So far, one person has bit (though two comments have apparently disappeared).

This is not a new phenomenon. Duke City Fix (”Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM”) managing editor Sophie Martin says in an e-mail to NMI tahat she thinks it is “great” that candidates reach out online.

Richard Romero’s campaign isn’t the first to have done so on the Fix. In some cases (Michael Cadigan comes to mind) it’s not just the campaign but the individual candidate who’s interacting with the voters directly, and that seems to me to be the ideal — real voters communicating with the real candidate.

Martin mentioned that asking the question isn’t enough. She argues that to make the communication truly effective, it has to be a two-way conversation. “If a politician solicits responses or reactions online and then fails to respond to the public’s comments, it looks worse than never reaching out at all,” Martin wrote.

So far, it looks like Romero is on top of things, answering the only comment that is left up on the post.

Martin cited a recent post by incumbent Mayor Martin Chavez on Facebook that NMI’s Marjorie Childress wrote about yesterday.

We see an example of that right now with Mayor Chavez’s popular bar closings tweet. His Twitter account feeds to his Facebook profile, and people have been responding on Facebook. In some cases those responses merit follow-up from the mayor or his staff, but as of this moment (21 hours since the original tweet) there’s been nothing. Maybe the tweet was sent out with no expectation of a reaction from the public, but if so that raises the question — why do it at all?

Since she wrote that, Chavez, the all-but-announced candidate for reelection, has responded three times (by my count) to the fifty-plus comments on the Facebook posting.

It should be noted that on his Twitter account Chavez often replies to other Twitter users, even some who are openly hostile to him.

Romero’s Twitter account, however, isn’t as active.

Young people in force at the April 15 Las Cruces Tea Party. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)

WASHINGTON –While South Carolina’s political establishment wrestles with the fate of Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), Ron Parks has already moved on. He’s one of the organizers of a July 4 Tea Party in Charleston, a rally that will celebrate America and protest the way that President Barack Obama is governing it.

“We had 6,000 people show up at the last Tea Party in Charleston, on April 15, when [Gov.] Sanford spoke,” said Parks, a contractor who lost his job earlier this year and quickly found work as a volunteer with the Tea Party movement. “We’re expecting fewer people this time, but I’d love to have to eat my words.”

With no great fanfare and little national media coverage, the people who organized the April 15 Tea Parties are gearing up for a new day of protests against government spending and higher taxes. Hundreds of rallies will take place, at least one in every state, in public places and in parks rented out for the occasions. Many of the same people are involved. Most of the conservative organizations that aided the last rounds of rallies are on board for the sequel, such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. A proliferation of sites run by those groups and sites run by grassroots activists are pointing curious activists to rallies ranging in size from barbeques to a rally in Dallas that organizer Phillip Dennis promises will be “the biggest Tea Party in the history of Tea Parties.”

In the run-up to the first round of Tea Parties, conservative activists were aided enormously by coverage from Fox News and the endorsements of many Republican stars. Fox News ran dozens of segments about the events, dispatching five of its stars — Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, John Gibson, Glenn Beck, and Neil Cavuto — across the country to cover them live. Newt Gingrich endorsed the events, speaking at a Tea Party in Times Square and dispatching talking points to protesters through his American Solutions organization. Dozens of Republican members of Congress spoke at the events. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele passed up an opportunity to attend a Chicago Tea Party after being denied a speaking slot, but in May he told RNC members that the tide was turning against the Obama administration because “change is being delivered in a tea bag.”

But the collaboration between the official Republican establishment and the Tea Parties has not lasted into June. The RNC has no plans to get involved with any Tea Parties. A spokesman for Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who jaunted around northern California to attend several Tea Parties, said that his holiday plans were private but would probably not include Tea Parties. Gingrich will not attend any of the Tea Parties, although he recorded video messages for events in Birmingham and Nashville “at the request of the respective organizers,” according to spokesman Dan Kotman.

