THE SCANNER-Politics, 11/06/08: NM Elections; PUMA Integrity; LA Times Crapola on Post-Racial Promise; Class; Movie–“Rope”

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~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Here in NM-CD2 Bill Richardson worked his magic and Harry Teague, the oil guy was elected. The seat usually goes Republican, but Teague is chummy with Republicans like Steve Pearce, who lost the Senate race. Teague and Pearce are in the same line of business and from the same locale. Teague headed a board of some sort in Lea County and was beloved by Republican members. Enough said.  Money came into this race this time, whereas last time, the ex-pastor Al Kissling was not part of the club and he got nothing…except well over 30% of the vote against Pearce.  This time around, he was shut out of the primary.

I wrote extensively about Teague earlier so do a Search of the blog for the gory details…

Tom Udall never set foot down here in Southern NM, except for a closed fundraiser with the money people.  Thank you, Tom Udall!

I did not vote for either of these people because of, in the case of Teague, his past history and close money connections to Richardson and because, in the case of Udall, his slighting of this part of the state.

Locally, the Democrats pretty much took it all except a couple of offices.  My local incumbent state rep returns to Santa Fe and will be joined by a another newly elected Democrat.

I haven’t check the NM political blogs, so I don’t know what the scuttlebutt is on Richardson as a potential Secretary of State. Let him go.  He pulled a few “Obama” tricks down here and I won’t miss him if he goes. Maybe he’ll get lost somewhere in the Middle East and will never be heard from again…

By the way, the problems with absentee ballots not arriving has been forgotten. The local rag reported that voting went smoothly, no problems…Down the memory hole…

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I have to say I really enjoyed Edge of Forever’s (Not Your Sweetie) take on the election and the indications that she hasn’t dropped the mantle of the PUMA.  The little graphic which says “Don’t Follow the Crowd, Stay True to Yourself” at the link captures my feeling completely. I believe in keeping my INTEGRITY, which means we’re going to keep eyeing everything hurled at us from DC with great suspicion.  Edge is one my FAVORITES–maybe because I’m a Jersey girl who grew up about 10 minutes from Midtown Manhattan.  I think we share a common attitude…

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Question of the day: How far down do the expectations get “dialed down,” Pelosi??  As far down as when you “took impeachment off the table” when you took the House in 2006? When you didn’t lift a finger to change Medicare Part D as Kennedy had vowed from the Senate side?  When you let Karl Rove get off without answering the subpoenas the Judiciary Committee had voted to issue? Reality is going to bite a lot of Obamacrats in the butt…

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On the Ground in NM: Biden/Richardson/Endorsement Punch Hits So. NM; Big Early Voting Turnout; BREAKING: McCain May Be Here on Saturday (UPDATE 1X–McCain CONFIRMED for Sat. Rally, S. NM)

~~Posted by InsightAnalytical

With the news that the McCain-Palin “StraightTalk Express” bus sports a shattered window from a gunshot and and multiple paint ball hits from a drive through  NM, I thought it would be a good time to give some on-the-ground reporting about the Biden-Richardson one-two punch from the past weekend. (The report says the shot and paint hits happened in southern NM, but the prior stops were in Gallup and Albuquerque in the north, but not as far north as Raton, which is practically in Colorado.  I guess folks up north don’t think much about the REALLY southern part of the state much…more later on this!)

On Friday, October 17, Joe Biden graced us with his presence at a rally in Mesilla. I’d been to the plaza to see John Edwards and Wes Clark (2X)…it’s not too big a space and has a nice backdrop for photos.

Right off the bat, “things happened.”  The local rag’s rundown on the impending appearances of Biden here and Sarah Palin in Roswell contained errors.  Let’s see, is it just a typo when the paper gives the address of camp Obama’s headquarters here twice, including one time in place of the address and phone number of McCain headquarters?   Well, I spotted it right away and called the paper, only to get taped instructions at the editorial department for leaving a message. I left a complaint, calling it an “egregious” error.  This was in a page 1 story by the way, but I never saw a correction the next day on page 1…or buried inside the paper, either.  I admit, I didn’t look very hard for it…because I’ve decided that a page 1 error deserves a page 1 correction.

