Democracy for New Mexico

Sunday Bird Blogging: Snakey Sunny

Our birds have really been enjoying the four-day holiday weekend and so have we. They love to have us home and hanging out with them. They play, entertain us with their tricks, beg for treats, sing for us and sometimes even groom us. They do seem confused as to why we don't have feathers. Here's Sunny the sun conure doing one of this routines for the camera. We call it being "snakey." It's a mindset he gets into regularly that seems to involve some kind of avian-style Zen conciousness related to his toys. Obviously Sunny thinks he's being really charming. What do you think?

Black Friday: Gotta Love This

Crooks and Liars has the story.

NM-01: Heinrich and Pie, Oh My

Martin picking up the pie

Wondering who won the prize of the Thanksgiving pie personally delivered by none other than Martin Heinrich, Dem candidate for Congress in NM-01? Turns out it was Floyd Vasquez, featured in this blog post on Heinrich's campaign website.

To have a chance at winning the pie delivery prize, folks had to donate online to Heinrich's campaign via ActBlue, and a slew of people evidently did. Heinrich was among the top five fundraisers on ActBlue during the pie contest, topped only by Edwards for President, Mark Warner for Senate (VA) and the People's Email Network. He beat out Jean Shaheen for Senate (NH) for fourth place. To date, the Heinrich campaign has raised almost $85,000 via ActBlue. To add to that total, click here.

Vasquez family with free pie

Pie winner Floyd, a Duke City Fix reader, sent the local community blog a photo of the delivery and described how he used the meeting with Heinrich to "give Martin a folder with information that reflects our views and concerns regarding a host of issues. We talked about public service, net neutrality, media ownership rules, local media and the upcoming election." Good going, Floyd!

After delivering the pie, Heinrich returned home for his family's T-day gathering. Check out some photos here. Looks like pie was popular at their dinner too, doesn't it? Me? I had a slice of pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream and homemade cranberry sauce at the Thanksgiving dinner I attended. Highly recommended. I wouldn't kid around. Trust me.

To read our previous coverage of the 2008 NM-01 Congressional race, visit our archive.

ACLU Sues for Better Safety and Services in NM Juvenile Justice Facilities

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico sued the New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) last Tuesday, November 20, 2007, for failing to ensure safe living conditions and essential rehabilitation services for young people in state juvenile justice facilities. The lawsuit charges CYFD with breaching the terms of a contract that it signed with the ACLU in February 2006 requiring the agency to establish minimally adequate mental health services and protect youth from physical assaults and threats of violence. CYFD entered into the 2006 agreement in order to avoid being sued for rights violations at that time.

“This lawsuit seeks to make sure that youth in our juvenile justice system get a fair shot at redirecting their lives and overcoming mistakes they made in their past,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “New Mexico puts its most troubled kids in prison because we don’t have adequate mental health services. Kids are unnecessarily incarcerated and our juvenile detention facilities become training grounds for lifelong criminals instead of centers of genuine rehabilitation.”

Filed in Santa Fe District Court, the ACLU’s lawsuit seeks two basic reforms:

1. Establish minimally adequate community mental health services for the 3,000 children and youth on probation or parole due to delinquent acts, in order to avoid the unnecessary incarceration of youth due to their mental illness; and
2. Fundamentally improve the safety, medical care and mental health care provided to the approximately 300 children and youth held in delinquency facilities.

The suit cites several instances of guard-on-youth violence, including a March 2007 incident in which staff at the Santa Fe County Juvenile Detention Center assaulted a 17-year old resident who is developmentally delayed and suffers from auditory hallucinations. Guards picked the youth up by his armpits and repeatedly slammed his head into a metal classroom door. CYFD rejected a complaint that the ACLU filed on the resident’s behalf, except to criticize staff for failing to videotape the ‘take down.’

Simonson said, “Hopefully your children don’t wind up in one of these facilities. But if they do, you want to know that the staff is going to protect them, not brutalize them. You want to know that they’re going to get the tools they need to address emotional problems and make productive behavioral adjustments.”

Representing the ACLU are attorneys Daniel Yohalem and Lee Hunt of Santa Fe, ACLU Co-Legal Director Phil Davis of Albuquerque, and Alice Bussiere and Maria Ramiu of the Youth Law Center of San Francisco. Yohalem is former Legal Director for the Children’s Defense Fund.

