Democracy for New Mexico

Action Alert: Bernalillo County Clerk Needs Election Day Help

A message from Maggie Toulouse Oliver, Bernalillo County Clerk:

The Primary Election is this coming Tuesday, June 3, and Bernalillo County is still in need of folks to serve as poll officials at sites throughout the county. We are still in need of folks to serve either as presiding judges or as clerks at a polling location. Usually we would require a training but in this case, at the last minute, we will place you in a location with folks who are already trained and will train you on the spot.

Compensation is $100 for the day. Day starts at 6 AM and polls close at 7 PM -- if you can give your day to do your civic duty and help out, please let me know! If you are able to serve, please call Channon with my office at 468-1221 or else call 468-1291 and select #4 for Poll Officials. Please also send this on to your contact lists or post on your blog if you are able. Thank you very much!

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NM-Sen: Pearce Up in Poll; Domenici Contacting Voters to Support Wilson

Pete applauding Heather in 2006

Retiring Sen. Pete Domenici is contacting Repub voters around New Mexico this weekend to urge them to vote for Heather Wilson in the BOP primary for U.S. Senate to be held on Tuesday, June 3rd. Domenici recorded a personal message being used for robocalls. Peter St. Cyr has the scoop and the audio of Domenici's message on his new blog, Word for Word.

New Journal Poll
Could Domenici's last-minute endorsement of Wilson on Friday, coupled with his phone push over the weekend, make the difference in Wilson's race against Steve Pearce? The Albuquerque Journal today released polling results from a phone survey conducted on May 27-29 by Polling and Research Inc. that show Pearce ahead of Wilson, but close to the margin of error. The poll has Pearce up by six points over Wilson, at 45-39%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4%. And given the unusually high percentage of undecideds, at 16%,  at this late stage of a race, anything can happen. Note, too, that the poll was conducted before news was made public that Domenici had endorsed Wilson.

As usual, the size of voter turnout and where it happens is also likely play a big role. As reported in the Journal:

• In the 1st District, where she has chalked up an impressive record of costly, hard-fought wins since taking office in 1998, Wilson had a 30-point advantage over Pearce— 57 percent to 27 percent.
     
• In the more conservative 2nd District, where he has served since 2003 and formerly was a state legislator from Hobbs, Pearce had a 41-point advantage— 64 percent to 23 percent.
     
• In the northern 3rd Congressional District, the contest was closer, but Pearce had a 9-point advantage: 46 percent to 37 percent.

In addition to strength in the South, "Pearce had sizable advantages in the northwest part of the state and on the east side. Several important northwest and east-side counties are included within the 3rd Congressional District." And "Wilson had a double-digit lead in the north-central part of the [third] district, which includes the cities of Santa Fe, Taos and Los Alamos."

Pearce beat Wilson in every age group except 65 and older, where 49% of voters favored Wilson, versus 39% for Pearce. Pearce and Wilson roughly split support among those with college degrees, but Pearce led among those with only some college experience and those with only a high school diploma.

More Explanation of Domenici's Endorsement
In another article today, the Journal quoted Domenici as saying he intended to stay neutral in the Senate primary race, but that his conscience kept "gnawing" at him to endorse Wilson:

"As I traveled around the state, I became more and more aware that Heather Wilson was not being depicted in the way that I know she is," Domenici said. "The thing that rancored me most was the major expenditure of money by the Club for Growth," he said. "They are out-of-state people who were having a great influence on who will win the election."

... Domenici also said Pearce's constant criticism of congressional spending rankled him. Domenici is widely known for bringing billions of dollars home to New Mexico from Washington.

"Every time I heard him talk about them (budget earmarks), I cringed," he said. "I think we've done some great things with them. To have one of my own running that way did not make me friendly."

(Click on photo for larger image. AP Photo by Jake Schoellkopf.)

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NM-02: Two More Endorsements for McCamley

Today Congressional candidate and Doña Ana County Commissioner Bill McCamley announced two more endorsements in the race for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District. The Ruidoso News endorsed Bill in an editorial on May 29th. United Steelworkers Local 9424 President David Carrillo announced that the Local had endorsed Bill in a letter to the editor in The Las Cruces Sun-News today.

The letter states that the Local represents “330 city blue-collar employees.” It goes on to state of the candidates that the Local endorsed that “[w]e believe these are the candidates that have shown their commitment to our state and our community.  We stand behind these individuals and put our confidence in them to lead us in the right direction, and to make decisions that best serve the people they represent.”

McCamley has previously been endorsed by The Las Cruces Sun-News, The Silver City Daily Press, The Roswell Daily Record, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Sierra Club, 2006 Democratic nominee Al Kissling, Democracy for America, the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council, and IAFF Firefighters Locals in Deming and Las Cruces. He has also been endorsed by numerous present and former Democratic officials in New Mexico’s Second District (see www.billmccamley.com for more information).