Media coverage has also gotten a little bit more scarce. Coverage on Fox News has largely been limited to interviews with Tea Party organizers on the network’s morning shows. While sources at Fox would not discuss their plans for covering the weekend events, they confirmed that no anchors would be attending and that the attendance and news value of the events looked to be lower than that of the April rallies. Tea Party organizers are counting, instead, on local news coverage and on distributed reporting such as the conservative news site PajamasTV, which hosts an “American Tea Party” show and has asked readers to submit their own videos from their rallies.

“There are legitimate journalistic reasons for why there’s less coverage this time around,” said Seton Motley, a spokesman for the conservative Media Research Center — a group that blasted CNN and MSNBC personalities for joking about the April 15 Tea Parties. “There aren’t as many rallies this time, and there was a novelty last time that isn’t there now. Also, if you’re talking about the networks that made light of the Tea Parties back in April, they might have realized that opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.”

According to Jenny Beth Martin, a national organizer of Tea Party Patriots, there are advantages to media hype and to media indifference. In April, when Martin helped organize the Atlanta Tea Party, Sean Hannity asked for, and got, a starring role in the event — a decision that brought national coverage and 20,000 people. “But I couldn’t meet many of those people,” said Martin. “This past Saturday, we had an impromptu rally to protest the cap and trade vote. On the fly, organized with Twitter and Facebook. Only 70 people showed up but I got to speak to everyone and get to know them.” Martin did credit the media attention of April with letting the Tea Party organizers “reach an audience we simply wouldn’t have been able to reach on our own.”

The result of all of this: lower expected attendance, with some of the difference made up by a more celebratory atmosphere. On April 15, the largest Tea Party in Texas was the Fort Worth rally featuring Gov. Rick Perry, who drew days of controversy for apparently endorsing the idea of Texas seceding from the union. The July 4 Dallas Tea Party, by contrast, will combine political speeches from columnist Michelle Malkin, Bosnia war hero Scott O’Grady, and local conservative activists with entertainment from ersatz Monkees drummer and singer Mickey Dolenz, a bluegrass Beatles cover band, and a program that lets kids edit themselves into rock videos (”Be a star — no talent required!”).

“We’re using the fireworks and the Monkees and the rest of that to attract people who never though they’d be at a Tea Party,” explained Phillip Dennis. “This is going to be much more of a celebration than a protest. It’s a celebration of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s going to be our own declaration of independence from an irresponsible government.”

Dennis and the Dallas organizers are hoping for a turnout of 50,000 people, and hoping for it despite a ban on politicians speaking from the stage. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had asked to come and to sign copies of his new book, but reeled from the restriction; retired Lt. Col. Oliver North pulled out of the event for the same reason. (DeMint will appear at the event in Charleston, the only Republican senator making such an appearance this weekend.) Without Republican politicians getting involved, Tea Party organizers can speak openly about their plans to replace them. Asked what, if any, the political impact of the April 15 events was, Dennis suggested that it was “getting Sen. Arlen Specter out of the closet as a Democrat.”

“I think of the Tea Party Movement as a play in three acts,” said Michael Patrick Leahy, a Nashville activist who has clashed with other Tea Party organizers, but who is speaking at the Dallas event. “Act one was to protest the socialist statism that we don’t believe in. The second act is happening on Saturday when we celebrate the Constitution that we do believe in. The third act will be taking actions to restore limited government.”

Leahy pointed to the more independent, more attention-getting activists as the most likely way that the Tea Parties will evolve. One example: Phil Valentine, a radio host who has launched GivetheSenateSomeBalls.com, a campaign to supplant the tea bags that activists had been sending to Congress with brightly decorated sports balls, using some scatological humor to encourage the upper house to block Democratic plans.

“The idea for the balls campaign came to me as I was sitting around waiting to go on at a Tea Party event this past Monday,” said Valentine. “People are just beginning to send their balls to their senators.”

Councilor Michael Cadigan, candidate for reelection

Albuquerque City Councilor Michael Cadigan is taking heat from his two District 5 challengers for planning a public safety postcard initiative using both city funds and a city employee to do the leg work.

