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.
Both Mayor Martin Chavez and his campaign manager, Mark Fleisher, popped up in the press over the weekend giving their take on why Chavez lost the mayor’s race on October 6.
He’s spent no time since the election analyzing why he wasn’t re-elected, Chavez says in the Albuquerque Journal, just before he proceeds to analyze it. Rather than it being an “anti-Marty type of vote,” it’s a sign Republicans are angry, he said.
“I’ve spent no time (analyzing) it, no time,” he says. “The public made up its mind. I really don’t see this as a ‘We hate Marty’ or anti-Marty type of vote. I think Republicans are upset, angry, and they consolidated around a candidate.”
Chavez has been a polarizing figure in Albuquerque. It’s something even he seemed to acknowledge during the campaign when asked about the notion that he was difficult to work with. He responded to the question famously by saying he wasn’t difficult to work with–rather, he’s difficult to work against.
In light of his reputation for being somewhat combative, it’s been tempting for many to chalk up his loss to “marty-fatigue,” with the polite way of saying it being “incumbency-fatigue.”
Maybe from here inside the Albuquerque fishbowl, it’s one and the same. But to Politico.com over the weekend, it’s not so much fatigue as it’s “anti-incumbent,” and it’s something that is about anger in general–not just Republican anger–about the current national economic mess.
Politico highlighted the loss of Chavez as well as two-term Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, a Democrat who was in a three way race with two other Democrats. Politico adds to its analysis races in which popular mayors won re-election recently with significantly smaller margins, possibly signifying a national trend to boot out incumbents in light of the economic recession:
Some incumbent mayors have already lost their races. Others have held on to win—or are likely to win next week—with greatly diminished margins from their previous re-election bids. Either way, local incumbents are bleeding badly after being buffeted by the pressures of high unemployment, low tax revenues and a volatile, impatient electorate.
Maybe. Chavez campaign manager Mark Fleisher told Politico that Chavez simply got caught in the middle.
“The thing that’s interesting about the Chavez administration is that there was no issue or scandal or anything that led to his defeat,” said Chavez campaign manager Mark Fleisher. “The Republicans attacked him with Republicans. Democrats attacked him with Democrats. We got caught in the middle.”
We forgot to highlight it here on NMI, but both NMI Editor Gwyneth Doland and I participated with other journalists on a New Mexico In Focus round table on the election on October 9th. The themes of Republican discontent and consolidation, and anti-incumbency sentiment in general came up repeatedly in our discussion.
