Jerome Corsi worked for George W. Bush during the 2004 election. Until Bush and McCain deny it under oath, I submit that Corsi is a McCain/Rove/Bush operative.
Corsi claims that he is not supporting John McCain. I say he is and I can simply use this diary as my proof of that. I'll just use this diary as proof of my claim. That's one of Corsi's favorite methods to prove his claims. He just cites himself.
And, I admit that this is an ad hominem attack. So what? Corsi’s books were ad hominem attacks. Corsi's main response to Media Matters spokesman Paul Waldman was that Media Matters was making ad hominem attacks on him. That's true; Waldman was personally attacking Corsi's history of publishing hateful lies.
David Iglesias is the prototype twenty first century Republican: charismatic, Hispanic, an evangelical Christian and a captain in the Navy Reserve who served for many years in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps ("JAG"). In 1998, Iglesias campaigned to become Attorney General of New Mexico against the heavily favored Patricia Madrid. He nearly pulled off an upset and the Republican Party took notice. In 2000, Iglesias paid his party dues and worked for George W. Bush’s election.
The primaries are over in New Mexico. The presidential primaries are over (and should come to an official official end tomorrow). Now it's time for us to turn our attention to the general election in November.
New Mexico is in a unique position. Daryl Paranada of the Huffington Post called New Mexico "the ultimate swing state" and for good reason.
President Bush lost the state to Al Gore by less than 600 votes in 2000. Four years later, Bush defeated John Kerry by nearly 6,000 votes, making New Mexico one of only two states to switch from blue to red between 2000 and 2004.
But it isn't just the Presidential stuff. We also have an open Senate seat. Rare enough; there are only five open Senate seats this year, and of those, only three are competitive.
New Mexico's is competitive -- and all three U.S. Reps. from the state decided to leave their seats to take a crack at the Senate seat.
I have a few things I want to cover in this diary.
Elections results in yesterday's New Mexico primary
My experience as a poll worker in that primary
The Netroots Nation Scholarship program
Perhaps the single most interesting result is that ethically challenged Republican Heather Wilson failed in her attempt to win a nomination to the US Senate. (That's the "woman scorned" of my title.) She is well known in the blogosphere for her tearful "nipplegate" outrage:
While we realize there's a contentious presidential primary going on at the moment, the Tom Udall for Senate campaign [Disclaimer: I work for the Tom Udall for Senate campaign] would like to bring you live coverage of the Democratic primary watching party in New Mexico tonight. As many of you know, the Senate and House primaries for New Mexico took place today.
Tom Udall is running uncontested for the Democratic nomination for the Senate. The Republicans running for nomination are Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce. We'll be doing our best to keep you updated on the results of that race as well as the congressional primaries as they become available.
[6:09 AM] We're here early at the New Mexico Democratic Party's primary election watching party in Albuquerque, where people are slowly beginning to stream in. Tom will be speaking later on, and we'll have live video up as soon as the festivities and speeches begin. Stay tuned for updates from the floor, including primary results that will (possibly) be faster than can be found at the Secretary of State's website.
Hey y'all, Steve Olson here from the Tom Udall campaign. I realize that most of your eyes will be on Montana and South Dakota, but for those of you following the US House and Senate primaries here in New Mexico, here's some updates.
First, when Bush came to town to raise money for the NM GOP last Tuesday we launched a campaign to find 1000 donors by the time the polls close (7PM Mountain). As of this moment, we're only 283 donations away from that goal... and what's even more awesome is that some long-time supporters have offered to donate an additional $50 for each online donation between now and the polls closing. As a result your gift of $5 or $10 is actually worth $55 or $60!
The Santa Fe New Mexican and Project Vote Smart have something in common: Republican U.S. Senate primary candidates Steve Pearce and Heather Wilson didn't feel it was worth their time to fill out their questionnaires.
The two weren't alone in failing PVS' "Political Courage Test" as first noted by the Swing State of Mind blog a couple weeks back. The two were joined in their failure by Tom Udall, the sole Democrat in the U.S. Senate race, and a vast majority of federal and state candidates. Only 21 percent of federal candidates and 11 percent of state candidates filled out the survey.
As Julia Goldberg of the Santa Fe Reporter and the Swing State of Mind blog noted, the survey (pdf) is more-detailed than your average questionnaire. It is four pages deep and has multiple questions on issues from abortion to education and every issue in between.
Want to stick it to George W. Bush? Well, today you have your own special chance to do just that, by supporting a great Democrat on a day when George Bush is at a fundraiser to help his opponent.
My friend, Tom Udall, is running for the US Senate seat being vacated by Pete Domenici. He is unopposed in the primary, but will face either Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce in the general. Tom is polling well ahead of either of the republicans at this point.