Download the legal complaint: www.aclu-nm.org

The mission of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico is to maintain and advance the cause of civil liberties within the state of New Mexico, with particular emphasis on the freedom of religion, speech, press, association, and assemblage, and the rights to the franchise, due process of law and equal protection of law, and to take any legitimate action in the furtherance and defense of such purposes. These objectives shall be sought wholly without political partisanship.

Web: https://www.aclu-nm.org

Komen Community Challenge Coming to ABQ on November 28

From Susan G. Komen for the Cure:
Every woman diagnosed with breast cancer is someone’s sister, mother, best friend, or child. And until we find a cure that helps every one of them beat it, we need to keep looking. You get it. We get it. But how can we make it happen?

This year, more than 1,000 New Mexico women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and not all of these women will have an equal chance at survival. What's more, this breast cancer diagnosis will be much deadlier for low-income and underinsured women, who are too often ethnic and racial minorities. We find this unacceptable, and we're doing something about it on Wednesday, November 28, from Noon to 2:00 PM at Salon Ortega at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque! RSVP today!

Breast cancer survivors and activists will be joined by Lt. Governor Diane Denish and State Senator Dede Feldman, along with health care professionals, community leaders and other decision makers to discuss disparities in breast cancer screening, treatment and survivorship and how we can partner to "Close the Gap". We intend to be a community without gaps - one where every woman will have access to early detection and quality care.

Join breast cancer survivors, advocates, community leaders, health care providers, researchers and legislative leaders at a forum on closing the health care gap. With the need so great and resources so limited, it promises to be an engaging and spirited discussion.

What: The New Mexico Komen Community Challenge - "Close the Gap!" Forum

When: Wednesday, November 28, 2007, Noon - 2:00 PM

Where: Salon Ortega, National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 4th St. SW, Albuquerque, NM

Who: Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, State Senator Dede Feldman, breast cancer survivors and families, health care officials, breast cancer experts – and you and your colleagues, friends and family!!

How: It’s easy! RSVP today! Or call 505-401-5974.

We’re on a mission to end breast cancer forever. Too many New Mexico families are being torn apart by this disease – and we will keep fighting until none of these women fall through the “gap” in detection and treatment. Thank you for helping us to turn this goal into reality.

Thanks

You may celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way, replace the turkey with veggie vegan something, protest the holiday's origins or just plain ignore it and watch football or travel down to the Bosque del Apache to see the cranes instead. Any way you roast it, I hope you'll enjoy another experience of Arlo Guthrie's T-Day song, Alice's Restaurant, as you mark the day in your own way.

Here's a video of Arlo from 2005 performing the entire song in concert. When was the last time you heard the 18-minute plus saga about what happened to young Arlo and his hippie friends in Stockbridge, MA on a Thanksgiving long, long ago? The video above is the film's original trailer from 1969, when many of us were suffering through an earlier quagmire war -- but with way fewer gray hairs on our heads, during an eran when Thanksgiving herb meant something other than parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme.

Fore more to ponder, here's the 2007 version of 21 Reasons to Give Thanks by the Think Progress Report:

21 Reasons To Give Thanks

• We're thankful for our country's troops.
• We're thankful the minimum wage has been increased for the first time in a decade.
• We're thankful MC Rove has more free time to work on his dance moves.
• We're thankful Congress has "wasted time" trying to end the war in Iraq. 
• We're thankful radio stations don't play "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."
• We're thankful for journalists like Molly Ivins, who was never afraid to "raise hell."
• We're (not) thankful for wide stances.
• We're thankful to Michael Moore, whose documentary SiCKO started a national discussion on health care reform.
• We're thankful people don't call us Buzzy, Cookie, Brownie, or Scooter.
• We're thankful we can now call Al Gore the "Oscar-winning, Emmy-winning, Nobel Prize laureate" former vice president of the United States.
• We're thankful Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales won't visit our bedside if we're sick in the hospital.
• We're thankful not all Dick Cheney's cousins think like he does.
• We're thankful to be considered one of the "ten most dangerous organizations in America."
• We're thankful that visiting the Mall of America isn't really like visiting Iraq.
• We're thankful President Bush isn't giving out any more back rubs.
• We're thankful for 12-year olds who can take down Rush Limbaugh in a fight.
• We're thankful our Halloween costumes aren't very "original."
• We're thankful no one (except the birds) gets hurt when Dick Cheney goes hunting now.
• We're thankful for "phony soldiers" who have the courage to speak out about the war in Iraq.
• We're thankful the "Commander Guy" has only 425 days left in office.
• And last but not least: We're thankful to The Progress Report readers for their tips, energy, and support.

