Democracy for New Mexico

NM Dem Response to Domenici Turnabout on Iraq

From the Democratic Party of New Mexico in response to Sen. Domenici's announcement today about his sudden change in position on Iraq (or at least the appearance of one):

Albuquerque – Today, Pete Domenici’s election season political makeover began in earnest at a press conference where Domenici argued that he is changing his position on the disastrous war in Iraq.

“Bush's War in Iraq continues to be a colossal mistake based on misleading information and false pretenses.  Why did over 3500 American military servicemen and servicewoman, including more than 30 of New Mexico's own, need to die?  Why was $440 billion spent before Senator Domenici could acknowledge what Senator Bingaman and Congressman Udall realized more than four years ago?” asked Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman Brian S. Colón.”

Chairman Colón continued, “I have another important question for Senator Domenici to add to the list of our concerns to which he has failed to respond in the past:  When the U.S. Senate reconvenes, will your rhetoric be backed by meaningful legislative action, or is this just another attempt at a re-election conversion in response to your lowest poll ratings in decades?"

The 75 year old Domenici, mired in a scandal resulting from the politically-motivated firing of the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, is facing the toughest re-election campaign in his lifetime.  He refuses to answer questions, is enduring a precipitous drop in his approval ratings, has hired a high-powered criminal lawyer to defend his actions before a U.S. Senate ethics investigation and is rumored to be considering retirement.

Pete Domenici has been a loyal rubberstamp of the Bush Administration and in issue after issue has voted for the misplaced Republican priorities over the interests of New Mexicans.

Editor's Note: See our previous post on this story.

Joe Wilson: Bush & Cronies "Corrupt to the Core"

Keith Olbermann speaks to former Amb. Joe Wilson by phone.

Backlash is exploding against Bush's decision to become a part of the obstruction of justice plot for which Scooter Libby was convicted and sentenced. Unofficial online polls at news outlets are running 70-75% AGAINST Bush's decision to "commute" Libby's jail sentence, and everyone from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to bloggers to prominent attorneys to Democratic leaders are speaking out strongly against the move. Of course Bush doesn't care. How much lower can his approval rating go? And there's always that intransigent 25% or so of our population that sticks with Bush no matter what he does or how he does it. They're enthusiastic about the commutation in that unreasoning, hypocritical way of theirs.

How would you answer this post on Firedoglake about the strategy of the Dems in the face of the belligerent stonewalling and criminalities of the Bush Administration? Excerpt:

Ask yourself this: suppose the Democrats had announced weeks/months ago that impeachment was “on the table,” that they were deeply concerned about the Administration’s abuse of power, that it was undermining the Constitution and the rule of law across the board. There’s lots more you could add to the list, but you get the idea. Suppose they had said that impeachment wasn’t what they’d planned, and they certainly didn’t need it to retake the White House in 2008, but that they had become so concerned about the Administration’s blatant lawlessness that they wanted to make sure a vehicle was in place before then, if it seemed needed to prevent irretrievable damage.

Suppose they had also said that the Administration’s very acts of stonewalling every investigation being conducted to uncover wrongdoing could be viewed as an abuse of power, a coverup and potential support for an article of impeachment. For example, take the inquiry into whether the Administration had been careless in protecting national security secrets and assets; were they still trying to coverup the lying? Suppose that had been the setting yesterday, just before the President slipped his commutation into the media.

1. Would the President have hestitated in his actions yesterday?

2. Would the President have paid a higher price for his actions? e.g., would the public be more likely to see yesterday’s actions as a confirmation of what the Democrats had been saying? Would that give the Republican’s pause in defending it?

3. Would Democrats be in better shape both politically and legally to respond to the White House tactics regarding subpoenas and other investigative actions?

4. Would the Democrats be in better or worse shape for making the argument that the regime does not deserve to be in office, and that hence, removing them from office was now a more legitimate question?

