Democracy for New Mexico

NM-Sen: Meet Tom Udall at Saturday Events in ABQ, Rio Rancho

Tom on the road, talking with New Mexicans

Rep. Tom Udall, our candidate for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, will be at four different events tomorrow in the Albuquerque-Rio Rancho area.  Rep. Udall is in the midst of a two-week tour all over the state to meet with you, take your questions and listen to your concerns. And then there's the eats:

August 16th: Click on event name for more info and to RSVP

• (see previous post below)

Check here often for additional events from now until the end of the month. And you can read about and see photos from previous events on Tom's tour here.

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Saturday: Udall, Heinrich, Lujan Join Chairman Colon at Rio Rancho Dem Party Office Opening

The DPNM has announced it will be celebrating the opening of its Rio Rancho office on Saturday, August 16th, from 4:30 to 6:30 PM. The new office is located at 4100 Southern Blvd, Suite 7; Rio Rancho, NM 87124 (map). Come on down and meet U.S. Senate Candidate, Congressman Tom Udall; NM-01 Congressional candidate and former City Council President Martin Heinrich; NM-03 Congressional candidate, Commissioner Ben Ray Luján; and DPNM Chairman Brian S. Colón.

"This is an historic election year, with unprecedented excitement surrounding not just the Presidential election, but New Mexico's Senate and Congressional campaigns," said Brian S. Colón, Chairman of the DPNM. "As a party, we have responded to this excitement, opening offices in all corners of the state, including this one here in Rio Rancho, to ensure we send an all-Democrat delegation to Washington in November."

Saturday: Join Defenders of Wildlife Santa Fe Volunteer Day of Action

From the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund: We're organizing a Volunteer Day of Action this Saturday, August 16, in Santa Fe. Canvassers will talk with registered voters, encouraging them to vote for Barack Obama, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich in the 1st Congressional District. Here's how to get involved:

What: Join us for canvassing starting at Noon. Well be driving to Rio Rancho from Santa Fe, and be back in Santa Fe by 5 PM. We'll provide transportation to/from Santa Fe OR you can phone bank in Santa Fe to registered voters throughout the state, anytime from 1:30 PM to 5 PM.

Where: Meet for both activities at 826 Camino del Monte Rey, on the second floor in the reading room. The location is north of St. Michael's off of St. Francis Street in Santa Fe.

RSVP for Canvass to: Maggie Raiken at 505-254-4756; no need to RSVP for phone bank. We will provide food for lunch for our volunteers.

NM Sen: Tom Udall Starts Two-Week Tour of NM Tuesday in Sunland Park

The Tom Udall for U.S. Senate campaign announced that on Tuesday Rep. Udall will kick-off his campaign’s ‘Doing Right By New Mexico Tour’ in Sunland Park. According to a press release, Udall will travel the state for the next two weeks and exchange ideas with New Mexicans about how to get our country back on track. With a special emphasis on the 1st and 2nd Congressional districts, he'l listen to New Mexicans and tell them why he'll always do right by New Mexico in the United States Senate.

Udall’s schedule is as follows. All listed events are open to the media and all times are local. Tour Updates, event video and schedules can be found at here.

Tuesday, August 12th:

11 AM: TOM UDALL’S DOING RIGHT BY NEW MEXICO KICKOFF, Ardovino’s Desert Crossing Restaurant, 1 Ardovino Drive, Sunland Park, NM

1:00 PM: UDALL’S ANTHONY, N.M. DOING RIGHT BY VETERANS MEET & GREET, Anthony VFW Hall, 1800 N Fourth Street, Anthony, NM

Wednesday, August 13th

10:00-11:00 AM: LUNACRATS HEADQUARTERS OPENING, 117 South Gold, Deming, NM

2:00 PM: SILVER CITY - DOING RIGHT BY OUR VETERANS FORUM, The Red Barn, 708 Highway 180 East, Silver City, NM

Thursday, August 14th

10:30 AM: DISCUSSION WITH RESERVE, NM “LOS JOVENES” DWI PREVENTION PROGRAM, Reserve Schools, Los J.O.V.E.N.E.S. Room, 24 Mountaineer Rd., Reserve, NM

1:30 PM: MAGDALENA MEET & GREET WITH TOM UDALL, Magdalena Public Library, 108 N. Main, Magdalena, NM

3:00 PM: FIGHTING FOR OUR ENERGY SECURITY ROUNDTABLE, New Mexico Tech, 101 Workman, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM

4:00 PM: DOING WHAT’S RIGHT FOR DISABLED AMERICAN VETS DISCUSSION, DAV Headquarters, 200 N. 5th Street, Socorro, NM

Friday, August 15th

2:00 PM: RUIDOSO MEET & GREET, Hubbard Museum, 841 W. Hwy 70, Ruidoso Downs, NM

3:30 PM: MESCALERO APACHE SCHOOL MEETING AND TOUR, Mescalero Apache School, 249 White Mountain Dr., Mescalero, NM

5:00 PM: ALAMOGORDO MEET & GREET WITH UDALL, Waffle and Pancake Shop, 930 S. White Sands Blvd., Alamogordo, NM

Saturday, August 16th

11:00 AM: ALBUQUERQUE ‘DOING RIGHT BY NEW MEXICO’ TOWN HALL, Page One Bookstore, 11018 Montgomery, Albuquerque, NM

1:00 PM: DOING WHAT’S RIGHT FOR THE SOUTH VALLEY MATANZA, Home of Diego Gallegos & Theresa Archuleta, 6304 Alvis Road, SW, Albuquerque, NM

3:00 PM: UDALL FOR US ALL OUTDOOR NEIGHBORHOOD BBQ MEETING, Montgomery Pool & Park, 5510 Ponderosa Ave, NE, Albuquerque, NM

4:30 PM: NM DEMS ’08 RIO RANCHO OFFICE OPENING, NM DEMS ’08 OFFICE, 4100 Southern Blvd, Suite 7, Rio Rancho, NM

******

Week Two of Udall’s Doing Right By New Mexico Tour will include the following dates and locations, with more details to follow:

Monday, August 18th: Albuquerque & Santa Fe

Tuesday, August 19th: Albuquerque, Edgewood, Santa Rosa & Clovis

Wednesday, August 20th: Portales, Lovington & Hobbs

Thursday, August 21st: Las Cruces

Friday, August 22nd: Albuquerque

Saturday, August 23rd: Belen & Los Lunas

Sunday, August 24th: Las Vegas

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NM-Sen: Pearce Demands Firm Dates for Debates with Hippies at Woodstock

Wait, that can't be right. That headline must have popped into my head because the strange vibes of GOP Senate candidate Steve Pearce's attack on hippies are still lingering in my head. You know how it is. What his campaign is really doing is trying to set a seven-day deadline for a decision from Dem Tom Udall's camp on debate dates.

The Pearce campaign sent out an open letter to the media yesterday whining that the Udall campaign isn't moving quickly enough to finalize a set of debates. Pearce must be postively itching to get onstage with Udall and chant his drill, drill, drill and nuke plant, nuke plant, nuke plant mantras, thinking that will seal the deal with New Mexico voters. Authoritarian personalities are like that.

Udall spokeswoman Marissa Padilla says the letter surprised her because the two campaign managers had what she described as a civil telephone conversation Friday and had agreed to talk again this week to finalize the debate details. "We're seeing another disingenuous cheap attack on Tom Udall from Steve Pearce," Padilla said. "Given Pearce's lockstep support for the failed Bush administration policies that got us here in the first place, I would not be too eager to debate Tom Udall."

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NM-Sen: Take2 for Udall and Udall Town Hall Meeting at Page One

Jill Cooper Udall explains the Take2 for Udall program
(Turn your volume way up)

Join the Take2 Team: At a Women for Udall rally yesterday at the UNM Law School, Jill Cooper Udall unveiled the campaign's new Take2 for Udall project. The idea is for each Udall supporter to get two new voters registered and make sure they vote in the November election. Those two can be encouraged to find two more new voters and so it goes. Or you can find two more yourself. Sign up to join the Take2 Team here or text Take2 to MYTOM. Once you sign up, you'll get the forms and info you need to get folks registered.

Albuquerque Town Hall: A town hall meeting with Tom Udall is set for Saturday, August 16 at 11 AM at Page One Bookstore, 11018 Montgomery Blvd. NE in Albuquerque. You will have an opportunity to discuss the campaign and ask any questions that you may have on issues that are most important to you. For more information contact Andrew Marshall at (505) 884-3055. Everyone is welcome.

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Steve Pearce's Hippie Hippie Shake: Don't You Want Somebody to Love?

Stare into the center of the mandala, Steve

As I commented on Matt's post at NM FBIHOP about the Steve Pearce hippie attack ad on Tom Udall, Grace Slick used to sing "One pill makes you larger. And one pill makes you small." Steve Pearce must have gotten the one that makes you small -- and that causes flashbacks for 40 years. Steve isn't looking for somebody to love -- he's trying to get people to dredge up old grudges from decades past. He must still carry that baggage from all those years ago. Stuck in the past like an angrily buzzing fly in a time-warp web.