Thanks to You
Finally, thanks to all the readers, commenters and guest bloggers from here and places far away who've driven our daily page hit stats steadily up, up, up since I started this blog back on July 15, 2004 -- some 3,386 posts, 5,617 comments and 313,890 visitors ago and counting. The posts in the early days were rather sporatic, and the visitors few. At the time, I think Joe Monahan was the only other political blogger in New Mexico. Now there are many local bloggers focusing on a variety of angles and targeting a number of niches. By all accounts readership and participation across the board is still growing rapidly.

With a presidential race picking up steam, competitive U.S. House and U.S. Senate contests already garnering national attention and legislative and local elections on the horizon, I can only imagine what the traffic stats will be for New Mexico's blogger community in the coming months. Let's hope we have some election results we can really be thankful about when election day 2008 has come and gone and our troops can finally come home. We've all suffered much too long within the Bush regime's distorted version of reality. Let's hope the worst of our national nightmare ends next November and that next Thanksgiving we can truly be in a hopeful, celebratory mood. Only we can make it happen. Peace.

Turkey Time: Gonzo and McClellan

I'm thankful that protests plague Gonzo and that Scott McClellan squeals. How about you?

NM-Sen: Udall Reports Richardson Won't Enter Race

We've all heard it over and over again from many sources -- Governor Bill Richardson isn't interested in entering the 2008 U.S. Senate race in New Mexico. He's running for president and that's that. The Albuquerque Journal's front page headline this morning says it again, in case anyone's still unconvinced at this point: "Udall Says Governor Confirms He's No Senate Threat." The story reports on a conversation reporter Jeff Jones had with Rep. Tom Udall (NM-03) yesterday:

Gov. Bill Richardson to his key New Mexico backers: Support anyone you want for the 2008 U.S. Senate race, because I'm not getting in. That was Richardson's message during a face-to-face meeting with those supporters earlier this month, according to Rep. Tom Udall, a fellow Democrat who next week will announce his U.S. Senate bid.

"He basically released them to do what they wanted to do in the Senate race," the 3rd Congressional District representative told the Journal on Tuesday.

Rep. Udall was in Rio Rancho yesterday to speak at a joint luncheon meeting of the Rio Rancho and Greater Albuquerque Chambers of Commerce, an appearance scheduled before his decision to run for Senate.

Richardson's campaign joined in with another attempt to make the Governor's position clear:

"We are not running for Senate," Richardson campaign spokesman Tom Reynolds said again Tuesday.

Udall also explained that hearing about Richardson's statement to his supporters was a major factor in his decision to run for Senate:

Udall initially had said he would seek to stay in the House. In an interview Tuesday, he said he reconsidered "almost immediately" upon getting news of what Richardson had to say to his top supporters.

"I wasn't a part of the group (at the meeting)," he said. "But I heard from many people that were at the meeting."

As further evidence, Udall said he's now lining up "some longtime Richardson backers" to support his Senate campaign. He also said that he'll officially enter the race "over a period of several days next week."

Will all this finally put to rest the rumors and speculation about Richardson still eying a Senate run if his quest to be the Democratic nominee for president fails? We'll see.

In the meantime, the Richardson campaign reports that the Governor has real momentum in New Hampshire's presidential primary race:

A new CNN/WMUR poll released today shows New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson surging in New Hampshire, climbing six points to pull even with John Edwards and shrinking the gap with Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

... "The momentum we are seeing in New Hampshire is happening in all of the early states," Contarino added. "Voters are looking for bold solutions, backed by a real track record of success, and more and more are supporting Bill Richardson."

According to the new CNN/WMUR poll:

Hillary Clinton	36%
Barack Obama	22%
John Edwards	13%
Bill Richardson	12%

Check our archive for previous coverage of the 2008 U.S. Senate race in New Mexico. Photo credits: Udall photo by Jeff Jones, published the Gallup Independent. Richardson photo from campaign Flickr album.

Ortiz y Pino: Hillary Is a Symptom of America's Malaise

This is a guest blog by NM State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a Democrat who represents District 12 in Albuquerque. This article recently appeared in other publications including the Seoul Times, OpEdNews.com and Santa Fe Sun News:

Watching the Democratic Presidential candidates' televised debates has become painful for me. Oh, sure: watching the Republicans' version of the rainbow coalition (white, off-white, grey, bone, ivory, buff and cream) in action on television in (pardon the expression) "living color" is even more dreadful, but we know those guys are going to lose, so who cares how bad their act is?

