The U.S. Chamber of Commerce at a news conference at The Range Cafe in Bernalillo today announced they are supporting Republican Heather Wilson for U.S. Senate.
I kind of thought they might go that way.
Especially after they've spent nearly half a million on TV ads blasting Democrat Martin Heinrich.
My story on independent expenditures in the Senate race is HERE.
My story on the Chamber's most recent ad is HERE.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Wilson Calls on Akin to Get Out of Senate Race
Heather Wilson, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, is going to let the problems of her counterpart in Missouri drag her down.
In case you haven't been tuned into any political news in the past day or so, Rep. Todd Akin was talking in a TV interview Sunday, about his opposition to abortion, even in instances of rape: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he said.
Both President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney denounced Akin's state,emt. And so did Heather Wilson.
UPDATE 4:17 pm : Wilson's Democratic opponent Martin Heinrich also reacted to Akin's attitude toward rape..
UPDATE 5:04 pm. Another New Mexico Republican, Janice Arnold Jones, running for Congress in CD1, also has called for Akin to get out out of the race:
In case you haven't been tuned into any political news in the past day or so, Rep. Todd Akin was talking in a TV interview Sunday, about his opposition to abortion, even in instances of rape: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he said.
Both President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney denounced Akin's state,emt. And so did Heather Wilson.
“As a woman and a mother, I found Rep.Akin's comments this weekend to be sickening and deeply offensive. There is no such thing as ‘legitimate rape.’ His remarks undermine his ability to command the respect necessary for leadership and he should step aside.”
UPDATE 4:17 pm : Wilson's Democratic opponent Martin Heinrich also reacted to Akin's attitude toward rape..
"Rep. Akin’s comments about rape are profoundly wrong and disgusting to every American. All rape is a violation and can never be `legitimate.' New Mexicans should be able to make their own choices about family planning. I trust that women, not politicians, will make the best medical decisions for themselves and their families."
UPDATE 5:04 pm. Another New Mexico Republican, Janice Arnold Jones, running for Congress in CD1, also has called for Akin to get out out of the race:
As an American deeply concerned about the impact of violent crime on victims, families, and communities, I am extremely offended and repulsed by Rep. Akin’s comments that were reported over the weekend. Such comments show a cavalier disregard for women that I’m quite honestly surprised and saddened to see in this day and age. Mr. Akins’ attitudes and opinions have no place in Washington, and I encourage him to withdraw from his race.
ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: A Family Write-In Campaign
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Aug. 19 2012
A woman’s place is in the House. A man’s is in the Senate. That could almost be the motto of an Albuquerque couple — Bob Anderson and his wife, Jeanne Pahls, both of whom are running as write-in candidates in New Mexico this year.
Anderson, a political science professor at Central New Mexico Community College, is a declared write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the retiring Sen. Jeff Bingaman. Pahls, an Albuquerque teacher, is running for the open seat in the 1st Congressional District. (There’s no write-in candidate here in the 3rd Congressional District.)
Currently, there is only one married couple in Congress, U.S. Reps. Connie Mack of Florida and Mary Bono of California.
“We hadn’t really thought of that,” said Anderson in a telephone interview last week when asked about the novelty of the situation. “Jeanne and I were just talking about how there’s no choices really in the Senate and House races here. … Heinrich and Wilson both seem to be the candidates of the military-industrial complex.”
So the couple, both of whom have a long history of involvement in civil rights, war protests and other progressive causes, both decided to run.
Anderson is running against Democrat Martin Heinrich, who is giving up his seat in Congress to run, and Republican Heather Wilson, who served in the House for 10 years. Anderson has run against Wilson before. In 1998, when Wilson first won her seat in Congress, she defeated Democrat Phil Maloof and Anderson, who ran as a Green Party candidate candidate. Anderson got 10 percent of the vote in the general election that year.
Pahls faces Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham and Republican Janice Arnold-Jones in the race for the House seat currently held by Heinrich and formerly by Wilson.
