I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Like all freshman senators, New Mexico’s Tom Udall has some mentors. Though he is surely getting advice from New Mexico’s senior senator, Jeff Bingaman, Udall also has two other mentors to help him out. And both are powerful players in the Senate.
A program started in 2004 entitles freshmen senators to two mentors — one Republican and one Democrat — to help them out in their first few years in office. According to Politico, Udall has chosen Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).
Lugar is the Republican with the highest seniority and the ranking member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations committee. Inouye is the chairman of the extremely powerful Senate Appropriations Committee in addition to being the senator with the third-most seniority, behind only fellow Democrats Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert Byrd of West Virginia.
Udall, by comparison is 88th in seniority. Bingaman is 13th in seniority.
So what do the mentors do?
The idea of the program is to provide Senate greenhorns with advice-givers as they get situated in their new roles. For the most part, freshmen will see their mentoring senators every few months for lunch. The senior members are also supposed to be on call for questions that crop up while settling in.
But the most surprising part of the Politico story? The revelation that while President Barack Obama was a senator, his Democratic mentor was none other than Joe Lieberman (ID-CT). The same Lieberman that not only campaigned for Obama’s opponent, John McCain, and said that Obama hadn’t always put America first.
Odd the way things work out…
