Democracy for New Mexico

"Progressive Bloggers" Respond to Marty Chavez Reachout

I haven't written about my participation in a Tuesday "progressive bloggers" conference call with Marty Chavez, who's running for the Dem Senate nomination in New Mexico. There are two reasons:

1) I didn't think there was much that was newsworthy in the conversation other than the fact that Chavez, who had recently labeled Rep. Tom Udall "too far to the left" when he thought it might be politically helpful, couldn't manage to come up with any political differences between himself and Udall now that he was talking to a total of two "progressive bloggers" on the phone. I did add what I learned about the recent polling data leaked by the Chavez campaign to an earlier post.

2) My partner is going through health care hoops right now and I've been right there with her and not really concentrating much on mundane political matters.

Who Did Write About the Call?
In finally catching up some with the local scene, I noticed that Heath Haussamen and Steve Terrell -- neither of whom characterizes themselves as "progressive bloggers" -- both wrote about the call. Funny how that works. I had no idea the call may have been silently "monitored" by members of the local "neutral journalist" contingent. I surmised that Heath was on the call only because he said this in his post:

There was clearly some awkwardness about the conversation, but the bloggers also sounded genuinely happy to have such access to Chavez. Since he's currently the only big-name Democrat in the Senate race, progressives have no choice but to give Chavez a serious look.

Well, we do have another choice in the form of Don Wiviott, who's been reaching out to the grassroots in ways much more personal and sincere than an "official" blogger conference call. But that's a story for another day.

I don't know if Terrell was on the call or not, but he wrote an article for the New Mexican that characterized the call with Marjorie and I as a kind of stealth operation to snooker progressives, and he congratulated Chavez's paid web consultant for a "score."

Even though people on the call were asked to introduce themselves, only Marjorie from m-pyre and I did so, in addition to the Mayor and his web consultant. Therefore I'm not sure if Heath and Steve were just fed the angles on the stories they wrote or if they were actually on the call secretly or what. I know the world of "journalism" is in another, more exalted realm than that inhabited by naive, easily fooled "progressive bloggers" so it's hard to know for sure.

Wasn't Fooled Again
At any rate, I'll just say that I, for one, wasn't really "genuinely happy to have such access" to Chavez. I mean, it was OK, but I certainly wasn't unaware of why Chavez was suddenly "reaching out" to progressives. He needs the support of progressives and core Democrats to win. When he figured he didn't -- in his mayoral runs -- he never expressed one iota of interest in reaching out to us. As anyone following politics here knows, Chavez is a politician through and through. He does and says what he thinks he has to do or say to win. Period. Of course that's true of most politicos, which is why we need a an activist progressive movement in the first place. It's hard to find truth on the campaign trail or the halls of the "leaders."

And surely it's well known that Chavez hasn't exactly been popular with many progressives and party regulars, for a multitude of reasons. Mostly because of rather disturbing incidents we've witnessed or been a part of, as well as some of the decidedly Republican-lite or expedient positions he's taken over the years. A phone call isn't going to fix that, despite what hired web guns may think, whether they're "macaca" incident vets or not.

I'll have more to say soon about all this, but I have to go now and take care of some other things in my life. In the meantime, go read what Marjorie at m-pyre posted today about the call with Chavez. She IS a progressive blogger and she WAS on the call and she DID ask a number of pointed questions of Chavez after introducing herself on the call.

PS: Contrary to what the Blackstone guy said about the call in Terrell's article, there was no way that "about a dozen" progressive bloggers participated. I count two.

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

Los Alamos Study Group to Hold Weekly Public Meetings in ABQ and Santa Fe

From the Los Alamos Study Group:
The Los Alamos Study Group is beginning a series of weekly public breakfast seminar and discussion meetings in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. There will be 21 meetings at each location over the coming six-month period. We’ll start this week and end the first week in April, plotting our direction for future meetings from there. We won’t have meetings during the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The overall theme of these seminars will be “Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Responses and Renewal.”  Of course we will emphasize nuclear policy, New Mexico, and we ourselves as actors and participants.  This week's topic will be "Los Alamos in Crisis -- The Decline and Fall of a Nuclear Weapons Laboratory?" We hope to alternate each week between factual aspects of the unfolding crisis (which is a crisis for New Mexico in particular) on the one hand, and our political response to it on the other.

Everybody is invited.  We expect these discussions to be informative, lively, and inspiring, despite the hour. If you aren't awake when you arrive I trust you will be an hour and a half later. Topics will be announced beforehand. Besides core Study Group personnel there will be occasional guest speakers. 

The Albuquerque meetings will be held every Wednesday morning at the Mennonite Church, 1300 Girard NE. The first meeting was October 31. There will be no meetings on November  21 or December 26.

The Santa Fe meetings will be held every Thursday morning at the United Church of Santa Fe, 1804 Arroyo Chamiso. The first meeting will be November 1. There will be no meetings on November 22 or December 27.

Meetings will begin at 7:25 AM and end at 8:45 AM. (Please be prompt!) Coffee, tea, and a light breakfast will be provided. There is no cost –- provided there are enough donations to cover the modest expenses. We’ll pass the hat.

In addition to these meetings, if you would like someone from the Study Group to speak to your church, peace group, college class, or organization, please call or write. We have a small speakers’ bureau and in all likelihood we can probably respond favorably.

Website: https://www.lasg.org