Early Beatles do Hippie Hippie Shake.
Steve only shakes it to the right.

I highly doubt Steve can shake his hips. Maybe he never could and that's why he's still so angry about days gone by. I wouldn't be surprised if Pearce resented the Beatles too -- all that long hair, infectious energy and lust for life and love. He's carried the battle against everything liberating all the way to the 21st century.

Somebody had to do it. Why not someone so incensed by uppity women, peace symbols, solar energy, 1969 love beads and silvery minnows that he takes out a full-page ad in the Albuquerque Journal on them in the year 2008. And then tries to hang all the bathos and pathos of an era gone by on Tom Udall, his highly popular Senate seat rival -- who has a nasty habit of living in the present and approaching the future with optimism and ideas. Change and the future are scary to those stuck in the past and hung up over milk that spilled in the days of yore. Fear of the new. Fear of the other. Fear of creative thinking and being.

Tell Me This Is Sane
Check out what Pearce has to say in this Albuquerque Journal article. Does he sound sane speaking about his full-page Journal ad full of faux-hippies?

“This picture is a picture from my past,” Pearce said, referring to a photo of a pair of hippies in his Wednesday newspaper ad that maintains Udall is allied with “hysterical left-wing” environmentalists — an ad the Udall campaign calls bogus.

“In 1969, I was the president of the student body at New Mexico State University, and the radicals were going to burn down the administration building — as they had done across the country,” Pearce said. “I took it on myself to go out and stand on the wall where (a) guy was actually wrapping the crowd into an enthusiasm to go burn the building, because at that time, I felt like these extremists had hijacked our policies, and they were controlling our universities. And we're finding the same thing today. The extremists have hijacked our policies, so that we can't live.”

Asked by a reporter whether he was charging that Udall stands with the kinds of people who once wanted to raze college buildings, Pearce, who went on to be an Air Force pilot in Vietnam, responded:

“There's a counterculture that was epitomized by the hippies. They were against the war. They were against America. It was always that criminals have more rights than the victim. That America's enemies have more rights. And what I'm saying is, that push from the past is still being carried forward. The counterculture is the same today. And it's people who think America is wrong. I don't think America is wrong. I don't think American jobs are wrong. I don't think the American economy is wrong. And so that's the distinction that I see between Tom Udall and myself.

Cue the Twilight Zone Music
I can't imagine what Republicans with even a modicum of sense are thinking about these weird and wildly inappropriate attacks by their candidate in one of the most important and spotlighted Senate races in the nation. After this, it's hard to see who will be able to take Pearce seriously, regardless of their political leanings. Only the most paleoconservative -- and rageful -- of voters could see this line of attack as anything but deranged and desperate indeed. I find that the scariest part is that he may well believe what he's saying ....

Imagine having this guy in on setting the course for our future and that of our children and grandchildren. Then again, don't. Just do what you can to make sure Tom Udall is elected to the Senate.

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NM-Sen: Pearce's First TV Ad Shows Backward Thinking Extremism

I won't post a copy of the first TV ad being aired by the GOP's U.S. Senate candidate in New Mexico. Let him pay to get it shown using his meager campaign funds. No free rides here for the backward thinking right-wing extremist. I don't want Pearce to follow in the footsteps of John McCain, who makes small media buys and then has the media and blogs show his ad for free. Let 'em pay.

I will say that the ad attacks "far-left environmentalists" and ties them to Tom Udall. Far-left, to Pearce, apparently means anything other than drilling everywhere no matter the impact and putting a nuke plant in every town. Some in Pearce's party at least pretend to be interested in significantly increasing alternative energy production and getting in on the ground floor in terms of developing green economy jobs.

Not Pearce. He doesn't mention anything except drilling and nuke plants -- so I take it that those two items constitute his entire energy plan. In fact, the ad seems to imply (at least to me) that nuke power can solve all our problems, maybe even cure cancer! I know that even many environmentalists think that some additional nuclear power may be necessary in the short-term, but Pearce seems to view it as a cure-all. He doesn't mention where all the poisonous waste would go.

I know "conservatives" are all about preserving the status quo, but Pearce seems to be going even further in recommending a return to the energy policies of the 1950s. Of course, given his narrow-minded social views, he'd probably like to return us to that era in most ways. When everybody knew their place and few dared to raise any questions or challenge the power structure.

