Independent Joe Lieberman has kept his position as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and the secret ballot was reportedly not even close. What is particularly surprising is that New Mexico's Sen.-elect Tom Udall reportedly spoke on behalf of Lieberman to keep his chair -- especially since Udall is not only gong to be a freshman senator, but he's not yet officially a senator.
Talking Points Memo's Election Central reported on the deliberations, using the word from an aide.<!--more-->
Two Senators spoke out in favor of removing him: Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders.
Among the Senators who spoke out in support of Lieberman keeping the chairmanship, according to the source: Kerry, Durbin, Ben Cardin, and Tom Udall.
Those in the netroots (the Democratic and liberal blogsophere) have been angry at not only the fact that Lieberman kept his chairmanship, but by the wide margin that he reportedly did so. Green Mountain Daily, a Vermont blog, reported the vote total as 43-12 for Lieberman to keep his chair. Talking Points Memo wrote, "Thirteen Senators voted against a resolution to condemn Lieberman but to allow him to keep the chairmanship."
Meanwhile on Daily Kos, a front-page post announcing the results of the vote has, to this point, received over 750 comments, almost uniformly condemning the actions of the Senate Democrats.
As Udall's first act in the Senate, he may have some explaining to do for speaking on behalf of the controversial John McCain-backing Lieberman.
There is no word on how Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico's soon-to-be senior senator, voted.
Chantal Foster, the founder of the uber-popular Albuquerque blog Duke City Fix is saying farewell. Duke City Fix is probably the most popular blog/social networking site in New Mexico.
Foster wrote:
What a wild unexpected ride it's been! After five years as a local blogger including four at the helm of Duke City Fix, I'm retiring from blogging and officially turning over management of this site to Sophie Martin who's been running things on a day-to-day level for months now... and swimmingly so.
Joe Monahan and the rest of the political insiders from the old guard really, really dislike non profit groups like New Mexico Youth Organized. Who do such evil things as encourage people to vote.
Marjorie at M-Pyre takes a look at what Monahan wrote today and his many half-truths, generalizations and coded language to make the non-profits sound scary.
I find it hilarious that Monahan thinks of himself as so smart about all things New Mexico politics... then he ignores the huge advantage that any incumbent has in an election. A great example of using select facts to support your argument.
Gilbert Gallegos, spokesman for the governor, confirmed Monday afternoon that the governor "was here in the office on Friday."
Gallegos would not say more about the governor's activities Friday, declining to say if the governor spoke to the president-elect by phone or whether the two spoke at all Friday. Gallegos, who confirmed that the governor was in New Mexico Friday and Saturday, would only say that he had no public events.
So did he talk to Obama at all? Or just via phone? Skype or iChat? Morse code?
We'll see. But if he is reported to have been in New Mexico on Friday, it's very unlikely he was actually in Chicago. And if he didn't meet in Chicago with Obama, it is also less likely he will actually be Secretary of State.
I've often told people that I know way more about sports than I do about politics. Some argue that I don't know much about politics, so that's not too difficult a statement to back up.
But it was a big surprise when UNM coach Rocky Long resigned today. He's been the Lobos coach for 11 years, and he has been bowl eligible for seven straight seasons, winning the first bowl game in decades last season in the New Mexico Bowl.
The Lobos won only four games this year, going 4-8.
Let the speculation begin on who will replace Long.
It all started with Jim Baca writing that the owners of Frontier and Golden Pride were on the list of Prop 8 donors. Note: See update below.
Duke City Fix freaked out that the gay marriage ban opposers at the blog would need to boycott Frontier.
Yet, I went through the list of Prop 8 donors, the thousands and thousands of them, and found no evidence of Dorothy or Larry Rainosek, the owners of Frontier, on either the support or oppose list. No Laurence or Lawrence Rainosek either.
Of course, the Rainoseks have given tens of thousands of dollars to federal campaigns over the past few cycles.
