Democracy for New Mexico

Denish Fundraiser Thursday at Albuquerque's Slate Street Cafe

You Are Invited
To a Reception
In support of the Re-Election of
Lt. Governor Diane Denish

Hosted By
Samantha Adams, Shannon Bacon, John Blair,
Jason Bousliman, Elissa Breitbard, Ted & Sara Bonnell
Sonya Carrasco-Trujillo, Chris Cervini, Brian Colon,
Cristy Carbon Gaul, Claire Dudley,
Alicia Feil, John Fitzpatrick, George Heidke,
Jessie Keefe, Kathy Love, Lori Martinez, Doug Peterson,
Michael Puelle, Laura Sanchez, Westly Wellborn

Thursday, December 15, 2005
5:30 – 7:00 PM

At
Slate Street Café
515 Slate Street NE
Albuquerque

Suggested Contribution: $25
Individual, Corporate, Partnership, and PAC Contributions Accepted

RSVP to Steve Fitzer
(505) 270-4079 or sfitzer@dianedenish.com

Update: Coss for Mayor of Santa Fe

Editor's Note: The Santa Fe DFA Meetup group has endorsed David Coss for Mayor of Santa Fe.

From David Coss for Mayor:

Help Us with the Campaign Kickoff December 10th,  1:00 - 3:00 PM: We will be celebrating our hard work thus far, thanking our volunteers (in particular the Coffee with Coss hosts, who are opening their homes to us), marking the kickoff of the next phase of the campaign and talking about how David will make Santa Fe a city that works for all of us. Please join us at David and Carol Rose’s home, 2014 Otowi Road, just off Osage (the extension of St. Michaels Drive) in Casa Alegre.

Neighborhood Blitz,  Saturday and Sunday, December 3rd and 4th: In preparation for the Campaign Kickoff, we will walking in David's neighborhood on Saturday, Dec. 3rd from 9 AM - 1 PM and again on Sunday, Dec. 4th from 11:30 am - 3:30 PM.  We will be inviting his neighbors to the campaign kick-off and talking with them about his campaign. In addition, a small group will canvass independently during the afternoon and evening of the following Monday, December 5th. We will need lots of canvassers out on both Saturday and Sunday in order to meet our goal. Please join us!  Call or email Becky Lo Dolce at 820-0037 or thebeck_star@yahoo.com if you can help.

An Evening with David in Eldorado, Friday, Dec. 16th, 7 - 8:30 PM: If you live in Eldorado or know many people in Eldorado and would like to help with invitations to an evening with David at the Eldorado Community Center, please contact Diane Quarles at 466-2545 or dtquarles@comcast.net.  Thank you, Diane, for all your help!

Let us know how you would like to get involved! If you haven’t filled out a volunteer form at a Coffee or at another event, please go to our volunteer page and let us know what specific tasks you might like to help with. We welcome you to help as much as you are able!

Coss for Santa Fe Mayor Campaign Meeting This Saturday

Editor's Note: David Coss is running for Mayor of Santa Fe. He was endorsed by the Democracy for America (DFA) Santa Fe Meetup group at their last meeting.

Visit www.davidcossformayor.com

Come to the Campaign Meeting!!
This Saturday, November 19th at 4 PM,
CWA Hall, Casa Solano, 901 West Alameda, Suite 25B, Santa Fe

Please bring your completed nominating Petitions. We are trying to see where we are on the number of signatures on the Petitions. If you want to get a few more signatures before then, download and print this PDF Petition file

Hear Patricia Madrid at DPBC Third Thursday Meeting

Democratic Party of Bernalillo County
Third Thursday Meeting
November 17, 6:00 PM
UNM Law School, Room 2401
1117 Stanford NE
Click for map

Attorney General Patricia Madrid will address the Third Thursday meeting of the DPBC to present her views and agenda as a candidate for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from New Mexico. Please tell your fellow constituents about the meeting. All Democrats are welcome.

So Happy Together

Now that we know Gov. Richardson is alive and well (despite reports to the contrary), we can quote him on the Dem gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey and the defeat of Arnold's propositions in California. Here's an excerpt from a Globe and Mail article that includes coverage of a joint appearance in Washington by DNC Chair Howard Dean and Democratic Governors Association Chair Bill Richardson:

"The Democratic Party is back. This is a good omen for 2006 and 2008," crowed New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

At a news conference yesterday, he said he is looking forward to congressional elections in 2006 and the presidential race two years from now.

"Voters don't like the abuse of power, they don't like the culture of corruption," said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and unsuccessful candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 2004.

Dem victories are always a cause for celebration, and a rare appearance together at the same podium by Howard and Bill is always a cause for putting up some photos. Happy days are here again (and let's hope they continue).

It's a Start

For a change, it's heartening to wake up to headlines of Dem election victories being reported as stinging Republican defeats. The wins by Jon Corzine (53-44%) in New Jersey and Tim Kaine (52-46%) in Virginia in their races for governor are certainly good news for us and bad news for BushCo, Inc. Bush's last-minute campaigning for Kilgore, Kaine's opponent, apparently didn't help him and may even have lost him some votes. Our own Gov. Richardson, head of the Dem Governor's Association, will be taking a victory lap before the media with DNC Chair Howard Dean this afternoon. As they say, politics makes for strange bedfellows.

