Politics

Guv jumps into fight for control of governorships

Gov. Bill Richardson is jumping into the fight over how redistricting will reshape the nation’s political landscape in the next few years. Richardson sent an e-mail to supporters of his unsuccessful presidential campaign on Wednesday asking them to contribute to the Democratic Governors Association and help stop the GOP from taking control of the executive branches in a number of states and grabbing greater influencing over redistricting in 2011.

Udall says opponents using push polls

Though Democratic Senate candidate Tom Udall faces no primary opposition, he is still facing some opposition of a different sort in the weeks leading up to the June 3 primary.

According to an e-mail to supporters from Udall campaign manager Amanda Cooper, a group from Ohio is using “push-polls” to spread information about Udall...

"Bush Legacy Tour" comes to Albuquerque

A bus traveling the nation on a Bush Legacy Tour for Americans United for Change made a stop in Albuquerque Monday morning.

The bus was parked in the Nob Hill area of Central, in front of a Flying Star, and features a large picture of President George W. Bush and the words "Bush's legacy" on the side.

"It’s called the Bush Legacy," said Julie Blust, the press secretary for the tour. "But it’s really a legacy of failed conservative policies and most people when they think about legacy, they think about a good thing and this has not been a good legacy."

"Daily Show" Puts Gov. on Obama's "Black and Tan" ticket

Anyone catch a Gov. Bill Richardson reference in the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" last night, May 28? The show's "senior Black correspondent" Larry Wilmore explains Barack Obama's running mate choices, and our beloved Guv comes up as the "Black and Tan" ticket. Watch it, it's funny.

With this "fake news" TV outlet giving Richardson a teensy chance as a running mate, who knows, maybe the biggies with the supposed "real" insight will follow. As Jon Stewart would say, "Go on...." 

$200,000 for Ed Tinsley

The National Restaurant Association Political Action Committee is spending $200,000 in the final week before the June 3 primary on TV and radio ads promoting the candidacy of 2nd Congressional District Republican candidate Ed Tinsley.

The independent expenditure further ups the ante in a GOP primary race that has already seen the National Association of Realtors’ PAC spend almost $1 million to promote the candidacy of Tinsley opponent Monty Newman and every candidate help self-finance his own campaign.

$80K for Denish's PAC

Lt. Gov Diane Denish's political action committee, Progress, Vision and Commitment, raised just over $80,000 since this time last year, according to a report filed with the Secretary of State's office. The PAC spent all but $1,307.92 in the same period.

Much of the money raised came from large donations.

$elf financing doesn't mean victory

Having a lot of your own money to invest in a political campaign doesn't always translate to victory. A recent survey of the 2004 and 2006 election cycles showed that 54 of 62 candidates for federal office who triggered the millionaire's amendment lost their election bids. So what does that mean for two New Mexican candidates who've triggered the millionaire's amendment this year?

'A dream come true'

“When I got involved with the campaign several weeks ago, I started doing the things I know best: organizing people and listening to their stories,” Teresa Brito-Asenap told the Independent in an interview on her way back to Albuquerque. In her two minute, fifteen second speech, she emphasized her own story as a way to highlight two of Obama’s education initiatives – and to organize support for them.

'Body of War' hits Albuquerque

A film shown in Albuquerque, a new tell-all book and morning TV show interview all converged this week to cast light on the run up to the Iraq war -- a struggle that still rages five years after the 2003 invasion at a cost of thousands of lives.

'Clean coal' power: Real or imagined?

There is a lot of talk about clean coal, including from Gov. Bill Richardson, as the country tries to find the right energy mix. But can science make coal clean enough?

'What I know about Sarah Palin'

Today in my email inbox I received from a friend my own copy of Wasilla, Alaska, housewife Anne Kilkenny's calm but scorching look at Sarah Palin, which has literally gone viral in the last few days.
Editor's Note: NMI has not independently verified the statements in this letter.

A funny thing happened on the way to the governor's poolside reception

Santa Fe Reporter's Dave Maass filed this video from Denver. Check it out.
 

A government plan to rescue banks from bad bets threatens a backlash

Mary Kane of the Washington Independent asks about the wisdom of the proposed bailout of banks that would include buying up bad mortgages from ailing institutions.

She writes:

The details don’t seem to matter on Wall Street. Bank shares are rising and the financial sector is pinning all its hopes on the biggest bailout in U.S. history as the only way out of a credit crunch that threatens to take down the market and the entire economy.

A group pays for pro-Obama ads in N.M. to target Hispanics

PowerPAC ads running in two languages

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A latent and lamentable sexism

Having just lost a chance at the U.S. Senate seat she had worked so hard to win, Republican New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson on Sunday publicly offered an interesting perspective on what might have been at play behind the loss suffered by a fellow female member of the U.S. Congress on the other side of the political aisle: Hillary Clinton.

Wilson was one of 13 political experts the New York Times had sought out for comment on Clinton's loss by asking the question: "What Went Wrong?"

In a brief piece entitled "Hermione Clinton," Wilson lays the blame in part on "a latent and lamentable sexism":

She [Clinton] lost because the superdelegates — the Democratic establishment — went against her.

She became a caricature: too smart, too strong, too assertive, too rational, too competent. Think how the young Harry Potter and his male friends initially reacted to Hermione Granger and you get the idea.

A new voice for Congress?

Santa Fe County Commissioner Harry Montoya is trying to get his message out over the din of the increasingly shrill contest for the Democratic nomination in the 3rd Congressional District race. He says he has done more public service than the two perceived front runners.

A pie, a dinner, even a birthday bash -- candidates lure money with creativity

Dinner with a political candidate not your thing? How about winning a pie? You ever thought of helping a candidate celebrate a birthday? Political candidates are resorting to more creative ways to raise cash for their campaigns these days as the Internet opens up new avenues for fundraising.

A political junkie's dream

With two days to go before the June 3rd wrap up of the primary season, the Washington Post political columnists Chris Cillizza and Ben Pershing highlighted New Mexico on Sunday as a "microcosm" of the 2008 national elections and a "central front" in the presidential race. It's interesting to read their brief synopsis for the rest of the nation about what we're experiencing here on the ground in New Mexico.

Cillizza and Pershing characterize the Senate primary between Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce as "expensive and brutal," noting $600,000 worth of ads the group "Club for Growth" has spent in the state to help Pearce. They also described the "ideological and geographic" nature of the race, with Pearce having a record "far more in line with conservative orthodoxy," which he is successfully exploiting in northern New Mexico, which the duo describes as the battleground in the contest.

A referendum on the Rail Runner

When voters in two new transit districts go to the polls in November, they'll be asked whether to approve an eighth-cent hike in their gross receipts tax to fund public transportation projects from Taos County to Valencia County. But in many respects, the vote will be a referendum on the New Mexico Rail Runner Express, the commuter rail line that started service in 2006 and that, by December, will run from Santa Fe to Belen.

A straight-ahead brawl

Steve Pearce’s victory over Heather Wilson in the GOP Senate primary sets the stage for an epic battle with Tom Udall that will likely involve a mix of over-the-top rhetoric, big money and a lot of national media scrutiny in what analysts are calling one of the hottest Senate races in the nation. And where a Wilson vs. Udall matchup might have been a more nuanced affair - say the parry-and-thrust of fencing -- the Udall vs. Pearce battle will be a straight-ahead street brawl.