After all, this is a guy that voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act that recently passed in the House, as well as the 2007 Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Equal pay for equal work? Not in Pearce's world. A paradigm shift to alernative energy? Not in Pearce's world. New paradigms and progressive ideas seem to scare him. He's a clinger. To the past. To known entities. To the present corporate power structure. To things as they were, not things as they can be.

Actively support the candidate who looks to the future with excitement and hope -- and help make sure a narrow-minded throwback to the 1950s doesn't get anywhere near the U.S. Senate. Do what you can to help True Blue New Mexico candidate Tom Udall. If we don't do it, who will?

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ACI Hosts Series of Congressional Candidate Forums

The Association of Commerce and Industry, along with a number of other organizations, is hosting a series of Congressional candidate forums in August in Santa Fe, Clovis, Las Cruces and Albuquerque. The forums will address the candidates' positions on business issues such as immigration, health care and other hot topics. Details are listed below the break. Space is limited. To register, visit the ACI website.

Monday, August 4, Santa Fe: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, Forum Building at the College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive. Invited: NM-03 candidates Daniel East (R); Ben Ray Lujan Jr. (D); and Carol Miller (I); U.S. Senate candidates Steve Pearce (R-NM 2nd) and Tom Udall (D-NM 3rd).

Wednesday, August 6, Clovis: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, Clovis Civic Center, 801 Schepps Blvd. Invited: NM-03 candidates Daniel East (R); Ben Ray Lujan Jr. (D); and Carol Miller (I); U.S. Senate candidates Steve Pearce (R-NM 2nd) and Tom Udall (D-NM 3rd).

Thursday, August 7, Las Cruces: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, Good Samaritan Society Las Cruces Village, 3011 Buena Vida Cr. Invited: NM-02 candidates Harry Teague (D) and Edward Tinsley (R); U.S. Senate candidates Steve Pearce (R-NM 2nd) and Tom Udall (D-NM 3rd).

Friday, August 22, Albuquerque: 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, Marriott Pyramid North, 5151 San Francisco Road NE. Invited: NM-01 candidates Martin Heinrich (D) and Darren White (R); U.S. Senate candidates Steve Pearce (R-NM 2nd) and Tom Udall (D-NM 3rd).

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Thursday: Labor & Environment Groups to Parody McCain & Pearce’s Pro-Industry Energy Plans

Are you in the mood for some lampooning? Some satire? Some pointed parody? Feeling so upset about how things are going that you need to laugh or you'll cry? This is the event for you. I'm informed that New Mexicans affiliated with labor and pro-environment groups will gather on Thursday, July 31st, to highlight Big Oil’s latest round of billions in quarterly profits -- at a time when people are paying record prices at the pump.

Donning their tiaras and puffing their cigars, a troupe of ‘Big Oil Billionaires for McCain & Pearce’ will be on hand to toast John McCain’s plan for a $3.8 billion tax cut for the top five oil companies. They'll be sniveling over Barack Obama’s plan for an immediate $1,000 tax cut to provide American consumers with real relief, while putting us on the path to energy independence through a $150 billion investment in clean, renewable energy. The troupe will also raise a glass to Rep. Steve Pearce for voting time and again to extend and maintain billions in tax cuts for the oil and gas industry, while opposing any increase in fuel efficiency standards -– all for only about $650,000 in campaign contributions. Be there tomorrow to join in the revelry:

• WHERE: ConocoPhillips gas station, Lomas & San Pedro (6121 Lomas Blvd, NE), ABQ
• WHEN: Thursday, July 31, 2008 – 4:30 PM

WHAT: Visibility event – including the ‘Big Oil Billionaires for McCain & Pearce’ troupe – on oil companies’ record profits and McCain & Pearce’s pro-industry energy plans   

WHO: Sierra Club, AFL-CIO International, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and AFSCME Council 18

VISUALS: ‘Big Oil Billionaires for McCain & Pearce’ troupe, mock gas station sign with top 3 oil companies’ profits and other informative graphics on presidential & senatorial candidates’ energy plans

According to event organizers, the largest oil companies are together expected to post more than $35 billion in profits for the second quarter alone –- putting them on pace to exceed last year’s all-time high of more than $123 billion. The event will also draw attention to campaign contributions that John McCain and Steve Pearce took from oil companies, and expose how their energy plans stand to benefit Big Oil rather than hard-working consumers.

Don't miss it. It's not often that we get tiaras, cigars and billionaires in one place in this town!

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