It does give me serious pause that these races were some of the most expensive in U.S. election history, however. In New Jersey, Corzine and his opponent, Doug Forrester, spent an estimated $72 million of their own money on this election. In Virginia, Kilgore raised more than $21 million, while Dem Kaine came up with more than $18 million. An ugly precedent, despite Dems coming out on top. Is this now a nation where only candidates with massive personal wealth or those hooked into big dollar donors can win an election? That both races were characterized by extremely negative campaigning on the part of Republicans (surprise) is also a major turnoff.

Almost better than the Dem's capture of the VA and NJ statehouses was the defeat of every single one of Arnold's ballot propositions. I guess the Terminator has lost his star status with California voters, now that his true colors are showing. No victory cigars for Schwarzenegger now, and perhaps ever again.

I guess Repubs can revel weakly in the reelection of Dem turned Repub mayor Bloomberg in NYC (59-39%), who spent more than $70 million on this race. Oh, and they managed to preserve the "purity" of heterosexual civil marriage in Texas (76-24%), though they lost in their effort to get rid of legal protections for GLBT citizens in Maine (55-45%). Distinctly mixed results in their faux morality crusade.

In an unfortunate victory for business as usual, Ohio voters rejected a package of election reform measures including strict new limits on campaign contributions, a bipartisan board to oversee elections and the creation of an independent panel to redraw legislative district lines. I guess voters from both parties want to preserve their rights to mess with elections should their side be in power. Or maybe it's just that the very well funded opposition to these measures confused voters enough to stop the reform effort.

USA Today provides a handy summary of 2005 election results and info on 2006 races around the nation.

Many pundits are claiming yesterday's Dem victories are evidence that we'll do very well in the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections. We'll see. That seems a long way off at the moment, but hope is alive in the Dem camp these days. It's a start.

A Year Ago Today

Lest we forget why we're all so concerned about strengthening the Democratic Party. Can it really be that only a year has passed since this debacle? Seems like an eon, with only three more eons to go ...

If you're wondering how those 59,054,087 Bush voters are feeling now, check out the latest CBS News poll results:

Bush Job Approval:   Approve 35%, Disapprove 57%
Is result of war in Iraq worth its costs?   Yes 31%, No 64%

It's (Almost) Official: Madrid to Take On Heather

Maggie Toulouse, Jim Baca and Joe Monahan are all reporting that it's pretty much a done deal that Attorney General Patricia Madrid will run against Bush-Delay rubberstamp Heather Wilson for Congress in New Mexico''s CD1 in 2006. And that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) of the DNC is prepared to provide significant cash and other support for her campaign.

Your thoughts?

UPDATE: Patricia Madrid officially declared her candidacy for Congress in NM Congressional District 1 late Friday. You can read about it in the Albuquerque Tribune.

Worth a Thousand Words

Republican City Councilor Sally Mayer (MAY-YAY) celebrating fellow traveler Marty Chavez's victory in the Mayor's race last night, at her victory party at the Sheraton Uptown. $Opah$

Money Talks

Albuquerque election lament: Pop goes the weasel. Looks like all the crooks and nasties won and weasel crud will be spreading over Albuquerque for some time to come. Even the horrendously sleazy and underhanded Sally Mayer. Turnout was incredibly low. We needed a large turnout and didn't get it. Why? People don't care I guess. The Dem Party did next to nothing to register new voters before the deadline. I recall reading an article in the UNM Lobo quoting students saying they saw no reason to vote. Well.

At least Ike Benton looks like a winner. And the clean elections code. But as I leave the computer it looks like the purveyors of lies and distortions about the living wage succeeded in convincing people that dangerous radicals would invade their children's classrooms if it passed. That's what happens when you run tons of full-page ads and tv ads and radio ads and billboards touting the lies. It works. Money talks.

With moneybags Marty winning and Chavez trooper Ken Sanchez grabbing Miguel Gomez's seat in District 1, looks like the real estate scammer -- deep pocket developer -- Walmart crowd will have free rein for the next two years at least. Hey West Side, you're gonna get your road through the petroglyphs and your 2 extra lanes on the bridge. I just want to see your faces when thousands more of those ticky tacky subdivision homes are built in response. Strangely enough, traffic will still be gridlocked. Even worse.

It is hard for me to believe that anyone with a brain or any semblance of taste could vote for Sally MAY-YAY over Marianne Dickinson, but then again, we do have Bush as a second-term president so I guess we should be clued in about how most voters see things. Qualities like creativity, decency, intelligence, fairness and reason aren't in right now. Greed, vulgarity, cronyism, corruption, ignorance and narrow-minded self-interest are all the rage. Unfortunately that creates an unsustainable and basically unlivable community in the long term. But that short-term gain for the grabbers and the wannabes is just too seductive to pass up I guess.

Hooray for all of us who donated and doorknocked and phonebanked and voted for progressive candidates and issues. Hooray for all the terrific candidates who worked their hearts out for the people and went up against opponents with big wads of slimy money to spend. Hooray for our winners -- Ike Benton and the Clean Election Code. Bah humbug to those who couldn't even see it in their hearts to help people, even in the most menial of jobs, earn $7.50 an hour in the richest nation ever on the face of the earth. Shame on you. And on all the people who would have supported a living wage and progressive candidates but just didn't care enough to get out and vote because, you know, they're way too cool for voting.

Click for offical . Albuquerque population according to 2000 U.S.Census: 448,607. Turnout for this city election: 86,757. Pathetic.