V.B. Price
Back to basics for city politics
In the October 2009 Albuquerque mayoral election, I really don’t think a centrist Democrat or an ankle biting attack dog Republican can make it through to the run off. It seems to me that the candidate of either party who represents what I’d call a return to party basics has the overwhelming chance to win.
Last week’s sour note
Folks in California thought Prop 8 would fail, until a final surge on election day proved them wrong. No one, I suppose, should ever again underestimate the insidious power of negative advertising directed at minorities or any other scapegoated group.
President Obama arriving just in time to reverse economic bust
In Albuquerque and New Mexico, national troubles usually take a year or so to arrive. But the downturn in the economy is here, right now, full blown and on time for the holidays.
Our toxic culture wars
The rift is symbolized in the term “un-American,” and its variant “real American.” It’s gone so far in Albuquerque that one right-wing political pundit called the 45,000 person Obama rally at the University of New Mexico Saturday a “cult” and “un-American.”
Assault on the working poor
As we hold our noses this election season, wading through the stinking offal of robocalls, vile attack ads, and disgusting charges of un-Americanism, it’s sobering for us in New Mexico to realize that according to the AP our state has more working poor and more children living in low-income working families than any state in the union.
The problem with hate speech
When campaign rallies become sounding boards for the vile and heinous utterances of a mob mentality, even then free speech has to be honored.
Beware of bailouts and our Catch-22 economy
The current crisis, I think, is the beginning of a profound economic and social shift, a shift in fundamentals, a tectonic shift of our own making, one that we might have avoided or at least prepared for, but tragically did not.
‘Angels of decency’ created a bright spot in a vicious world of cannibal politics
Unlike so many hard-bitten, devious players in modern political life, with Joan Rosner and Vince Griego — who died recently — what you saw was what you got. And what you saw was civil, practical, and tirelessly optimistic. They were, to the present vicious world of cannibal politics, angels of decency.
More Antonin Scalias anyone?
Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s contorted, oddball thinking about politics and the rule of law is a good reminder why the stakes in 2008 presidential election are so high.
Eight years ago, Scalia was part of the 5-4 majority in one of the most controversial and infamous of all Supreme Court decisions. The case was [...]
Enough of personality and spin
When all is said and done, Obama and Biden, McCain and Palin, are the servants of the parties and ideas they represent.
Personalities in this election matter less than party platforms.
The Republican and Democratic conventions, the profusions and biases of the name brand media, the various twirling dervishes of spin, the nameless name callers, and [...]