TRUE BLUE NEW MEXICO

We're very lucky to be able to welcome a guest blogger to DWT this evening, Barbara Wold, one of the most effective and sensible voices in New Mexico progressive politics. Like so many of us, she came to be reinvolved with politics via the Howard Dean campaign. Now she blogs at Democracy for New Mexico and helps coordinate a monthly progressive Meetup in Albuquerque that's been active for about four years. She's also participates in local Dem Party politics, having been part of a successful "take our party back" effort that's resulted in dozens of progressives winning party offices including ward and precinct slots and seats on the County and State governing bodies.

It's an amazing situation this year in New Mexico politics. We have a chance to gain a U.S. Senate seat and two U.S. House seats, which would make our entire Congressional delegation blue. It's been a case of musical chairs ever since Sen. Pete Domenici announced his retirement late last year due to a brain disease, putting all three of our House seats and one of our Senate seats up for grabs in open contests.

With all of our state offices except Land Commissioner held by Dems, both houses of our legislature dominated by Dems and Bill Richardson as our Governor, we think a true blue New Mexico is a real possibility, which is why the local netroots has started an Act Blue fundraising page called just that:
True Blue New Mexico.


We've got excellent candidates in former Albuquerque City Councilor Martin Heinrich in NM-01, former Dona Ana Commissioner Bill McCamley down south in NM-03, and current NM-03 Rep. Tom Udall running for Senate. In NM-03 in Northern New Mexico, traditionally a Dem stronghold, we've got a bunch of progressive contenders including green builder Don Wiviott, NM Public Regulation Commission member Ben Ray Lujan and Jemez Pueblo member Benny Shendo -- so many we haven't been able to come to a consensus on who to support.

In NM-01, a Dem winner would replace faux-moderate Repub Heather Wilson. Heather edged out Dem Patricia Madrid last time out by fewer than 700 votes. The Repub contender this round is expected to be current Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, who chaired the Bush campaign in the county in 2004. He's never had to run a competitive race, and New Mexico's voters have definitely soured on everything Bush. Dem Martin Heinrich was instrumental in passing a minimum wage raise for Albuquerque, and is a conservation and environmental champion. He's known as a top-notch negotiator who uses common sense and honesty to bring people together to solve problems. He's a progressive through and through.

In NM-02, where the Las Cruces City Council was recently repopulated with progressive Dems after a long stretch of Repub rule, McCamley's running a truly grassroots campaign. With a master's in public policy from Harvard, McCamley is smart, informed and infectiously passionate. While on the County Commission, he led the fight to replace down and dirty sprawl development with a common sense planning process -- an issue that's recently turned many a voter Dem in the district. Meanwhile, the Repub Party in those parts is in disarray, with many less than stellar Congressional candidates emerging to fight it out for a chance at the Repub slot. If we have a Dem winner in the district, they'd replace the truly awful hard-right ideologue Steve Pearce, who's abandoned his seat to battle Heather Wilson for the Repub Senate nomination.

In NM-03, we expect to hold onto Udall's seat given the high percentage of progressive Dems in the district that includes Santa Fe, Taos and rural Hispanic Dem strongholds. The only question is which Dem among many candidates will get the nod. That's why we set up True Blue New Mexico to reward whoever wins the Dem nomination there.

As for the Senate seat, Tom Udall's popular all over the state and very well respected by New Mexicans of all political stripes. A true gentleman and a member of the illustrious, conservation-championing Udall family of the West, he was encouraged to get into the Senate race by the grassroots and power Dems alike. In Congress, Udall voted against both the Iraq invasion and the Patriot Act, and he's been instrumental in helping us preserve many of New Mexico's beautiful and pristine landscapes. Nonetheless, a tough race against either Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce is expected this fall.

Why is the New Mexico netroots reaching out now for support?
First of all, we want top-notch, progressive candidates to get a head start on fundraising and garnering support. We want more Dems but we want good Dems, as the saying goes. And the GOP is already active in fundraising for their New Mexico cronies. Just yesterday, Karl Rove was in Artesia, NM raising money for the state Repub Party, the same day Dick Cheney was hosting a fundraiser for Senate candidate Steve Pearce in DC. Cheney previous held a similar event in Washington for Senate candidate Heather Wilson. It's evident that wingnut money machine will be heavily involved in trying to protect their seats here-- despite a big fall in support for all things Repub even in more moderate areas of the state.

Secondly, we wanted to reach out early both locally and within the national netroots community. New Mexico is economically challenged and sparsely populated in many areas of the state. Grassroots donations can be hard to come by given our rising cost of living and low salaries. In other words, we can use all the help we can get.

We hope you'll visit the True Blue New Mexico page at Act Blue and toss a few bucks into the collection basket. Even if you're not so inclined right now, we hope you'll keep the True Blue candidates in mind as election season moves forward, knowing that Blue America already has Martin, Bill and Tom on their radar. Our ActBlue page is an effort by local blogs including New Mexico FBIHOP and Democracy for New Mexico. Please visit our sites, poke around a bit and check out posts yesterday and the day before about this effort, as well as guest blogs by Martin Heinrich and Bill McCamley. We've just begun to fight.

-Barbara Wold