidential candidate, evoked images of the Statue of Liberty and the U.S. Constitution in his inaugural address Thursday to remind his audience of “this amazing place of miracles called America.”

“My administration has been built on that belief, that the miracle is not over,” Cuomo said in a packed convention hall near the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y.

Like Carruthers, Cuomo, 54, took the official oath of office hours before, at a small ceremony on New Year’s Eve. The governor told friends and relatives that he was “looking forward to four more years in this beautiful house.”

Even so, Cuomo press secretary Martin Steadman said earlier that the governor will be traveling in the next several months to Iowa and four other states. Iowa is the site of the nation’s first presidential party caucuses.

In Lansing, Mich., Blanchard was sworn in Thursday to his second term as governor, telling the state’s residents they are at the crossroads in a global economic war.

About 1,800 people braved 31-degree weather outside the state Capitol to see Blanchard take the oath of office.

‘Enormous Challenge’

Blanchard, the first Democratic governor to be reelected in the state in 28 years, praised Michigan residents for “climbing an enormous mountain of challenge” since he took his first oath in 1983, when the state’s jobless rate stood at 17% and the state was millions of dollars in debt.

But Blanchard said that Michigan has even more hills to climb in the face of a new challenge from foreign competitors.