The day after the Biden rally, the paper had a screaming headline across the top and a big story (also “disappeared” off the website, but the squib reads: “Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden asked supporters here not to quit working for the Barack Obama campaign, with Election Day less than three weeks away … .”)  I guess there was TV coverage out of El Paso, too…but TV news is off limits for me these days.  For the record, the local paper, The Las-Cruces Sun-News has about 3 people here in Las Cruces…most of the content comes out of El Paso now.  One outfit, MediaNews Group, seems own or have partnerships with all the daily papers in southern NM, at least as far as I can tell.  Gannett used to run them, but this group is no slouch.  See details below…there are some big names there and they own one one TV station– ironically, in Anchorage, Alaska!

Then, on Saturday, October 18, Bill Richardson swooped down from Santa Fe for an “early vote rally” at a local eatery. Unfortunately the story seems to have vanished, but the little teaser for a picture remains:

10/19/2008 – Gov. Bill Richardson encourages Las Crucens to get out and cast their votes for the Democratic ticket Saturday during an early vote rally at Los Compas Cafe, 6335 Bataan Memorial West.

Early voting started on October 7. More EV sites opened up around the city the 18th, the day Richardson came to town.  As of October 7, the last day to register as well as the first day of EV, this was the breakdown of voter registration here in Dona Ana County:

According to a story in the El Paso Times, “As of Friday morning [10/3], 104,503 people were registered to vote in Doña Ana County, according to the clerk’s office. Of those, 51,723 were Democrats, 29,980 were Republicans, 19,391 were classified as “declined to state” a party and 3,409 were other parties.”

Even though the district has a lot more registered Democrats, Republicans seem to carry the Congressional seat and many local races anyway.  This is the first time I can remember that the national Democrats have funneled money into the CD-2 race for Richardson’s guy, oil services man Harry Teague (search Archives for a story on him).

The day Richardson showed up my mother went to the library…or at least TRIED to go the library. When she got there, there were long lines of people waiting to vote at the library’s voting site. The Obamacrats had a big shade tent up with lots of people milling around.  Middle-school kids were on the street with signs, urging people to vote for Obama. One lone McCain person, a brave young man, stood by himself. My mother never got into the library because she couldn’t find a place to park. Needless to say, she came home disheartened. She had never seen young kids before, waving in voters for a candidate.

To top off the weekend, the print edition of the Sunday paper the Sun-News endorsed Obama.

President of the United States Our choice: Barack Obama

The Las Cruces Sun-News endorses Barack Obama for president of the United States.

Like many Americans, we would feel more comfortable with the Democratic nominee if we knew him a little better; if he had been on the national scene a little longer; if his résumé had been filled out a little more. But, we also share the belief of most Americans that our country is heading in the wrong direction and is in dire need of fundamental change.

(The editorial states that McCain only “tweaks” current policy, and then ends with this resounding flourish:)

While Obama’s résumé may be thin, his talents and abilities are anything but. In the nearly two years since his announcement, Obama has inspired a flock of new voters who are excited about the U.S. political system for the first time in their lives. He has demonstrated steady leadership and a keen intellect at a time when those qualities are most needed.

Oh, make me retch…facts to back that crap up?

The same day, the Sun-News made sure to publish this story on page 1:

NM Hispanics may hold election key

By Los Angeles Times

BERNALILLO — Rick Sepulveda can’t make up his mind between Barack Obama and John McCain. The 49-year-old beer salesman thinks the Democrat would do a better job with the economy, but he can’t stomach Obama’s support for abortion, an affront to his faith.

“I’m pro-life. That’s a big issue for me,” Sepulveda said recently, after taking an order at the T & T Supermart here, 18 miles north of Albuquerque. But, he added, “McCain is another Bush.”

Undecided Hispanic voters, particularly socially conservative ones like Sepulveda, could play the pivotal role in deciding who wins the five electoral votes in the Land of Enchantment, a state known for razor-thin margins in presidential races. Former Vice President Al Gore won by 365 votes in 2000; President Bush by 5,988 in 2004.

In New Mexico, Obama had led McCain in recent polls and has a substantial lead among Hispanics. But nearly one in five Hispanic voters, who make up almost a third of the state’s electorate, remain undecided, double the rate for white voters.

Many of these voters are torn, like Sepulveda, drawn to Republicans by their Roman Catholic faith, but to Democrats by their concerns about the economy….MORE

Maybe it’s a good sign that this northern New Mexican, just a stone’s throw from Santa Fe, in an area just outside of Albuquerque, is still torn.

