Shouldn’t Obama have seen this coming?

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In the case of Bill Richardson, the warning signs were there, but the president-elect apparently missed them all. How? When Barack Obama announced his nomination of Bill Richardson to be commerce secretary in early December, my initial thought was something along the lines of, “That must mean the federal investigation of the governor’s administration has ended.” After all, articles about the probe into allegations of pay-to-play had first been published on my blog, the New Mexico Independent and the Albuquerque Journal in August. It was a serious investigation: I knew weeks before Obama’s announcement that people close to the governor had been subpoenaed, and that the probe was focused on whether people at the highest levels of Richardson’s administration had helped CDR Financial Products secure a lucrative state contract in exchange for contributions to two Richardson political action committees. So didn’t the Obama people know that too? Continue Reading

Richardson drops another bomb on NM politics

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Since October 2007, New Mexico politics have been in a state of flux as the transition to the post-Pete Domenici era unfolded at the same time that the progressive takeover of American politics shifted the makeup of the state’s congressional delegation and Legislature.We thought the dust was about to settle. Domenici was out. So were Wilson and Pearce. And Bill Richardson — well, we all knew he came back to New Mexico to run for governor primarily so he could get another job in Washington, and we started 2009 thinking he was leaving to become commerce secretary. Which would mean Diane Denish would become, in the coming weeks, the first woman to be governor of New Mexico. Continue Reading

Our new leaders need us to stay involved

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The Domenici dominoes and Richardson’s departure mean a number of newbies will be calling the shots in New Mexico. They need us to hold them accountable. It began with U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici’s retirement, and it ended with President-elect Barack Obama nominating Gov. Bill Richardson to be commerce secretary. In all, 2008 led to turnover in New Mexico politics on an almost unfathomable level. As a result, New Mexico is greener, both in the political and experience senses of the word. Continue Reading

A portal into space, and it’s in my backyard

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New Mexico got final approval this week to build a commercial spaceport 40 miles from my house. I dreamed as a child about someday going into space, so this project makes me a little giddy. For many boys of my generation, dinosaurs, G.I. Joe, baseball or the first Nintendo game system was the big thing. Not me. I was interested in some of those things, but my real passion was anything to do with outer space. Continue Reading

Will newspaper failures cripple journalism?

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Newspapers must move to a new business model that shifts the focus to the Internet. They must do it now. The news from the newspaper industry in the last week has been disturbing. The New York Times is borrowing some $225 million against its headquarters building to free up cash. Tribune Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Continue Reading

NM’s money woes will force painful choices

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New Mexico really is in a dire financial situation, and solving it is going to be painful, not just for government bureaucracies but also for average New Mexicans. The bottom line is this: The sharp drops in oil and gas prices mean the state has a current fiscal-year budget shortfall of about $500 million — in a budget of about $6 billion. But that’s not the extent of the problem. Forecasters predict that in the next fiscal year, the shortfall will be at least another $200 million. So the state has to come up with something along the lines of three quarters of a billion dollars during the 60-day legislative session that convenes on Jan. Continue Reading

Smoke and mirrors aside, we still need ethics reform

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Santa Fe wants to be bad, but not so bad that it gets caught. Aragon’s conviction doesn’t change that.One common argument many lawmakers have made against ethics reform is that the state Legislature doesn’t have ethical issues and its members don’t need additional checks on their power. When Manny Aragon admitted several weeks ago to abusing his position in the state Senate to steal millions of taxpayer dollars, he blew that argument out of the water. So, of course, some lawmakers have come up with bogus arguments against ethics reform. Senate President Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, recently told the New Mexico Independent that what Aragon did was illegal but “doesn’t have anything to do with ethics.” Illegal but has nothing to do with ethics? Continue Reading

The economic crisis: How bad will it get?

