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.
Undecided voters, political junkies and people drawn to tense exchanges between candidates who blatantly ignore substantive questions to attack one another might want to tune in to KOB-TV tonight at 7 p.m.
Republican front-runner Susana Martinez and Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish meet face-to-face for the final time in this year’s contentious gubernatorial race.
With the Nov. 2 election less than two weeks away, it’s difficult to know how much is truly at stake, given Martinez’s continued lead in every poll as well as her sizable fundraising edge.
The conventional wisdom is that is the Dona Ana County prosecutor’s race to lose, thanks to voter discontent and her repeated attempts to tie Denish to the scandal-plagued administration of Gov. Bill Richardson and to New Mexico’s Democratic party overall. Several high-profile Democratic elected officials, and at least one public official, have pleaded guilty to or been convicted on corruption-related charges since 2005, with several spending time in federal prison.
But political observers and junkies know that a bad moment for a front-runner can end up costing a candidate: Exhibit 1 is former Democratic congressional candidate and former attorney general Patricia Madrid who froze during her final debate in 2006 with then-U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson of the GOP. Madrid’s silence, and her bewildered look, became the center of a devastating ad that helped Wilson retain her seat despite a voter backlash that cost the GOP control of the U.S. congress.
With that historical context in mind, the Martinez camp likely will play defense tonigh, meaning Martinez likely will focus on not making any big mistakes while firmly rebutting Denish’s criticisms.
The Denish camp meanwhile has a choice: launch into attack mode, or play nice with hopes of wooing voters who remain undecided.
But the effectiveness of negative campaigning, despite repeated disavowals by American voters, suggests that there might be one last fireworks show tonight.
While it is still uncertain who will win Nov. 2, what is certain is the victor will face an unenviable task of leading New Mexico through rough times — times that will test, and likely expose, the high-flying rhetoric of a hotly contested race as exactly that, rhetoric.
Despite a yawning state budget gap, both Denish and Martinez have made promises on the campaign trail that might be hard to keep given the state’s budget situation.
Both candidates have said they won’t raise taxes in their first year and have promised not to cut two of the largest areas in the state budget — public education and Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program.
Such statements have raised eyebrows as well as the level of skepticism among state lawmakers, more than one of whom has privately called such promises the result of the “silly season” — that time of the election season when candidates say what they think they have to say to get elected.
As Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, told the Albuquerque Journal yesterday, “I think the gubernatorial candidates are going to find it’s a lot easier to campaign than it is to govern.”