Here’s my gripe about early voting (and it applies to ALL early voting, not just this election). This time around, with more and more news coming out about Obama’s connections and obfuscation, we’ve got a massive early vote turnout, especially up north (Obama country). See here. Texas is also reporting heavy turnout. Of course, Obamacrats won’t change their minds, but there are plenty of conservative Dems like the man cited in the above story who might as well as a boatload of undecideds.  We know early voting is a tool to push a candidate’s vote totals up so that they become insurmountable, especially for one like Obama who has hidden much of his past with the aid of the media.  My feeling is, if you want to vote and can’t get to the polls on Election Day or don’t want to wait hours, take the trouble to get your absentee ballot.

And, I have another thought: if all those people came out on Saturday, then why the hell don’t we have WEEKEND voting across the country? Voting on both Saturday and Sunday shouldn’t offend anyone and more people will have the time to go out and vote and there will be less of a crush at the polls at the last minute, when people get off work!  What’s so hard about that??? We’ve now got voting all over the place here, for example–in-person voting; in-person absentee voting; absentee voting by mail; sites that anyone from any district can can vote at; in-district sites; and…Election Day.  Meanwhile, you call the county clerk’s office for information and get a tape, leave a message,  and they DON’T call you back!!  It happened to us… so what does that tell you about how things are going?  With NM’s stellar performance in vote counting (NOT!) doesn’t this sound like early voting is part of one big disaster?

Now, I have to tell you what happened to me as I was writing this piece.  I took a break to walk Slick because I had heard thunder.  Once outside, I saw a huge stack of clouds enveloping the Organ Mountains and …2 rainbows! I’ve never seen rainbows in October in all the years I’ve lived here, let alone a huge cloud like that one.  What does it mean?  I had a moment of real dread…that I was seeing an omen of some sort, that a big Obama storm was coming our way here. (I swear to God, this is all true..when I got home, I took pictures to prove it!)

When I got back to the computer, I happened to see at the Sun-News site a little blurb…seems McCain may be down here Saturday for a rally in Mesilla! Well, coming on the heels of the big rally Palin had in Roswell yesterday (10,000 showed up), I’m wondering if a McCain visit means he’s 1) desperate or 2) really optimistic about his chances, especially here in the south which normally offsets the northern part of the state?

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: As of early Tuesday morning (10/21) there is no new report on a McCain visit…

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About the north-south issue: Tom Udall hasn’t shown his face here, except for a closed August event for money supporters.  He sounds like a real Democrat one day, an Obamacrat another day, and a Republican yet another day.  Does all this, plus his stiffing of the southern part of the state make me want to vote for him. Not really, not at this point.  I won’t vote for Pearce, but Udall isn’t gaining my confidence, either.

About MediaNews Group: MediaNews Group has papers in California, the Rocky Mountain States, and Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Vermont and Massachussetts. The Denver Post is among their publications. According to their site, “are privately owned and operate 54 daily newspapers in 11 states with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively…Our corporate mission is to be the leading provider of local news, information and services in our strategically located markets by continually expanding and leveraging our news gathering resources.”

“Leveraging,” at least here in southern NM, seems to mean cookie-cutter content with a smattering of local stories and press releases about clubs and entertainment listings…

UPDATE

McCain will hold a ticketed 3:30 PM event Saturday in Mesilla’s plaza. Details here.

McCain Visit Gets Perfunctory Coverage vs. Obama, Richardson Swooping in to Grab Headlines, Udall Who? (Update 2X)

Well, what a difference a candidate makes….

Back in May, the news of Obama’s visit on Memorial Day was greeted with several days of banner headlines across the top of the local paper, The Las Cruces Sun-News.  It even gave front page status to the visit to ABQ by Obama this past Monday which focused on immigration reform.

Over the last couple of days, we’ve seen small articles about McCain’s visit at the bottom right of the front page…no banner headlines, for sure.  In an area full of active and retired military personnel, the low-key coverage has been surprising.

Now, I’m not a McCain fan, but fair is fair. Unless, the Sun-News is doing what so much of the media is doing…setting up Obama for a fall. The Sun-News seems to be a fan of Republicans in most of their news coverage, although they will occasionally endorse Democrats in local races.

The coverage of the event seems limited so far on the web. An early story (7:36 am) via the El Paso Times which described McCain’s arrival in El Paso also reported that as soon as McCain touched down there, NM Democratic Party leaders revealed that they had organized an 11 AM protest across from the venue. There’s a 3:19  piece by the local reporter.  Then there is a video of the townhall…sort of.  McCain was introduced as being “ready from day one” to be President, and, in his opening remarks, he hit Obama for not “being with him today” to debate issues as well as acknowledging the Olympic win in wrestling by Henry Cejudo, who grew up in Las Cruces. Here’s the web story:

McCain speaks to hundreds at NMSU (3:19 p.m.)