5. Would the Democrats be in better or worse shape for the 2008 elections?

6. Would the country be in a better position to use its constitutional mechanisms to defend the rule of law, in a way that would strengthen those mechanisms for the future?

That's a yes or better to all six questions, isn't it? As I've said before, someone needs to teach the Dems in Washington how to play poker .... and SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER!

Sisto Abeyta for YD President Fundraiser 7/5

From the Duffys: Joe and Kathy Duffy invite you to join them in their support of Sisto Abeyta for Young Democrats of America President. Sisto served as President of the New Mexico Young Democrats, has been a dedicated member of the Democratic Party, and has helped so many of us build a better Democratic Party.

Thurs. July 5, 2007, 6:00 PM til 8:00 PM
6364 Isleta Blvd SW, Albuquerque 87105

Directions to Event: Drive west on Rio Bravo Blvd, left (south) on Isleta Blvd, left side of Isleta 6364 Isleta. Suggested Contribution: $25.00. Please make checks payable to: Committee To Do Something Not Be Somebody; 2023 Metzgar Rd SW; Albuquerque, NM 87105; (505) 304-4740.

DFA-DFNM July Meetup Cancelled; Dem Picnic July 4th at Elena Gallegos

As we mentioned at the last Meetup, we're cancelling our Albuquerque DFA-DFNM Meetup scheduled for July 5th due to the Independence Day holiday week. Our regular Meetup schedule will resume on August 2nd when our confirmed guest speaker will be Congressional candidate Martin Heinrich. He'll be talking about his campaign and platform, as well as taking your questions. Mark your calendars! If you'd like to join our group and email list, visit our Meetup page.

Everyone is encouraged to attend the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County's 4th of July Picnic and to invite your friends and neighbors. All are welcome:

Wednesday, July 4th
Noon to 3:00 PM
Elena Gallegos Picnic Area, Sandia Heights
Free food, nonalcoholic beverages, horseshoes, volleyball ...

Park entrance is near Tramway & Academy. If you're going North on Tramway, take the first right North of Academy, which is Simms Park Road. Go 1/2 mile to entrance and follow signs. Tell them you're going to the Dem Picnic and the entry fee will be waived.

Feel free to bring your own food or side dishes, salads, desserts, water, etc. The turnout was so good at the last picnic that the Party ran out of food!

Click for more info at the .

Heinrich, McCamley in Top 20 House Race Fundraisers on ActBlue

State	CD	Candidate	Raised on Actblue	Contributors
CO	2	Jared Polis	$128,216	266
MA	5	Niki Tsongas	$118,887	341
MA	5	Jamie Eldridge	$102,420	570
ME	1	Chellie Pingree	$97,000	210
IL	10	Dan Seals	$68,073	218
CA	26	Russ Warner	$66,946	199
MO	6	Kay Barnes	$58,859	82
AZ	3	Bob Lord	$55,705	145
TX	10	Dan Grant	$54,150	132
NY	26	Jon Powers	$48,375	217
NY	29	Eric Massa	$48,255	423
CA	4	Charlie Brown	$45,738	943
FL	8	Mike Smith	$42,820	62
NM	1	Martin Heinrich	$35,149	172
MD	4	Donna Edwards	$34,260	522
NC	8	Larry Kissell	$30,687	265
CT	4	Jim Himes	$25,813	48
MT	AL	Bill Kennedy	$17,366	67
MA	5	Barry Finegold	$16,250	16
NM	2	Bill McCamley	$13,930	47

Chart by SwingStateProject.com. (h/t )

Two Democratic candidates for U.S. House seats -- Martin Heinrich, running in NM-01 for a chance to challenge incumbent Heather Wilson, and Bill McCamley, running in NM-02 for a chance to challenge incumbent Steve Pearce -- are in the top 20 for funds raised for 2008 Congressional campaigns at national online netroots website ActBlue. Second quarter fundraising ended yesterday at midnight.