Pencil power: Both Anderson and Pahls have adopted the pencil as a symbol and the slogan “Write for New Mexico” in their campaigns to emphasize that they are write-in candidates.
In New Mexico, it’s easy to become a declared write-in candidate. No messy petitions, no primaries, no conventions. You just have to show up at the Secretary of State’s Office 21 days after the June primary and file a declaration of intent. Under current state law, the only write-in ballots that are counted are those of official declared write-in candidates. (So no, your vote for Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob Squarepants will not count.)
The hard part is winning as a write-in. The last successful write-in congressional candidate in New Mexico was the late Joe Skeen, who won his 2nd District seat in 1980. But Skeen was a special case. Democratic U.S. Rep Harold Runnels died in office after that year’s primary.
No Republican had filed to run against the popular Runnels, so no GOP candidate was on the ballot. Skeen became the de facto Republican candidate. And he was helped by the fact that the Democrats were split. The party nominated David King to run, which angered Runnels’ widow, Dorothy, who also ran as a write-in.
Name identification wasn’t a problem for Skeen in 1980. Not only had he served in the state Senate for a decade or so, he’d been the Republican nominee for governor twice in the 1970s, losing two very close races. (He’d also been on the GOP ticket as Pete Domenici’s running mate in the 1970 gubernatorial race.) Skeen went on to serve 11 terms in Congress.
Occupy the ballot box: Another difference between the Skeen write-in effort and the Anderson/Pahls campaigns is that Skeen had access to the regular Republican funding sources. Anderson said both he and Pahls were inspired to run by the Occupy Wall Street movement and are emphasizing their independence from corporations and financial institutions in their campaigns.
He said on his website, “We will not have large corporate donors, but that is OK. Voters are interested in hearing about truth in politics. This is a time of crisis, voters are turning away from worn- out ideas and politicians.”
Of course, whether enough voters are willing to turn away from those politicians and take up a pencil for Anderson and Pahls remains to be seen.
Aug. 19 2012
A woman’s place is in the House. A man’s is in the Senate. That could almost be the motto of an Albuquerque couple — Bob Anderson and his wife, Jeanne Pahls, both of whom are running as write-in candidates in New Mexico this year.
 |
| Bob Anderson |
Currently, there is only one married couple in Congress, U.S. Reps. Connie Mack of Florida and Mary Bono of California.
“We hadn’t really thought of that,” said Anderson in a telephone interview last week when asked about the novelty of the situation. “Jeanne and I were just talking about how there’s no choices really in the Senate and House races here. … Heinrich and Wilson both seem to be the candidates of the military-industrial complex.”
So the couple, both of whom have a long history of involvement in civil rights, war protests and other progressive causes, both decided to run.
Anderson is running against Democrat Martin Heinrich, who is giving up his seat in Congress to run, and Republican Heather Wilson, who served in the House for 10 years. Anderson has run against Wilson before. In 1998, when Wilson first won her seat in Congress, she defeated Democrat Phil Maloof and Anderson, who ran as a Green Party candidate candidate. Anderson got 10 percent of the vote in the general election that year.
Pahls faces Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham and Republican Janice Arnold-Jones in the race for the House seat currently held by Heinrich and formerly by Wilson.
Pencil power: Both Anderson and Pahls have adopted the pencil as a symbol and the slogan “Write for New Mexico” in their campaigns to emphasize that they are write-in candidates.
In New Mexico, it’s easy to become a declared write-in candidate. No messy petitions, no primaries, no conventions. You just have to show up at the Secretary of State’s Office 21 days after the June primary and file a declaration of intent. Under current state law, the only write-in ballots that are counted are those of official declared write-in candidates. (So no, your vote for Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob Squarepants will not count.)