The postcards, which have yet to be sent out according to a  KOB-TV report, urge residents to close their garage doors in light of increased burglaries in the area. A city employee who works for Cadigan also sent out a mass email to residents using a city email account.

District 5 city council candidates Jeremy Toulouse and Daniel Lewis have filed an ethics complaint with the city clerk, alleging the campaign is actually part of Cadigan’s reelection campaign, and shouldn’t be funded with city resources.  In response, Cadigan told KOB that all city councilors are allocated $5,000 per year for “constituent communication.”

“We’ve been sending out mailings to constituents for eight years — it’s part of my job as a city councilor,” he said.

While Toulouse is disputing that Cadigan has the right to send the postcards out in his official role as Councilor, he doesn’t seem to disagree with Cadigan. The police department should be making the point instead of Cadigan, he said in an e-mail sent to the Independent:

As a District 5 resident and constituent to candidate Cadigan, I greatly appreciate his common sense perspective on leaving garage doors open, it is a very important point to make… I have been at several meetings where candidate Cadigan has brought this up, but so have APD representatives, whom no doubt identified the problem and as it is their job, should continue to notify the district’s residents…

Toulouse also wrote that while common sense is important, the real need is for more cops on the street:

Common sense is important and we should all use more, but, many of us with growing families, who spend long hours working forget things, it happens to all of us, so garage doors will continue to be left open unfortunately. We can, through more regular community activities get to know one another, so we are better at looking out for each other, but in addition to increase community involvement we quite simply need more police officers on the streets.

But that’s not what greeted Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina when he admitted he loved a woman, not his wife, in Argentina.

The moralists were first to condemn. That’s what they do — judge others. True, it defies the biblical injunction to “judge not,” but what better way to avoid self-examination?

Condemnation was the main, bipartisan theme across corporate news mediums, too, with only a faint counterpoint of sympathy. Conservative Kathleen Parker, speaking on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” was kind.

Politically, and whatever their feelings, Republicans were united in wanting the story to go away.

Understandably, liberals were elated. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann was cruel. Wrongly so; cruelty should remain characteristic of the authoritarian right.

The left giggled, of course, because rightists had to “pause” their “moral” war against justice while the whole world watched another social conservative leader squirm.

This star-spangled spectacle of hypocrisy was hard not to enjoy.

Incidental question — just how many friends of “family values” have now been exposed as fraudulently pious? Sanford and Ensign, Gingrich (multiple offender), Vitter, Craig, Limbaugh, Livingston, Palin, Hyde, Giuliani, the trio of Abramoff, Reed and DeLay, Cunningham and — enough — there’s no need to be comprehensive.

Of course, I could compile an equally long list of Democratic sinners, but few rate as hypocritical; they rarely prate about personal virtue.

The GOP must run from Sanford because his misadventures distract from the party’s message – that eight years of Bushian malfeasance was the fault of the Democrats (some of whom were collaborators) and besides, more tax cuts for the wealthy will cure everything, including cancer. Incredible.

Sanford’s irresponsibility as South Carolina’s chief executive also makes it harder for local Republicans to run as clean alternatives to dirty Democrats. Thus, the GOP choice for governor of New Mexico, to be announced, will face some skepticism when he or she pledges to clean up (real) Democratic corruption in Santa Fe.

But that’s all the Republican candidate can say. In the wake of Wall Street’s crash, the traditional promise to run the state “like a “business” should elicit guffaws. The GOP is down to “Hate your neighbor!” and “Voodoo economics forever!”

Ignoring the good sense of their libertarian wing, Republicans insist on politicizing what is nobody’s business — an individual’s private, intimate life.

Ignoring traditional conservative doctrine — they don’t know Edmund Burke — the Republican hammock swings between the trees of corporate welfare and worship of the (imaginary) free market.

Market capitalism is revolutionary, not conservative. Its “creative destruction” — have they at least read Joseph Schumpeter? — devours not only old businesses but traditional values, too.

Nor do they recognize that their radical individualism (every-man-for-himself) contradicts what their religion holds — we live in community, responsible for and to each other.