As you can see on the chart, ActBlue Heinrich donations rank 14th with $35,149 from 172 online donors, including $800 raised this quarter at the Democracy for New Mexico Netroots page dedicated to his campaign. Las Cruces candidate McCamley, with a 20th place finish this quarter on ActBlue, raised $13,930 from 47 internet donors. THANKS TO ALL WHO DONATED!

Considering the hundreds of races at play around the country, and how early we are in the 2008 election cycle, these are impressive numbers indeed. Moreover, most of the other candidates on the top 20 list are from states with much larger and more affluent populations. Clearly, many New Mexico grassroots Dems are excited about these candidates and are willing to put some dollars on the line to help jumpstart their campaigns.

Official campaign reports on fundraising totals from all sources will be available by mid-July. Let's hope the off-line donations are as impressive at this stage of the game as those made via ActBlue.

ActBlue just celebrated its 3rd anniversary on the web. A total of $24,767,583 has been raised online via ActBlue since 2004!

RIGHT NOW: Only a Few Hours to Help Martin Heinrich This Quarter

NOTE: I'll be keeping this post at the top of the page until the fundraising quarter is over at Midnight tonight, June 30th. Please donate if you can.

Time is short if you want to help make a difference in Martin Heinrich's campaign for Congress in NM-01 for this fundraising quarter. If we want to help Martin show that he has widespread support from the netroots-grassroots community, now is the time. Click to Donate: https://www.actblue.com/page/dfnmforheinrich

Martin's campaign needs to demonstrate it has the backing of as many people as possible to make it clear that he's the best Democratic candidate to take on Heather Wilson in 2008.

Please donate RIGHT NOW if you can, and use the DFNM Netroots fundraising page at Act Blue to do so. In this way, Martin will know that progressive Democrats and Independents are doing whatever we can to support his candidacy:

https://www.actblue.com/page/dfnmforheinrich

Even a $5 donation helps. Remember how Howard Dean outraised all his competitors based on hundreds of thousands of small donations? Let's help Martin Heinrich do the same.

You can also sign up for automatic monthly donations, if you'd prefer, which spreads the expense over time so you can afford it.

https://www.actblue.com/page/dfnmforheinrich

We know that Heather Wilson will have millions of dollars to try and "Swiftboat" Martin Heinrich. Let's help him build a strong campaign so he can stand up to Heather and provide representation that we can be proud of!

Librul Nation

This month, the Campaign for America's Future released an exhaustive study, The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth, that "offers hard facts and analysis based on decades of data from some of the nation’s most respected and nonpartisan public opinion researchers. This is the evidence that political leaders have a mandate to pursue bold, progressive policies."

As reported on TomPaine.com, the study includes these findings:

[Economics] Polling by the Pew Research Center shows 84 percent support to increase the minimum wage. Gallup shows that more Americans sympathize with unions than with companies in labor disputes (52 to 34 percent). NBC News and the Wall Street Journal polls indicate that nearly twice as many people think the U.S. is more hurt than helped by the global economy (48 to 25 percent). Other polls open the door to increased labor and environmental standards as part of the solution.

... research by the University of Michigan National Election Studies reveals that 69 percent of Americans believe government should care for those who can’t care for themselves. Twice as many people want “government to provide many more services even if it means an increase in spending" (43 percent) as want government to provide fewer services “in order to reduce spending” (20 percent). Majorities say we need a bigger government “because the country’s problems are bigger” (59 percent) and a “strong government to handle complex problems” (67 percent).

These Americans are challenging a central plank of modern conservatism. They don’t always want government to leave them alone. They want government to help hold us together.

[Women's Choice, Sex Education] ... The percentage of Americans who consider abortion the “most important” issue ranks in the single digits in poll after poll. When an election forces them to pay attention to it, Pew research shows a 56 percent majority oppose making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, a proportion that has hardly changed in the past 20 years. Only 29 percent want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. And 67 percent, according to polls by Kaiser and Harvard, want sex education in schools to include information about contraception, not just abstinence. Yet conservatives continually push these subjects to the fore and stand on the wrong side of them. It’s time for mainstream media to question whether movement conservatives, not coastal liberals, are out of the mainstream.