The hard part is winning as a write-in. The last successful write-in congressional candidate in New Mexico was the late Joe Skeen, who won his 2nd District seat in 1980. But Skeen was a special case. Democratic U.S. Rep Harold Runnels died in office after that year’s primary.
 |
| Jeanne Pahls |
Name identification wasn’t a problem for Skeen in 1980. Not only had he served in the state Senate for a decade or so, he’d been the Republican nominee for governor twice in the 1970s, losing two very close races. (He’d also been on the GOP ticket as Pete Domenici’s running mate in the 1970 gubernatorial race.) Skeen went on to serve 11 terms in Congress.
Occupy the ballot box: Another difference between the Skeen write-in effort and the Anderson/Pahls campaigns is that Skeen had access to the regular Republican funding sources. Anderson said both he and Pahls were inspired to run by the Occupy Wall Street movement and are emphasizing their independence from corporations and financial institutions in their campaigns.
He said on his website, “We will not have large corporate donors, but that is OK. Voters are interested in hearing about truth in politics. This is a time of crisis, voters are turning away from worn- out ideas and politicians.”
Of course, whether enough voters are willing to turn away from those politicians and take up a pencil for Anderson and Pahls remains to be seen.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
R.I.P. Hoyt Clifton
 |
| Hoyt Clifton in 2002 |
"He was totally fair, totally honest, totally non-partisan, just a very decent man," said Denise Lamb, who worked with Clifton for nine years, and who took his place as state elections director after Clifton retired in 1994. "Those were big boots to fill," said Lamb, who called Clifton her mentor
"I don't think we'll ever see another elections director serve under six secretaries of state, consider today's political climate," Lamb said.
Former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron also was saddened by Clifton's death. "I brought him out of retirement (in 1999)," she said. Clifton worked as a consultant for Vigil-Giron for most of her last eight years in office, she said.
"He wrote that election code," she said. "Nobody knew election law like Hoyt."
Clifton, a native of Quay County, will be buried Monday in Melrose, N.M. beside his late wife.
See Friday's New Mexican for more information.
Musical Culture Wars
Here's one I'm going to cross post on my politics blog and my music blog.
This is a new song from Devo, the pride of Akron, Ohio, inspired by the plight of Mitt Romney's dog.
Meanwhile, from the right, almost all the songs from Hank Williams, Jr.'s new album, Old School, New Rules sound like Sean Hannity could have written the lyrics. Here's one that features samples of Hank's dad.
This is a new song from Devo, the pride of Akron, Ohio, inspired by the plight of Mitt Romney's dog.
Meanwhile, from the right, almost all the songs from Hank Williams, Jr.'s new album, Old School, New Rules sound like Sean Hannity could have written the lyrics. Here's one that features samples of Hank's dad.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Will Barrie Be on Senate Ballot?
The Secretary of State's office determined last week that Barrie didn't have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions to earn a place on the ballot.
However Barrie argues that there were many instances where signatures were ruked invalid because of typos by Secretary of State’s Office staff who input the names of the signers into a computer to compare them with the state’s voter database.
However, a potentially more serious problem for Barrie is that he's running on the Independent American Party ticket but wasn’t a member of the party at the time the governor issued the election proclamation in January. But he couldn’t have been a member of the party at that time because the party wasn’t officially recognized in New Mexico until April. Barrie claims this requirement is unconstitutional.
You can read my full story HERE. Below is Barrie's petition.
Barrie v Duran Petition for Mandamus - Filed
Monday, August 13, 2012
Roundhouse Roundup: Susana Unscathed
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Aug. 12, 2012
Two arrests over a fraudulent audit at a state agency, including the No. 2 man in the office. The next day, the top dog at the agency is put on leave with pay while the investigation continues.
You might expect a state government scandal like this would evoke passionate, if predictable, outrage against a sitting governor.
But so far, Gov. Susana Martinez has been relatively untouched by the New Mexico Finance Authority’s fake audit scandal. There’s hardly even any feigned outrage, the most common currency in modern political rhetoric. Even the usual denouncers have held back on denouncing, at least as I write this.
One big reason for the silence is the fact that there’s no evidence Martinez herself is involved in the phony document-making that apparently took place at the Finance Authority. Another is that the agency itself isn’t under the governor’s direct control — though her appointees, including four Cabinet secretaries, make up a majority of its governing board. Plus, Martinez’s Securities Division conducted the investigation and made the arrests.