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Come Together. Right Now.

Over Obama.

The time is finally here for Party unity -- and for Clinton to admit defeat and urge her supporters to rally around the winner. It's also time for Obama to reach out to Clinton supporters and convince them to accept him as the Party's standard bearer. To win in November, we need every Dem on board.

Barack plans to declare victory on Tuesday night after the Montana and South Dakota primaries. His campaign will host a pull-out-all-the-stops rally that evening at the huge arena in Minneapolis where the GOP will hold their convention this summer. It's expected that Obama will win both of the states, the last primaries in a very long, very exciting and very combative season, and that a gush of superdelegate endorsements will follow over the next couple of days to put him over the top. According to his campaign, as of today Obama needs 63.5 more delegates to get to the magic number.

Rollicking Rules Committee
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee sealed the deal yesterday at a frequenlty rowdy, day-long meeting in DC. At the end of a long haul, the committee voted to seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan, but to give each delegate only a half vote each, as the penalty for illegally moving up their primaries.

Essentally, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee approved the compromises worked out in each of the states by their respective state parties, local reps from the campaigns, elected officials and DNC members. Clinton netted a total of 24 additional votes from the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan. The small gain won't help her in any meaningful way in what has become a magical quest to topple Obama, although the number of delegates needed to officially capture the nomination was raised to 2,118. She can't catch him. End of story.

The deal on the seating of Florida's delegation was approved unanimously by the 30-member committee, and only eight of the thirteen Clinton supporters voted to oppose the Michigan settlement. The only committee member who seemed strongly put out was the dour and sour Harold Ickes, who angrily stated at the end of the meeting that Clinton would retain her right to appeal the decisions to the Credentials Committee at the Denver Convention. Ironically, Ickes was one of the strongest advocates for punishing Michigan and Florida months ago, when the Rules and Bylaws Committee initially dealt with those states jumping ahead in the primary queue.

In Florida, the award of delegates tracked the primary results. The Michigan settlement was more complicated because Obama wasn't on the ballot. Many voters reportedly crossed over to vote in the GOP primary, stayed home or voted for the "Uncommitted" category of delegates. Clinton's campaign pushed for a delegate award equal to the 55-40% primary split between Hillary and "Uncommitted" -- with Obama's campaign having no veto power over those selected to serve as "Uncommitted" delegates. What they got was a 69-59 split in Clinton's favor, yielding only 5 votes given the half-vote penalty.

In a test vote taken during the three-hour, closed-door lunch break during the meeting, the committee actually approved a 50-50 split of Michigan's delegates by a margin of 14-13, with the committee's two co-chairs and Michigan's state party chair not allowed to vote according to the rules. However, denying a compromise more favorable to Clinton that had been worked out by Michigan Dems was ultimately deemed to be bad politics given the close vote, and the committee finally decided to go with the ten-delegate-five vote net for Clinton in Michigan.

The crowd in attendance at the meeting was often loud and rowdy, and the co-chairs had to gavel energetically for order at several points. Obama supporters mostly cheered the committee, but boos and nasty remarks were often heard coming from Clinton backers when things didn't go her way. Several hundred pro-Clinton protestors demonstrated all day outside the meeting venue in DC, many holding "count every vote" signs. Not unexpectedly, anger erupted among many of the demonstrators when the committee's decisions were revealed. The committee's actions will definitely help bring some much-needed unity to the Party, but there is much work still to be done.

What Next?
It will be up to Hillary Clinton to face reality, convince her supporters to give up the quest and throw their support to Obama now. This challege will serve as a test of the Clinton's Party loyalty and their ability to put the needs of the Dems and the nation over their personal ambitions. We can only hope they do the right thing as quickly as possible.

As DNC Chair Howard Dean said in his opening remarks at the meeting, he knows something about dashed presidential hopes and feeling maligned by forces within the Democratic Party. He told a story about his anger after his defeat in Iowa during his 2004 presidential run, and how he ranted and raved to Al Gore during a late-night phone call. Dean said he was questioning why he should ever again do anything to support the Party after so much perceived mistreatment. Gore stopped him in his tracks by telling Dean, "It's not about you, Howard. It's about the nation." Gore should know. The question now is, do the Clintons get it?

As Dean said:

"We are strong enough to struggle, and disagree, be angry, disappointed and still come together at the end of the day and be united. The reason we are able to do this is because all of us, together in our passion and our emotion, realize that this race is not about me, it's not about Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the RBC or the reporters who are here to cover the event. It's about restoring our great country.

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