[Energy] ... Gallup polls in March 2007 reveal that twice as many Americans want to solve energy problems with more conservation instead of more production (64 percent compared to 26 percent). Polls by CBS and the New York Times in April 2007 show 64 percent are willing to pay higher fuel taxes if the money were used for research into renewable energy sources, and 75 percent would be willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable sources like wind or energy. Only oil companies, conservative politicians and a minority of Americans (41 percent) want to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.

[Health Care] ... Gallup’s latest poll reveals that 69 percent of Americans think it’s the government responsibility to make sure all Americans have health coverage. Only 28 percent disagreed. Polls by CBS/New York Times in February 2007 reveal that 76 percent of Americans would give up the Bush tax cuts to make sure all Americans have access to health care.

[Iraq] ... The war in Iraq is a disaster. 63 percent of Americans want to set deadlines for withdrawal. Four times as many Americans (48 percent to 12 percent) think the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism against the United States worse rather than better.

So how does the conservative propaganda machine get away with their myth creation?

The answers are manifold. Skillful use of wedge issues by conservative politicians. Advantages in fundraising. Political gerrymandering. An establishment media that rarely asks hard questions. A war on terror that trumps pedestrian domestic concerns.

What can we do about it? For starters: Demand that all Dem candidates and officeholders take strong, liberal stands on the issues. Work with organizations like Media Matters and Free Press to hold big media accountable. Work for ethics and campaign finance reform locally and nationally. Keep speaking out and talking to your friends and neighbors. Get active!

(Updated) Thursday: Tavis Smiley to Moderate PBS Dem Prez Forum on Domestic Issues

Tavis Smiley will host the All American Democratic Presidential Forum from Howard University in DC on Thursday night, June 28th, from 7-8:30 PM Mountain Time on PBS stations, including KNME, with a live stream at the PBS Forum website. The show will also be available as a video download or podcast after the show, and will be rebroadcast on PBS at 2 AM MDT.

For the first time, a panel exclusively comprised of journalists of color will be presented in primetime. Questions to the candidates will be posed by Tavis and journalists Michel Martin of National Public Radio, nationally syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, Jr. and USA Today and Gannett News Service columnist DeWayne Wickham. The topics of the questions will be limited to top domestic issues including healthcare, education, criminal justice, immigration, affordable neighborhoods, voting, rural development, economic prosperity, environmental justice and the digital divide. All eight declared Dem candidates will participate.

Unfortunately, PBS has selected much criticized Republican pollster Frank Luntz to do its after-event analysis on public response to the forum. As reported on Media Matters:

... Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who the Public Broadcasting Service has announced will provide "public feedback" following PBS' coverage of the June 28 Democratic presidential forum, has shown open disdain for Democratic priorities and candidates and has reportedly been reprimanded and censured by his peers for withholding and misrepresenting polling data and methodology. But, in addition to leaving out these facts from its press release announcing Luntz's participation, PBS, which referred to Luntz only as a "noted pollster," made no mention of the fact that Luntz has worked for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a potential general election opponent of one of the forum's participants, and has heaped praise on Giuliani this year.

... Luntz worked for Giuliani during each of Giuliani's three previous political campaigns: his campaign for New York City mayor in 1993, re-election bid in 1997, and aborted campaign for U.S. Senate in 2000. On the second page of the introduction to his book, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear (Hyperion, January 2007), Luntz describes himself as "[t]he man who worked for Rudy Giuliani, two-time Republican mayor of a city where Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans 5-to-1 (xii)."