The Democrats, on the other hand, are in all likelihood sifting through the options leading up to actually picking a winner—the next occupant of the Oval Office. If the point of these debates is to give us, the voters, any insight into what our next Chief Executive is going to be like, we are in big trouble. I say this knowing that the Press has already accorded Senator Hillary Clinton not only the Democratic nomination, but the ultimate prize, the White House, as well. This was done without a single vote having been cast and simply on the strength of one solitary measure: dollars raised. She must be ahead, the pundits reason, because she's lapped the field in the money-grubbing sweepstakes.

I know that all the commentators realize that technically some sort of voting has to take place before the coronation is allowed to happen, but to the skilled political observer's eye, this is just so much red tape and hokum. The matter has been decided. She was the first in the sprint to raise $10 million this year, which shot her to the forefront in the early analyses and which then generated an avalanche of additional money from those eager to be lined-up on the same side as the ultimate victor. Then that extra money was widely interpreted to mean she was enjoying soaring, even skyrocketing popularity, far more than her primary opponents…and that attracted yet more contributions. A classic snowball effect played out.

It should be no surprise that the polls show her well ahead of Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and the rest of the pack. She's riding a tsunami of cash, and she seems expertly shrewd in the art of spending it wisely. Her commercials (definitely carried on network television, not the dusty back shelves of cable rerun channels) are certain to be slick. Her mailings will be models of Madison Avenue wizardry. Her telephone push polls will, of course, be put together so subtly that no respondent will ever be aware they've been pushed or polled. If money can buy it, Hillary will have it in her arsenal and all the gadgetry of modern political "witch doctorism" will be immediately at her disposal.

You've got to hand it to her: Senator Clinton plays this version of the political game like the old pro she is, and she plays it to win, with nothing left to chance. So I admit to a certain admiration for this tough, smart, supremely polished woman. She might have made a terrific President at one time, but now when I see her in action in front of the cameras, I cringe. She has become the number one symptom (and not the solution) of all that ails American Democracy in these most cynical of times.

In her probable victory a year from now, we will have reflected back to us the dismal portrait of what we have devolved into: a culture that can't be bothered to decide the value of anything except by one solitary measure: the marketplace.

Equally on full display is the frightening picture of how corrosive the influence of money is on political processes. I can't blame Hillary for playing to win by these rules; she didn't write them, she just figured out how to make them pay. It can be argued that it was the Supreme Court that did the dirty deed when it ruled some years ago that any attempt by law makers to limit the influence of money in elections is an unconstitutional attempt at limiting free speech!

One corollary to this ruling has always seemed to me to be: he who has the most money has the most free speech, and the poor, by virtue of their lack of money, have practically no free speech. A second corollary is what Clinton appears to be demonstrating so precisely this primary season: when dollars are the equivalent of votes, who needs elections as long as we have bankers?

This, then, is the American political malaise. Our worship of money has logically produced an electoral process in which nothing will be said that might antagonize the sources of political cash: the wealthiest of the American Corporate lions. Senator Clinton's rhetoric becomes increasingly bland and forgettable as her campaign treasury deepens. In the end stages (now), she says nothing and promises only to avoid (her favorite word) "irresponsible" action. Wonderful. We will get four years of "responsible inaction" if she assumes the mantle.

This rapid ride to the bottom of insipid inoffensiveness was on pathetic display most recently when she forgot herself during an answer to a question on issuing drivers licenses for undocumented persons. She said something just a wee bit venturesome—then spent five minutes thrashing around trying to re-establish herself as sitting squarely on the fence on this (and every other) issue imaginable. "I can see all sides of this controversy," she seemed to me to be saying, "and you can be assured that as President I will do absolutely nothing about it…for fear that taking action might offend someone, especially someone who possibly might have supported my campaign financially. I just can't take that risk. Nor will I promise to end the Occupation of Iraq during my term, either."

A campaign run the way this one is being run seems exquisitely crafted to produce record low voter turn-outs. The message is clear. Our leading candidates feel passion about nothing but the size of their campaign's bank deposits. They intend to do nothing to change the status quo. When Democrats and Republicans are indistinguishable, will voting make the slightest difference? There isn't a whole lot of Democracy left in this country, just a powdery covering with a lot of bare spots. Watching our leading Democratic Presidential contender brush away even those remnants isn't a pretty sight.