Larry Raisonek has given almost primarily to Republicans. Since the 2002 cycle, Larry Rainosek has given $22,150 to federal candidates. All but $2,300 were to Republicans (Pete Domenici, Heather Wilson and Darren White recently, with Ed Tinsley back in Tinsley's failed 2002 primary run).
In that same time period, Dorothy Rainosek has given $35,950 to federal campaigns and Political Action Committees. Of her money, all but a $1,500 check to Bill Richardson for President went to Republicans or their PACs, including $4,500 to the Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico.
Baca also said the owners of Baillio's donated, but there was no Jack Baillio on the list; of course, Baillio's was sold earlier this year to Appliance World. Larry Nathan, the Appliance World CEO, was not on the list either.
But Brian Rule, owner of Blake's Lotaburger, was on the list of Prop 8 supporters. Also, Cinemark CEO Alan Stock donated to Yes on 8. Cinemark runs four theaters in Albuquerque.
Of course, I could have missed something -- did I?
I have retracted and deleted comments that the owners of Frontier Restaurant contributed money to pass the ban on gay marriage in California. My source has not been able to come up with solid information. Although those owners contribute money to many anti abortion groups they have not apparently done so on the Proposition 8 issue. I sincerely apologize for putting out bad information and my fact checking should be better in the future. I trusted a source I could usually rely on and this is my mistake.
Kudos to Baca for coming clean. He could have went to New Zealand without ever changing his post. Of course, he should have noted the update on his original post.
There was a protest against Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that banned gay marriage. It was the sour note on the elections of November 4.
About 500 protesters gathered on Civic Plaza to protest, along with hundreds of others protesting on the same day nationwide in at least one city in every state. I planned on going, but thought it was at 1:30, not 11:30. Luckily, Democracy for New Mexico was there at the protest.
It's their picture to the right, which I shamelessly stole from their site.
They noted that even the Albuquerque Journal covered the story -- on the front page of the Sunday Journal no less. From the Journal:
"This is about families and people being able to take care of and protect the people in their families," rally organizer Rose Bryan said. "People are losing their homes, breadwinners are losing their jobs, and the last thing we need to be doing is tearing down families."
Of course, the bigots who voted against the issue were dismissive of the protesters' efforts.
Supporters of traditional marriage said Saturday's rallies may have generated publicity but ultimately made no difference.
They might want to look at the age crosstabs on the exit polls form Prop 8. Young people voted against the effort, while older voters voted for it.
The younger generation just doesn't care about the gay marriage scare tactics like the older voters. With young voters engaged, and likely to continue to be engaged in future elections, it's only a matter of time before things change.
Much to the chagrin of those close-minded people who voted for the ban.
John Fleck, the science writer for the Albuquerque Journal, had an interesting piece on the editorial page on Sunday where he said that clean energy research cannot fill the funding gap of nuclear weapons research at our national labs.
Sandia and Los Alamos are just two among 21 Energy Department labs and research centers. Many have stood on the sidelines watching while Sandia and Los Alamos saw their nuclear weapons budgets grow, and will likely think that it is their turn now. More importantly, other labs - most notably the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado - already specialize in the sort of work the Obama administration wants to fund.
Read the whole thing and let me know what you think.
Though I have to say, the Journal website is really bad for attempting to find specific stories.
I was reading Joe Monahan and came across this interesting tidbit which seems to be at best badly stated and at worst an outright lie.
Meanwhile, talk is circulating in the press that seems based on fantasy. That's the possibility that current Republican US attorney Greg Fouratt should be kept on the job so he can lead the US Attorneys Office in continuing prosecuting public corruption cases in Democratic controlled New Mexico.
Monahan goes on to say that's not how things work -- each incoming president wipes the slate clean and starts over with his own U.S. Attorneys. So expect Democratic U.S. Attorneys in those posts come January.
But is the press really talking about Fouratt keeping his job? If they are, it is deep in the background, in the rumor stage. Because according to a search on LexisNexis, Fouratt's name comes up in 16 news articles in the past two months. And none of those sixteen are about Fouratt keeping his job.
They are all about Manny Aragon pleading guilty in mid-October and the GOP vote intimidation scandals later in the month.
