Politics
The Sarah Palin I knew
As a longtime Alaska journalist and resident who knew Gov. Sarah Palin and followed her political rise, I have to wonder what John McCain was thinking when he asked her to be his vice presidential nominee. Sure, she's a lot of things McCain is, was or needs. The 44-year-old is a maverick, a Republican who challenged the Alaska GOP's old-boy network and won. She is a fiscal and social conservative who opposes abortion rights. She's a photogenic former beauty queen with five kids, including one just born with Down syndrome and another in the Army heading to Iraq. She's a commercial salmon fisherman and a moose hunter and her husband races snowmobiles. But is she ready for this job?
Count one more superdelegate for Barack Obama
Laurie Weahkee, the recently elected Democratic Party of New Mexico superdelegate, has decided to throw her influential vote to the presidential candidacy of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. In a wide-ranging interview with NMI, the long-time Native American activist says that last Tuesday's primary results in North Carolina and Indiana sealed the deal for her. She says she's eager for the party to unite around Obama and begin to focus on presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.
The politics of beer
John McCain's wife, as you all know by now, is beer heiress Cindy Hensley McCain. What you may not know (or remember) is that Cindy McCain's father and uncle — former bootleggers — owned the Ruidoso Downs racetrack in the 1950s.
Swinging for Latinos
As New Mexico emerges as a key swing state, the two parties are increasingly focusing on the state's Latino voters as a key demographic. It’s not unusual for Democrats to win big statewide with New Mexico Latinos. But George Bush received about 40 percent of the Latino vote nationally in 2004, and maybe 37 percent in New Mexico. The big question now is was 2004 was a flash in the pan?
NEA estimates McCain pricetag
Today is National Teacher Appreciation Day, and that's great for this year. But a report out by the National Education Association (NEA) asserts there will be less to appreciate about next year if John McCain is elected president.
Richardson makes Obama's case
Gov. Bill Richardson appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live Wednesday night to debate Hillary Clinton-supporter James Carville. Carville famously labeled Richardson’s endorsement of Barack Obama an act of betrayal, even comparing Richardson’s choice to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus in an article late last month in the New York Times.
Audit raises (millions of) questions
A Democratic party media consultant received an unauthorized fee of $1 million in 2004 and more than $2 million of the contract that produced thousands of TV and radio ads prominently featuring Vigil-Giron in '04 and '06 can't be accounted for.
CD2: Urlacher suits up for Teague
Second Congressional District hopeful Harry Teague, a Democrat, will get a boost from New Mexico's most famous pro athlete.
Brace yourself
Bring a book, a magazine, anything to keep you occupied June 3. State elections officials expect a high voter turnout for the state primary, which could mean lines. In fact, one official estimates a whopping 70 percent turnout of the state's roughly 875,000 registered Democrats and Republicans. One million paper ballots will be ordered just for contingency sake. The big draw, some party officials speculate, could be the Republican U.S. Senate primary battle. And that would be good for the GOP.
CD3: Lujan camp attacks Shendo
The question of frontrunner Ben Ray Lujan's sexual orientation in the Democratic 3rd Congressional District contest transfixed politicians, bloggers and others Wednesday. It also forced campaigns -- and news outlets -- to confront an issue that rarely surfaces in even the most vigorous political contests -- the relevance or lack thereof of a candidate's sexual orientation.
Domenici's staffer blames wilderness group for lost opportunity
Steve Bell, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici's chief of staff, had hoped the retiring Republican senator could travel to Las Cruces during his last months in office to celebrate a compromise that had protected hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Doña Ana County. But that won't happen, Bell said in an interview, and he blames the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance for the missed opportunity.
CD1: White and Carraro mix it up
The battle for the Republican nod in the Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District gets very personal on TV
Marc Schiff, Part II
Albuquerque City Councilor Michael Cadigan sees some eerie similarities between cost-overruns at the new Fire Department training academy under construction and the city's budget-bloating balloon park and museum.
CD1: Dems tout own strengths
The four-way contest for the Democratic nomination in the Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District features four very different styles
ABQ progressives flex their muscles
The upending of three veteran state lawmakers Tuesday night revealed the muscle progressives wield in and around Albuquerque. But it also could point to a shift in the ongoing struggle for dominance between the Democrats' liberal and moderate wings, one political scientist says.
Senator Tom Udall?
Tom Udall wants to be your next Senator. And if the the election were held today, he'd win in a landslide.
But the election isn't today.
In an exclusive interview with the New Mexico Independent, Udall gives voters an extended look at his positions on the issues, why he's Mr. Neutral (or Mr. Cautious) in Democratic primaries, and what he sees as the major difference between his campaign and that of his two would-be Republican opponents.
Wilson: Lab funding threatened by two extremes
U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson said Wednesday that Democrats want to gut funding for the Los Alamos National Laboratory while some Republicans want to slash government spending no matter what. One could interpret those remarks as veiled attacks on her two rivals also running for the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat.
Southern NM developer stands to make millions from controversial lease
You know those controversial leases the State Land Office has been routinely entering into over the past few years? Well, planning work under one was recently completed by Las Cruces developer Philip Philippou and the land is now up for sale. When you crunch the numbers based on the minimum acceptable bids for the parcels, Philippou stands to make several million dollars. The original appraised value of the land was $8,000 per acre, or $1,968,000 given the total of 246 acres up for sale. If the land office receives bids for each of the 13 parcels offered that Philippou did work on, the minimum required bid amounts will total $17,180,000, or $15.2 million over the original appraisal. Philippou will get a majo cut of that.
Ad Watch: Pro-drilling group airs ads against Udall
A pro-drilling group called the American Energy Alliance is airing ads on both 770 KKOB-AM and 1350 KABQ-AM attacking Tom Udall's stance on drilling.
KABQ is owned byClear Channel Communications Inc. which also owns popular music FM stations. KKOB is by far the most popular radio station in the Albuquerque media market, is owned by Citadel Broadcasting and boasts a 9.4 share in the winter of 2008, according to Arbitron numbers. KABQ, a local Air America radio affiliate, has a 2.1 share.
"The U.S. is sitting on top of vast untapped oil reserves, estimated at about 2 trillion barrels, enough oil to last us for 300 years," the ad by the American Energy Alliance claims. However, the largest oil reserves in the world belong to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has an estimated 260 billion barrels of oil, or around one-fifth of the world's known oil reserves.
Stewart Udall endorses Lujan in 3rd
Stewart Udall, a former Secretary of the Interior, former U.S. Rep and father of current U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, endorsed Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M. for Congress today.
Luján is running for the seat which Tom Udall currently sits in. Udall is leaving the seat to run for Senate, and will face either Steve Pearce or Heather Wilson in November's general election.