In that context, let us cheer poor Gov. Sanford’s discovery that his frailty is “human.” As for knowing that the Lord wants him to remain governor, well, Sanford would seem at least one blue corn tortilla short of a combo plate. So let’s give him time to reorder.

After all, it, in this era of huge, tragic, fatal failures in Washington, there are worse things than losing your head.

Romantically, that is.

One of the sacred causes of our democratic system of government has been the establishment of term limits. Chief executives such as the president and governor are limited to two terms because the designers of the law knew the importance of limiting centralized power.

Romero said that if elected mayor that he will “lobby the Legislature to amend the state constitution to ensure term limits are brought back to the Mayor of Albuquerque’s office.”

Chavez, of course, successfully challenged term limits last year. This allowed him to run for an unprecedented fourth term as mayor. Though Chavez has yet to “officially” announce his intention to run, he has already qualified for the ballot and for public financing.

Ahh, another story about the Rainbow gathering, I told myself, referring to that annual event that where thousands of folks converge for a week to live in an intentional community.

Rainbow gatherings are unique events. Think the 1960s hippies crossed with political and social protesters who who want an alternative to 21st century American consumerism, capitalism and the mass media.

Cuba, the little town up a ways on U.S. Highway 550, is the host of the Rainbow gathering this year. This year’s gathering started Wednesday. But for the past few weeks, every other day or so, I’ve noticed small groups of people, some flashing signs with the letters “C-U-B-A” at motorists along U.S. 550.

I first heard about the Rainbow gathering in the 1980s when some enterprising reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer, I think it was, wrote a long, whimsical piece in which he described the alternative culture that takes root at one of these annual revelries. The story brimmed with strange anecdotes and profiles of individuals who struck me as a foreign as Old Testament prophets or wild-eyed back-to-landers. I loved that story.

So it was in that context that I clicked on the Journal story yesterday.

And, lo and behold, the story wasn’t a profile on the Rainbow gathering. It was a Census story. Apparently the small mountain town has experienced an explosion of growth in recent years — explosion being a relative term.

Here’s an excerpt from the Journal story:

According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Wednesday, Cuba has experienced a veritable population boom during the past eight years. The town had 590 residents according to the 2000 census, but 2008 estimates put the population at 1,358. It was the fastest-growing city in the state during that time.

It was an interesting fact, and I dutifully read the small item. But I did with a sense of disappointment. I had hoped to read about the Rainbow gathering. About what it is that causes an individual, or small group of individuals, to trek across the country to an annual gathering, where they meet up with thousands of other similarly minded individuals. About what such a gathering of people smells like, or looks like, or sounds like.

But all I got was that census story.

As of the publication of this posting, the UCC filings database is operational. But it appears to be back online using the less secure hypertext transfer protocol (http at the start of the Web address). Prior to last week’s problems that led to all systems in the secretary of state’s office going down, the searchable databases used the more secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (https at the start of the Web address).

In addition, the databases for campaign contributors, candidates and political committees receiving contributions, lobbyist reports and financial information disclosure reports are still offline.

Herrera and two other high-ranking officials in her office have not responded to an e-mail sent earlier Thursday seeking a status update.

Officials have been working to restore the secretary of state’s Web site and systems in the office since last week, when unspecified problems knocked out a new campaign finance and disclosure system that has been under development.

Officials haven’t specified how the problems with the new site relate to the office’s problems with its other computer systems and Web site.

While his ability to get his message out there in traditional media is well known, with today’s above the fold Albuquerque Journal article about the idea being a good example, he’s also one of the elected officials in New Mexico who’s really gotten on board with new media technology — he twitters, uses Facebook, and occasionally has live internet town halls meetings. On Facebook today, for example, he posted a “status update” about the idea to keep bars open an hour later — in the third person:

Marty Chavez is proposing that the state liquor regulators allow bars to stay open an hour after they close to let their patrons drink coffee and soft drinks or eat food to improve their sobriety and to also allow for a place to hang and wait for a taxi or ride.