Watching the opening moments of the event, I can tell you that McCain was quite energetic, speaking quickly and directly and moving easily around the stage, with about 5 rows of risers on all sides of him.

In his opening remarks he spent a great deal of time on the situation in Georgia and as he was going into the background of the conflict, guess what?  The video ENDED.  How come? After all, Obama’s entire event was shown!

Oh, but the Sun-News did provide an “interview” held after the event on the fly, which was audio only, and bad audio at that. Barely audible in spots.  The topic was about Georgia and the Russian’s “being back” and that, too, ended abruptly. At least 30 seconds of the 3 minute clip was just noise.

What a contrast to the coverage and video devoted to Obama!

There was also an AP story up at the Sun-News site, but that seemed to disappear early this evening.

Just for the fun of it, I checked out the El Paso Times coverage of the event on the web. It picked up a longer version of the AP story:

While in Las Cruces, John McCain criticizes Obama on Iraq

The story included this one question from a voter, a question about McCain’s potential VP:

One voter asked, “Are you going to pick a vice president that conservatives can rally around in the future, or are you going to give us someone that is going to make us want to stay home?”

McCain responded, “I will nominate a person to be vice president, my running mate, who shares my principles, my values and my priorities.”

And where was El Paso Times Online Editor Jay Koester, who breathlessly blogged from the Obama event and gave himself away as an Obama groupie?  No where to be found when it came to the McCain event!  It was a morning event, so he had all day to write something…but so far, nothing.

We’ll have to see how much ink the event gets in tomorrow’s print edition of the Sun-News. But Bill Richardson is coming to town tomorrow to announce the site of the new state veterans’ museum (and the speculation is it will be here in LC), a convenient way to grab the headlines away from McCain…We’ll see!

UPDATE 1 Thursday AM, August 21, 2008

Well, the print version of today’s Sun-News gave McCain a two column header–“Straight Talk” and the Richardson appearance was at the top right. Obama’s “pre-visit” hype was a 2 days of full banners across the top!!  The story was a combination of local and AP reporting.

Under the headline there was a pic of McCain at the town, with smaller headline underneath reading “McCain rolls into Las Cruces,” with a smaller pick of a student asking a question.  The story continued on page 8A and included one question from the audience from a woman who took her husband to Spain for treatment of a brain disease. She asked: “Why did I have to take him somewhere else so he could die in a better place tha in his own country?”  McCain answered that he thought the health care system needed to be “revamped” but that a government-run system wold do better.”  A small picture of the protesters (NMSU Aggies “heart” Obama”) along with a man holding a McCain tee-shirt accompanied the story.  A side-story, “McCain Praises U.S.-Mexico Cooperation on Combating Drug Trade” was on the left of the page.

At the Sun-News website, video of the entire even went up to accompany the print edition story along with a small photo gallery of about 18 pictures.

Over at the El Paso Times website, the paper ran the same story that was printed in the Sun-News.  No sign of any comment by blogger Jay Koester, however.

THE VERDICT?

Much less pre-visit hype compared to what was given to Obama;

No comments from people who attended the event;

Heavy reliance on the AP reports for the details;

No live blogging from Jay Koester of the El Paso Times;

OVERALL IMPRESSION–less space given to McCain.  And the story was treated in a much more ordinary manner, typical of most visits from politicians.  There was certainly none of the breathless hype that went along with the Obama visit in May.

You can see my posts from the Obama visit in the archives. Look for posts dated May 23, 25, 26, and 28.

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UPDATE 2

Buried so deep in the second section of today’s Sun-News that I almost missed it, a little squib about  Democratic Senate candidate Tom Udall holding a “meet and greet” at a school and a townhall meeting tonight.  Who knew??? Either his advance people are really bad OR the Sun-News deliberately squelched that info.  Even if there was very little info, couldn’t it have been attached as a sidebar to the McCain coverage?  His opponent Steve Pearce has sign up already all over town and has been the House Rep. from this district for two terms.  Although Democrats hold most local seats, this district is (and CD-1 and 1 Senate seat) are Republican holds.  (And with folks like Sen. Bingaman and Richardson in office, you could argue that real Democrats are hard to find in NM.)