NM-01

Nov 08 2006 Published by under Craziness, Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans

Last night, and into this morning, I was reminded of the 2000 Presidential election. As New Mexico was called for Gore, retracted, called for Bush, retracted, and sat in the undecided column, a friend asked what the hell was happening in New Mexico.

I had left the state party just over a year earlier and was actually surprised by her question. I replied, “I’m not sure what you mean. With Florida flopping back and forth like a dying fish, I guess this is your first experience with this sort of thing. In New Mexico, it’s just how we do things.”

I went on to explain that the media love to be the first to call races, and in their excitement they generally forget that the state GOP pushes absentee and early voting and pushes it HARD. In 2000, there were nearly 60,000 absentee ballots cast.

That also creates the unintended side effect of creating a massive problem with what they call “hand tallies.” You see, when an absentee ballot is run through the reader, and doesn’t count correctly, it is rejected and must be counted by hand. Two volunteers (theoretically one GOP and one Dem) sit on either side of a table and read off every race on the ballot, and the selection the voter made.

As one reads, the other records. There is no way to verify that the selection read by one is the same as the vote recorded by the other. I’ve seen cases where both the reader and the recorder were switching the votes – only to cancel each other out and end up with the correct vote being cast.

It’s a bizarre process, and I thank God the balance of power in the House doesn’t hang on NM-01. It would be a long time, as it will in Virginia, before we had a resolution. In New Mexico, that’s just how we do things.

Comments

Patricia Madrid: The Wrong Stuff

Oct 25 2006 Published by under Candidates, Congress, Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans

Patricia Madrid and Heather Wilson squared off last night in a one-hour debate hosted by the NBC affiliate in Albuquerque. Patricia, three points up in the polls, just had to avoid saying anything stupid. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it through the hour without doing so.

Asked a question about large donations from lobbyists, she defended the gifts and said that’s ok, they’re just paying for access. Don’t believe someone would say anything that stupid?

Guess again?

Comments

More Bad News For Heather Wilson

Oct 11 2006 Published by under Candidates, Congress, Politics, Republicans

Campaigns in New Mexico are generally won or lost by the GOP in absentee/early voting. A significant portion of our GOTV budget was always aimed at turning in as many votes as early as we could. The pachyderms are so successful in beating Democrats through absentee balloting that the legislature, almost every year, revamps the absentee voting laws in an effort to stave off defeat by those inclined to vote by mail.

If current stats hold, however, that trend may be coming to a close.

Joe Monahan, who blogs on all things political in New Mexico, has some numbers that should make the GOP uneasy and scare Heather Wilson absolutely s**tless.

Of the 13,000 folks who signed up to get those [absentee] ballots, a stunning 69%, or about 9,000 of them, are from Dems. It’s an early sign that the Donkey is kicking, while the Elephant may be napping.

If those numbers stay lopsided, and the NM GOP and national committees don’t get very, very aggressive with their turnout operation, we’ve probably lost a seat in NM-01.

Comments

A Very Close Race

Sep 05 2006 Published by under Candidates, Congress, Democrats, Politics, Republicans

One of the closely watched races in the House is New Mexico-01 (Heather Wilson‘s seat). Some new numbers out in the Albuquerque Journal’s poll there show the race very close.

While Wilson is currently leading the Democrat by 3 points, that’s not much. Still, the district is always close, so it’s not a great surprise. There’s also a 4.8 point MOE, so she could be up more, but she may also be behind. Digging a little deeper, and looking at the last cycle for some comparison, the numbers are definitely off a bit for Heather, but there’s no reason to throw in the towel just yet.

The good news for Wilson is in the number of Democrats who like Heather and the number who don’t like Patricia Madrid. The soft support within the party is a real downside for Patsy. At this point in the 2004 cycle, Richard Romero was pulling 4 points better with Democrats despite having lost to Wilson by ten points two years earlier. Madrid should be in much better shape with her own team. Her disapproval among Ds is 20%. That’s bad news in a district where ticket splitters make up a good chunk of the deciding factor.

Heather has lost some support within her party as well (she’s six points lower than she was in 2004). She’s also dropped four points among Democrats, while Patricia is up 3 points with the GOP (versus Romero). The real trouble for Heather lies in the Hispanic community, though. Madrid is nearly 20 points ahead with Hispanics (a bloc that hurt Romero two years ago). She’s running 8 points ahead of Romero’s benchmark.

The downside to polling – and especially to comparing poll numbers like this – is the unique nature of every race. At this point two years ago, people thought Romero had a chance and the race might be as close as a point or two. He ended up falling apart and Heather won by nine. Patricia could have a foot-in-mouth moment and say something that knocks her out of the race, but I doubt it.

If Madrid can continue to improve her lead with Hispanics, and shore up the sentiment within her own party, she could make a real run at Wilson. For Wilson, it may be a case of slow and steady winning the race. She’s currently driving the agenda with charges that Madrid ignored a brewing scandal in the treasurer’s office. That’s keeping the focus on Madrid, but isn’t likely to last as an issue. They better have something better to hit her with in October.

Madrid seems to be pulling her charges out of the MoveOn.org research shop. Her ads are hitting Heather on two fronts – taking money from the oil and gas industry and supporting Bush. The oil ties are a sure loser for Madrid. She’s also not going to get far by trying to paint Heather with the Bush brush. Heather made waves by bucking the President on domestic surveillance, so that dog only hunts for the party faithful. She’ll need something better if she wants to seal the deal.

It’s an interesting race to watch. Unfortunately, it’s 2000 miles away from the first polls to close, so the suspense will likely be over by the time results are in for NM. My guess however? As goes this race, so goes Congress.

Comments

Lost Opportunities

Jul 13 2006 Published by under Candidates, Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans

PoliticsA colleague and I were talking this morning and he said something I am beginning to believe wholeheartedly. His exact quote was, “I firmly believe the election of 2006 will go down in political history as the single greatest squandered opportunity any political party has ever achieved.

More and more, I am assured of our chances in the fall simply because the Democrats can’t hold it together and keep making stupid, stupid mistakes. Ignore their complete lack of message discipline, and the continual infighting, and look at the stupid things they do to themselves for no readily apparent reason.

Yesterday the DCCC sends an e-mail with a fundraising appeal that is stuffed to bursting with images of Katrina victims and dead soldiers. Anyone who has worked in politics for more than a single cycle would know not to do that, yet the ad was sponsored by none other than the D-trip Chairman, Rahm Emanuel.

Even ignoring the national level stupidity, though, you find rampant examples of the Democrat melt-down.

The Vermont Democrats are actively working to keep three loyal democrats off the ballot so they can nominate an independent who has repeatedly told them he will decline the nomination if he gets it. That’s the height of folly. Fortunately for them, it doesn’t really impact their chances against the GOP in Vermont.

What may affect their chances is the acceptance of a really stupid contribution by New Mexico’s AG (and the Democrat trying to unseat Heather Wilson in what promises to be a nail-biter).

It seems Madrid accepted $10,000 in contributions from the artist formerly known as Wackenhut (now the GEO Group) after granting them a favorable ruling on a private prison. Both sides claim there was no quid pro quo, but it looks fishy – especially given the fervor with which Democrats opposed Gary Johnson’s prison privatization plans just a couple of years ago.

Heather’s camp can certainly make this an issue, and paint Madrid as ethically challenged. That charge may get some play among those who don’t want to add to the corruption stew that is Washington.

Those are just a couple more examples of the Democrats doing their best to elect Republicans. If we didn’t have them working for us, we’d have to do some real work.

Comments

Older posts »

Livefyre Not Displaying on this post