Editor's Note: This is a guest blog by NM State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino. Click to read a previous guest blog by the Senator. Guest blogs provide readers with an opportunity to express their views on relevant issues and may or many not reflect our views. If you'd like to submit a piece for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.

NM-Sen: Latest SUSA Poll Confirms Udall's Strength in Primary & General

Udall (R) at Taos Fiestas Parade

The latest SurveyUSA polling of 2100 registered voters conducted for local KOB-TV on the 2008 U.S. Senate race in New Mexico confirms the results of SUSA's earlier surveys, as well as other recent polling. Bottom line at 180 days before early primary voting begins: the lead of Rep. Tom Udall over Dem primary challenger Marty Chavez continues to be daunting. And if the general election were held today, he'd win handily over either of the Repub contenders -- Rep. Heather Wilson (NM-01) or Rep. Steve Pearce (NM-02) -- while Chavez would lose to both of them. Meanwhile, Wilson is trumping Pearce in the Repub primary by almost 20 points:

Democratic Primary:
Rep. Tom Udall (D) 62%
ABQ Mayor Martin Chavez (D) 32%
Other 4%
Undecided 2%

Republican Primary:
Rep. Heather Wilson (R) 56%
Rep. Steve Pearce (R) 37%
Other 3%
Undecided 4%

General Election Matchups:
Rep. Tom Udall (D) 54%
Rep. Steve Pearce (R) 40%
Undecided 5%

Rep. Steve Pearce (R) 52%
ABQ Mayor Martin Chavez 42%
Undecided 7%

Rep. Tom Udall (D) 56%
Rep. Heather Wilson (R) 41%
Undecided 3%

Rep. Heather Wilson (R) 47%
ABQ Mayor Martin Chavez (D) 46%
Undecided 7%

"Moderates" vs. "Liberals"
If you look at the cross tabs data, perhaps the most telling are the numbers that show Udall winning a significant majority of both "moderate" and "liberal" voters -- putting to rest Chavez's claim that Udall is "too far to the left" for New Mexico voters. Instead, the results suggest that Chavez may be too far to the right for New Mexico Dems and not far enough to the right for the state's Repubs. He seems to inhabit that middle-of-the-road, trusted-by-neither-party netherworld that's so unpopular with voters in an era of unrest and disgust with the status quo. Or it may just be that neither moderates nor liberals trust him, based on his combative and controversial years as Mayor of Albuquerque.

NM FBIHOP trend lines from earlier polling, as well as some interesting analysis. Quote:

Against Pearce, Chavez garners the support of just 4 percent of moderates and 68 percent of liberals. Compare this to Udall, who has the support of 63 percent of moderates and 85 percent of liberals. This is a shocking disparity for Chavez, showing that liberal Democrats really, really do not like Chavez.

The same can be seen against Heather Wilson. Chavez has the support of just 51 percent of moderates and a better 73 percent of liberals. But Udall eclipses both of those numbers, with 66 percent of moderates and 86 percent of liberals.

Also see analysis at DraftUdall.com.

Undecideds
Note that undecided respondents make up only 3% to 7% of the totals, demonstrating that the name recognition for all the candidates is very good statewide, even at this early stage. With candidates as well known as these four, it may well be difficult to change voters' minds before election day. 

Where Will Marty Get Support?
With convincing numbers like these favoring Udall, you have to wonder where Marty Chavez can find voters to support his run -- how he intends to go about it. Will he trying to somehow convince voters that Udall has huge, hidden flaws that haven't been revealed during Tom's several decades of service to the state? Clearly, New Mexicans know these candidates, and I don't expect that many will suddenly change their views. You also have to wonder where Chavez expects to raise the level of funds that will be needed in this race, given such dismal poll numbers. His continued candidacy with Udall in the race seems more and more like a Quixotic quest, doesn't it?

Summary of Senate Race Polling:

• SurveyUSA Poll 1, released October 8, 2007
• Udall's internal Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin Poll, numbers released October 29, 2007
• SurveyUSA Poll 2 released November 5, 2007
• Daily Kos Research 2000 Poll released November 8, 2007
• SurveyUSA Poll 3 released November 19, 2007

There were also a few numbers leaked by the Chavez campaign from an older Lake Associates poll, but no documentation has ever been provided. Chavez admitted that the results were purchased and were actually from a poll performed on behalf of former AG Patricia Madrid when she was considering entering the Senate race.

For our previous posts on the 2008 U.S. Senate race in New Mexico, visit our archive.