But basically, even though there have been criminal charges filed against former Finance Authority comptroller Greg Campbell and current chief operating officer John Duff, the fake audit affair isn’t exactly juicy in a political sense. There’s been no evidence reported of anybody involved embezzling money from the Finance Authority. There’s no hint of political contributions or pay-to-play. And there’s no sex.
Responding to a question about the scandal Thursday, Martinez, through a spokesman, said, “I’m very pleased that our Securities Division is moving so quickly in this investigation. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, but those who have broken the law must be held accountable and we must send a clear message that violating the public’s trust will not be tolerated.”
I also asked about the authority’s chief of staff, Rick May, who on Thursday was suspended with pay. May came to the job last September after serving eight months as Martinez’s secretary of Finance and Administration.
“Regarding May, the governor supports the actions taken by the NMFA board today as they continue in their effort to ensure that an independent and thorough investigation and audit is conducted,” spokesman Scott Darnell said. “She has been clear that she wants no stone left unturned in the effort to determine how the fake audit was produced and what the accurate financial position of NMFA is.”
Gone was the flowing praise Martinez had a little less than a year ago, when she announced that May was leaving his Cabinet job. “Secretary May is tremendously talented, and New Mexicans should join with me in thanking him for his service at the Department of Finance and Administration,” Martinez said in a news release last August.
“I’m grateful that he is eager to tackle yet another challenge on behalf of our taxpayers.”
Asked Thursday whether the administration shared any responsibility in the scandal, Darnell didn’t answer directly. “As she has said, the governor is hopeful that the investigation and audit into NMFA will help to identify the key deficiencies in the structure, organization and operations at NMFA, wherever they may be,” he said.
Aug. 12, 2012
Two arrests over a fraudulent audit at a state agency, including the No. 2 man in the office. The next day, the top dog at the agency is put on leave with pay while the investigation continues.
You might expect a state government scandal like this would evoke passionate, if predictable, outrage against a sitting governor.
 |
| Gov. Martinez |
One big reason for the silence is the fact that there’s no evidence Martinez herself is involved in the phony document-making that apparently took place at the Finance Authority. Another is that the agency itself isn’t under the governor’s direct control — though her appointees, including four Cabinet secretaries, make up a majority of its governing board. Plus, Martinez’s Securities Division conducted the investigation and made the arrests.
But basically, even though there have been criminal charges filed against former Finance Authority comptroller Greg Campbell and current chief operating officer John Duff, the fake audit affair isn’t exactly juicy in a political sense. There’s been no evidence reported of anybody involved embezzling money from the Finance Authority. There’s no hint of political contributions or pay-to-play. And there’s no sex.
Responding to a question about the scandal Thursday, Martinez, through a spokesman, said, “I’m very pleased that our Securities Division is moving so quickly in this investigation. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, but those who have broken the law must be held accountable and we must send a clear message that violating the public’s trust will not be tolerated.”
 |
| Rick May |
“Regarding May, the governor supports the actions taken by the NMFA board today as they continue in their effort to ensure that an independent and thorough investigation and audit is conducted,” spokesman Scott Darnell said. “She has been clear that she wants no stone left unturned in the effort to determine how the fake audit was produced and what the accurate financial position of NMFA is.”
Gone was the flowing praise Martinez had a little less than a year ago, when she announced that May was leaving his Cabinet job. “Secretary May is tremendously talented, and New Mexicans should join with me in thanking him for his service at the Department of Finance and Administration,” Martinez said in a news release last August.
“I’m grateful that he is eager to tackle yet another challenge on behalf of our taxpayers.”
Asked Thursday whether the administration shared any responsibility in the scandal, Darnell didn’t answer directly. “As she has said, the governor is hopeful that the investigation and audit into NMFA will help to identify the key deficiencies in the structure, organization and operations at NMFA, wherever they may be,” he said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)