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Government budgetary woes in New Mexico and elsewhere threaten to make things much worse The headlines are everywhere. The state of New Mexico has frozen hiring and taken other measures to cut $200 million from the current fiscal-year budget to avoid a deficit. The Albuquerque mayor is leaving 140 jobs unfilled to trim $20 million from the city’s budget. The Gadsden Independent School District in southern New Mexico is shifting its use of $3.9 million in state funds as a stopgap measure to avoid having to immediately fire 98 people and make other cuts. But Gadsden still has to figure out how to make cuts to next fiscal year’s budget that begins July 1, and layoffs appear likely. Continue Reading

A mandate for cooperation and bipartisanship

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We’ve known since the first rebuking of the GOP in the 2006 election that 2008 was going to be a Democratic year. We all knew the party of the right would lose some additional ground in the U.S. House and Senate. But, as the dust settles in New Mexico, it’s becoming clear that this was a complete slaughter. Barack Obama won nearly 57 percent of the vote in a state that went to George Bush in 2004. Democrat Tom Udall took the retiring Republican Pete Domenici’s U.S. Senate seat with 61 percent of the vote. Continue Reading

Memo to Washington: Change is coming; get on board

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In the face of the myriad of crises that threaten the stability and security of our nation and world, there’s one big reason to be hopeful as Election Day approaches. Change is coming. I’m not talking about the trite slogans of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. I’m talking about the grassroots uprising of America’s citizens. The number of registered voters is at an all-time high. Continue Reading

GOP shouldn’t tolerate anti-Muslim rhetoric

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“Do we really have to do this again?” was my thought when I first read about Otero County Republican Women Chair Marcia Stirman calling Barack Obama a Muslim and asserting that Muslims are America’s enemies. Apparently, we do. So here goes. Stirman wrote a letter published Tuesday in the Alamogordo Daily News about why she’s a Republican. In it she hit on familiar topics: She believes “in a sovereign God who sometimes gives us what we deserve.” She opposes abortion and supports the death penalty. Continue Reading

A ‘true blue’ New Mexico? It’s a real possibility

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When Sen. Pete Domenici announced his retirement a year ago and triggered a domino effect that has made New Mexico one of the most hotly contested states in the 2008 election, who would have thought that Democrats might win the state’s five electoral votes in the presidential race, Domenici’s Senate seat and all three open seats in the U.S. House? Not me. I said as much on my blog and during radio and newspaper interviews. Republicans appeared poised to compete vigorously in all federal races in New Mexico, and I and many others assumed they’d be able to win at least some of the races. After all, New Mexico’s congressional delegation currently has a 3-2 Republican majority. Continue Reading

If Washington can’t focus on policy now, when can it?

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Many Washington politicos have spent the last two weeks putting politics above solving the nation’s financial crisis. In doing so, they have provided the quintessential example of why Americans are so fed up with Washington. Many House members who voted against the bailout on Monday — Democrats and Republicans — are in close election contests and appear to have opposed the bill largely because they fear losing their seats if they vote for something the majority of Americans oppose. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi couldn’t let pass the opportunity to bash Republicans before the vote. Some Republicans apparently decided to act like middle-school students and voted against the bill not because they opposed it, but because their feelings were hurt by Pelosi’s inappropriate and overly partisan speech. Continue Reading

We’re crashing: Can we find a way to land safely?

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In a recent conversation, my dad summed up the current financial crisis better than I could have: We’re trying to figure out how to engineer a controlled crash landing instead of allowing an all-out nosedive into the ground. I believe he’s right. The situation is that serious. Democrats and Republicans alike, in their words and actions, have indicated that the collapse of America’s financial markets may be imminent if Washington doesn’t step in and do something drastic. Such a collapse could send us into the next Great Depression. Continue Reading

Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women

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Contrary to what many on the left are saying, the Sarah Palin pick has the potential to positively and dramatically shift attitudes toward women in this country. Those who say otherwise apparently don’t understand how John McCain’s selecting Palin to be the second female vice-presidential candidate in America’s history challenges a huge number of Americans to think outside the box in which they live. Many among the GOP base of religious, conservative voters attend churches in which women aren’t allowed to preach or fill a number of other leadership roles. And yet, many of those same people have become the most excited supporters of the McCain/Palin campaign, and it isn’t because of the social moderate at the top of the ticket. If they’re successful in electing McCain, GOP base voters are setting Palin up to be the likely Republican nominee for president in four or eight years. Continue Reading