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.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano announced on his personal blog this weekend that he was ending his race for the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination, citing a large disparity between the amount of money the most successful fundraisers had been able to raise and the amount of money he was able to raise, and other factors. Solano said it “showed me the stark differences between a local and a state wide race.”
While the former chairman of the state Democratic Party, Brian Colon, raised over $250,000 and Lawrence Rael raised almost $150,000 after the first fundraising period, Solano raised a little less than $12,000.
The money wasn’t the only reason why Solano decided to end his campaign, as he outlined in his blog post.
After all the campaign finance reports came out I decided to go into hiatus on raising money. I needed to make a decision as to whether I would be staying in the race. Until I decided for sure I did not want to take any additional money while I was unsure of my position on staying in the race. We did begin to gather petition signatures which were needed to garner a place on the ballot. In addition to gathering petitions we reached out to State Convention Delegates to see where we were in garnering the 20 percent needed to get on the ballot in June as well. A lot of voters don’t realize that they are the last to decide who wins a race or not. There are numerous hurdles candidates need to get over before voters ever get to see their name on a ballot. One of these is getting past the delegates at the State Democratic Convention. One of my opponents has a decided advantage in that arena having been Chairman of the State Democratic party for over two years. I expect him to take well over the 20 percent of delegates in the convention leaving the rest of the candidates to fight over what remains.
While Solano does not say what he will do next, he has already endorsed his undersheriff, Robert Garcia, to replace Solano as Santa Fe County Sheriff.
“Whether in an elected office or not I will always be an outspoken advocate for you and for what is right,” Solano told his supporters on his blog.