I first met Tom in 1988. Rather, I first met Amanda, his daughter, while out canvassing for a state senate race while Tom was running for CD-1. We were paired up to walk a precinct and she would hand out the lit at the door, saying, "and don't forget to vote for my dad, he's a great guy!" Well, those who meet Amanda are guaranteed to be immediately smitten with her. She has a warm, friendly smile, and eyes that sparkle with intellect, humor and quite a bit of mischief. From then on, we were inseparable. More after the jump...
In an interview to be published this Sunday in The New York Times Magazine, David Iglesias, who was fired by the Bush administration in the U.S. Attorney scandal, tackles a wide range of issues. For one thing, he says he never even received "a little note of thanks" for his service from President Bush.
He says he prays for Karl Rove but doubts that Rove returns the favor, explaining "My understanding is that he is agnostic...The irony is you have this agnostic using the religious beliefs of evangelical Christians for political purposes."
It looks like Tom Udall is the big winner of the money race again.
His campaign sent out a press release minutes ago touting the fact that he will enter the general election with $2,876,030 cash on hand. Nearly three million dollars cash on hand -- before June.
From the release:
Udall reported total expenses of $431,865 and finished the period with $2,876,030 cash-on-hand.
This is the third consecutive reporting period Udall has outraised both of his potential GOP opponents combined. He reported a strong total of over $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2008, which ended March 31, and in the final months of 2007 he raised over $1 million.
Not only did Udall raise more money than both combined, his cash on hand advantage is tremendous.
The AP reported on the numbers from Pearce and Wilson.
The title at Swing State Project says it all -- Udall Eats Republicans for Breakfast. While the title may not help Udall with the niche anti-cannibal crowd (and vegetarians, I suppose), it does get its point across.
Just a day after a poll which showed Udall significantly ahead of both Republicans, a Rasmussen poll shows the gap is narrower -- but still very significant.
The Rasmussen Poll results are as follows. In parentheses are the results from the April 8 Rasmussen poll. No word on MOE, but I assume it is at or near the +/- 4.5 percent of previous polls by this outfit.
The undecideds in this poll are amazing, just 4% agasint Pearce and 3% against Wilson, an remarkably tiny margin six months before an election. Udall's appeal is practically universal:
Udall leads among both men and women, young and old, white and Hispanic, regardless of opponent. 1 in 4 Republicans cross over and vote Democrat; 1 in 10 Democrats cross over to vote Republican.
Udall is unopposed in NM's June 3 primary, while Pearce and Wilson duke it out. SUSA identified a subset of Republican likely voters in this poll. The race is within the margin of error of 4.8%, with Pearce leading 49-46. Again, there's just a 2% undecided. Pearce has gained 12 points since the Republican race was last polled by SUSA six months ago. Wilson has lost 10. Neither has been able to secure outgoing Sen. Domenici's endorsement, and won't before the primary. Pearce is calling himself the only "true conservative" in the race, while Wilson is tryng to pas herself off as a moderate, "common sense" Republican.
Which has brought the Club for Growth into the mix with a $200K ad buy attacking Wilson for supporting S-CHIP.
So this should be fun. The NM Republicans appear to be on track to nominate the CfG's guy, the extremist who would be weakest against Udall. This one is looking very good for the Dems. Pajama Pete's long Congressional tenure is at an end, and it's looking more and more like Heather Wilson's is, too. Just the icing on the cake.
Steve Pearce and Heather Wilson are vying to be the Republican candidate to get trounced by Democratic candidate Tom Udall in the contest to replace vacating Republican Senator Pete Dominici.
Amazingly, the overwhelmingly toothless U.S. Senate Ethics Committee deigned to administer a mild rebuke to Sen. Pete Domenici for the "appearance of impropriety" in connection with his call to former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias demanding information about the timing of pending corruption indictments. The Ethics Committee has been mostly comatose for a number of years, reportedly due to an informal, mutual agreement between Dems and Repubs to refrain from taking any meaningful action on ethics complaints against Senators of one another's parties. Foxes guarding the henhouse and all that. One hand washes the other.
The Ethics Committee issued a three-page letter yesterday "admonishing" Domenici but claiming there was no "substantial evidence" of purposeful wrongdoing on his part and recommending no punishment for the infraction.
For the second quarter in a row, Tom Udall outraised both Republican candidates -- combined. The $1.3 million he raised in the first quarter was about $350,000 more than the $943,000 the Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce campaigns raised combined.
I wrote his fundraising success in the fourth quarter of 2007 was astonishing. To do so two quarters in a row is beyond astonishing. It shows that Udall clearly has more momentum than either Pearce or Wilson.