6.28.07 UPDATE: Frank Luntz will no longer be providing presidential forum analysis on PBS' after-forum commentary, but he's still scheduled to appear on Tavis Smiley's Friday show discussing the forum. Here's the latest from Media Matters.

Wiviott Launches Campaign Website for Senate Run for Domenici Seat

Don Wiviott, who recently announced he intends to pursue the Democratic nomination to challenge New Mexico's incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Domenici in November 2008, has a new campaign website. The website provides a detailed bio, a news section, a link to an Act Blue donation page and this info on the latest polling on Domenici:

A new Survey U.S.A. poll sponsored by KOB-TV and released on June 19 found Domenici’s disapproval rating at an all-time high. The poll found that 51 percent of New Mexicans gave Domenici a positive job rating, while 42 percent of New Mexicans gave Domenici a negative job rating. As recently as February 2007, Domenici had a 64 percent -27 percent approval rating.

Wiviott is a Santa Fe developer who describes himself as "a leader in building environmentally-friendly live/work communities." He has been challenged by Jim Hannan, another Democratic candidate in the race, about a $2100 donation he made during the 2004 election cycle to former Santa Fe City Councilor David Pfeffer, a Dem turned Republican who was running against Dem incumbent Senator Jeff Bingaman. Wiviott explained his donation this way in a recent Santa Fe New Mexican article:

Wiviott said Friday that he shared little in common with Pfeffer’s political beliefs but described him as an “honest guy” and a friend. “David was struggling when he was running for office, and I helped a friend,” Wiviott said.

According to a recent article by Kate Nash in the Albuquerque Tribune, two others still thinking about entering the Senate race on the Dem side include former U.S. Attorney John Kelly and anti-choice Democrat Allen Sanchez, who's currently the executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops. Both Jim Hannan, who worked for former U.S. Rep. Morris “Mo” Udall, D-Ariz., and was finance director of the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust, and Leland Lehrman, peace activist and editor of the alternative newspaper The Sun News, have already declared their candidacies.

As to how the NM Democratic Party views the race against Domenici:

... Chairman Brian Colón said the party is intent on winning a seat it lost to Domenici in 1974.

"I think we're going to focus on this race probably like we haven't in 30 years," he said. "I think it's time to say, `Thanks for your service, but it's time to move on.' "

Click to read our previous post on Wiviott's entry into the Senate race, or to review all of our archived posts about the 2008 U.S. Senate race in New Mexico.

Guest Blog: Dem Senate Candidate Jim Hannan on Don Wiviott

This is a guest blog from Democratic Senate candidate Jim Hannan:

Don Wiviott has announced he wants to run against Pete Domenici for the US Senate as a Democrat. I've been talking to Don for several months about the race. I have a concern about Don. In 2006, Don contributed the maximum allowable, $2,100, to David Pfeffer. David Pfeffer was running as a Republican against Jeff Bingaman.

As you know, 2006 was a critical year for Democrats. We all worked hard to take back Congress. During that time period, I was contributing money to the DCCC, and walking door to door for Patricia Madrid.

David Pfeffer was running against Jeff Bingaman as a hard right conservative. He was a very vocal supporter of the invasion of Iraq. In 2006, the centerpiece of his campaign was to support the Minutemen camped out on the border of New Mexico and Arizona. 

I told Don that by supporting David, he had positioned himself to the right of Pete Domenici on the immigration issue.

I also raised my concern with Democratic Party of New Mexico Chair Brian Colon and the State Party's current Executive Director, Matt Farrauto.  I told Don Wiviott that he should talk about this issue with his campaign supporters. The fact that Don still decided to run means that they don't think it's an important issue. I guess I differ.   

Editor's Notes: This is a guest blog by Jim Hannan. Click to visit his campaign website. Guest blogs provide our readers with an opportunity to express their opinions on political issues, and they don't necessarily represent our views. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link at the upper right-hand corner of our main page.

Click to read DFNM's earlier post on the candidacy of Don Wiviott.