The question is, are there really rumors going around? And if not, which political reporter is going to be the one to take the bait and write about the possibility floated by Monahan?
Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama is considering former primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson to be his secretary of state. The officials said Obama met with Richardson Friday in Chicago, a day after meeting with Clinton.
The meetings were in Chicago at Obama's transition office and were kept secret until after they were over, the AP story reports.
Harry Teague bucked a trend of self-funders winning a spot in Washington DC this year. Though it might seem counter intuitive to many, most candidates who spend a lot of personal funds on a Congressional race tend to lose, according to the Center for Responsive Poltics.
Following a long tradition, Tuesday's elections did not go well for self-financed candidates. Forty-nine congressional candidates spent more than $500,000 of their own money in 2008. Only 24 of them even made it to the general election, and just six House candidates and one Senate candidate won, although four House races had not been decided by Wednesday.
There were multiple self-funders in the Republican primary for the 2nd Congressional District, and Don Wiviott in the 3rd Congressional District also spent upwards of $1 million in a failed Congressional run.
But Harry Teague ranked tenth inHouse candidates, spending $1,764,572 of his own money on his race. Only four candidates, including Teague, in the top-ten of self-funding were elected to the House last Tuesday.
It was even worse on the Senate side of things -- of those in the top-ten in self-funding, only one was elected to the Senate.
But Teauge was also helped by another statistic:
The top spender in House open-seat contests won 84 percent of the time. In the Senate, all of the biggest spenders came out on top. In open races two years ago, top spenders won 94 percent of all House races and half of all Senate races.
All three New Mexico U.S. House seats were open this year.
Update: Apparently he's not officially making his run official, but we all know where this is going, right?
Farmington doctor and former U.S. Senate candidate Allen McCulloch is making his play for a spot in the state Republican leadership.
McCulloch is looking to replace another Allen, Weh, who presided over the worst loss for the Republican Party in the state perhaps ever. Not only did the Republicans lose all the federal races, giving Democrats a "True Blue New Mexico" with all three House and both Senate seats in Democratic hands, but a number of state legislature race losses for the Republicans also pushed the minority party into a deeper minority.
So what does McCulloch plan to do? In a letter to the Albuquerque Journal, which Peter St. Cyr obtained for his blog What's the Word, he says the Republican Party needs to "embrace change."
When we lose sight of the grassroots, as our current leadership has, we become out of touch with the thoughts and needs of everyday New Mexicans. Before we can even consider the 2010 election, the Republican Party of New Mexico must make a critical decision as it chooses its leaders in 2009 - will we stay with the same failed leadership of the past four years, or will we embrace change?
Also, he looks to build the Republican Party from the ground up. Recently, the Party has depended on large donors (Bob Perry of Swiftboat fame and his wife have dropped tens of thousands of dollars in to the state Republican Party's coffers) to help win elections. While Brian Colon, the Democratic Party Chair, had a 33 county strategy, it isn't clear what the Republican strategy was except to throw misleading attack ads at Martin Heinrich.
More from his letter, which also appears at Heath Haussamen's site:
it is critical for the Republican Party of New Mexico to go back to building a solid foundation at the county party level. Our state's GOP leadership must become more proactive in building and strengthening county and precinct structures across New Mexico. Over the past several years, the state Republican Party has turned its focus away from building an effective ground game and has become far too content with stagnation at the grassroots level. This must come to an end. A strong grassroots base for our party is the only way we can facilitate the registration of new voters, the recruitment of solid candidates and the engineering of an effective get out the vote effort.
In other words, the Republican Party won't be standing still these next two years. The Republican Party in New Mexico will be (or at least attempting to be) a strong grassroots effort. You can scoff, you can think that Democrats have done it better and can't be beat -- but it is that kind of hubris that helped accelerate the Republican fall from grace.
So this letter is a call not only to the Republicans from McCulloch, it is a warning to Democrats -- that standing still will be like falling behind. So don't give up the hard work, keep that organizing going.
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