One thing that reporters love about Facebook, and Twitter, is the greater access to elected officials — not just for the press but for the general public itself. In the case of Chavez’s Facebook page today, for instance, there’s quite a bit of commentary about the idea of keeping bars open.

A lot of  it is kudos for the idea, but there are also some interesting observations and suggestions.

Here’s a sampling:

“Providing options is a great step in the right direction!”

“this is a great idea. It also helps the cops out because usually there are so many people out in the street when the bars close.”

“Do you really think this is going to work? People are still going to leave after they call out “LAST CALL”…Something more needs to be done. Enough is Enough…..”

“This is something that used to happen in the State of Kansas– really great idea!”

“Good luck with that. From my days as a bartender I recall that the State Liquor Regulators were remarkably strict about patrons having to leave the premises where there were bottles of liquor present. The solution offered was to have the liquor completely locked up or removed entirely, both were usually unacceptable to the business owners.”

“Also what a great way for the bars to make more money!!! Its a win win for everyone!”

“How can you make sure there are Taxis available to take these people home. They shouldn’t be on the road. Taxis generally gone before midnight.”

That comment was followed by…

“good point and so very true…..”

UPDATE: After this blog was posted, the conversation got even better, with the mayor weighing in on taxi’s and transit, and some questioning of whether it would really work. For instance, one person asked, wouldn’t this just result in wide-eyed drunks?

“…don’t you just need TIME… and doesn’t coffee + drunk person = wide awake drunk? How ’bout crackin’ the whip so those folks don’t get behind the wheel at all. Even a little bit tipsy is bad for driving.”

You can follow the conversation yourself here.

“I would support a veto override,” he said.  “And think the council would likely support an override, but we need to get the wheels in motion for doing that. Our problem now is timing.”

Because the council doesn’t have any meetings scheduled for July, they may need to call a special meeting in order to ensure the measures are on the ballot.

Benton addressed the three points the mayor gave for his veto.

Regarding the issue of a salary commission that would determine pay raises, Benton said it isn’t an “end run,” as the mayor said, because the commission itself is being put before the public for a vote.

“The idea that this is an end run around a public vote on the issue of pay raises seems ludicrous,” he said, “since this is putting to a public vote a new means of determining pay raises for elected officials. People can vote it up or down.”

Chavez also said in his veto message that the charter amendments “fail to strengthen the conflict of interest provisions of the City Charter for the legislative branch.”

The task force didn’t make such recommendations, Benton said, and he’s not sure why the mayor would veto a bill based on it not containing something.

Benton said the third element of the mayor’s veto message — that the amendments “weaken the executive branch in favor of the legislative branch” — is concerning if it’s about the amendments that strengthen the independence of the city clerk and the city attorney.

“That may be an indication that the city clerk and the city attorney’s office in the mayor’s mind are primarily his staff and not the city council’s, and that concerns me,” he concluded.

“Don’t buy it,” the Las Cruces Sun-News’ Walt Rubel writes in a recent commentary.

ACI is one of a number of groups that put out such rankings following legislative sessions. Rubel writes that, while the scorecards “may have some value to the members of those organizations in letting them know who is supportive of their pet projects, they are of little value to voters.”

Why? Such scorecards “invariably favor one party over the other based on the special interest they are representing,” Rubel writes. In the ACI report, for example, the top rankings all went to Republicans, while the bottom spots were all held by Democrats.

But that isn’t the biggest problem, Rubel writes:

The greatest failing of all these scorecards is that they are incredibly shallow. They provide a snapshot of the legislative session, and not the panoramic view needed to truly and fairly evaluate your senator or representative.

There were 896 bills introduced in the House and 693 in the Senate this past session. That doesn’t count memorials and resolutions. The ACI rankings are based entirely on 23 House bills and 17 Senate bills.

I’ve highlighted some aspects of this before in writing about Conservation Voters New Mexico’s 2007 legislative scorecard. The bottom line: Such scorecards are designed to help push an organization’s agenda, not give voters unbiased information to help them make decisions.