Hope everyone enjoys their three day weekend and celebrates the Fourth of July safely with friends and family.  And if fireworks are legal where you live, have fun with them.  If not, go visit your friends where they are legal!  Or just enjoy the fireworks in the city where you live.

Special shout out to my mom, who was born on the Fourth of July a few years ago.  We all celebrate with fireworks, hot dogs and the occasional cold beer.  Just like everyone else does, only we are celebrating a birthday.

Might want to share your favorite grilling recipes in the comments.

Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP

The Republican party and the Republican brand are in trouble.  Big trouble.  We all already know this with the anti-Republican sentiment nearly as high as the pro-Democratic sentiment nationwide.  

Our Presidential candidate is up nearly six points in polling averages.  Nearly all of our national groups are outfunding their Republican counterparts (where are you, DNC?) and the Republicans are retiring at a record rate rather than attempt to serve in the minority after a hard-fought battle -- if they even win back their seats.

And if you want more evidence, look below the fold for the changes by the Cook Political Report released today.

A SurveyUSA poll released today that showed Illinois Barack Obama leads Arizona Senator John McCain 49-46 in a head to head matchup.

Polling from May in parantheses

Obama (D): 49% (44)
McCain (R): 46% (44)

McCain still has a strong lead among Republicans, 85 percent to 12 percent.  Obama leads among Democrats 77 percent to 18 percent and among Independents 55 percent to 39 percent.  I'm not sure how much movement there can be between these numbers; Obama might be able to eat into McCain's GOP base a point or two, same with McCain, but it seems they are at their ceiling among their own party in our state.

Obama leads in Bernalillo County 54 percent to 42 percent, while McCain leads in the rest of the state 49 percent to 46 percent.  Nearly all of the First Congressional District lays within the borders of Bernalillo County; whether Obama can help Martin Heinrich depends on whether they can stop "vote splitters" like those who voted for John Kerry and Heather Wilson in 2006.  

Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP.

Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP

Kate Nash of the Santa Fe New Mexican had an article on the differences in drilling and the environment between Steve Pearce and Tom Udall.  The differences between the two on just about every issue are stark and real.  On this issue perhaps more than any other.

Udall wants to push renewable energy; meanwhile, Pearce's energy plan is to "drill everywhere" and give reassurance that money will eventually be given to fund renewable energy.  Meanwhile, just last week, Pearce voted against providing money to renewable energy sources.

Udall already is airing TV ads aimed at tapping into consumer frustration at the gas pumps and advocating we "get serious" about alternative energy sources. Pearce, meanwhile, fired off a barrage of news releases blaming Democrats and "the Tom Udalls of the world" for contributing to high fuel prices by restricting domestic production of oil and gas.

Note: Environmentalist had a great guest post at Democracy for New Mexico on this subject.  Also a recced diary here.

This is crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP.

You may wonder what New Mexico, as landlocked as any state, has to do with off-shore drilling.  Let's just say isn't much threat of oil platforms dotting the landscape of Tingley Beach.

But with Pete Domenici as the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Jeff Bingaman as the chairman of that same committee, New Mexico holds some significant sway in any energy policy discussion.  Add in the fact that our governor, Bill Richardson, is a former Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton and we have even more clout in energy policy discussions.  

Read more about it below.

I wrote this weekend about the $4,000 Steve Pearce has received from Clayton Williams over the past two election cycles.  Williams made remarks about rape, comparing it to the weather in 1990:

"As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Much of the attention has gone to the money that Williams raised for McCain.  And that's no surprise; a fundraiser for a Presidential campaign's horrible comments will trump a the same story for a Senate candidate.

But we should still not excuse this.

On the front page today, DemfromCT took a look at the Republican opposition to the AIDS relief bill.  It was one of the few cases where President George W Bush and (most of) the Republicans actually had a laudable program.  So it's a bit of an embarrassment to the Republican brand to be on the side of opposing AIDS research.

But some Republicans had no problem not supporting the program; we call them House Republicans.  The companion bill in the House is HR 5501.  It's known as the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.  A hefty name for a bill that would provide billions of dollars to help combat HIV, AIDs, TB and Malaria.

Let's go back to DemfromCT's post for more background on the bill.

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.

A version of this appears at New Mexico FBIHOP and MyDD.

New Mexico had our primaries on Tuesday.  Everything but the Democratic Presidential primaries were on the ballot.  Three open house seats, an open senate seat and the Republican Presidential race.  

Not to mention every single state House and Senate race.  It was a pretty good day, warm, no wind, and a lot of people heading out to their local school or library to vote.

Oddly enough, for New Mexico, we know the winners of every single race already.  We're used to having our elections then waiting for a couple of days before readying ourselves to announce tot he world just who won.  There were some extremely close races, and some blowouts.

The great news?  Progressives in the house and senate races ousted DINOs in three seats.

While the only numbers that officially matter are who received how many votes in each race, there were some other interesting numbers that came out of the Tuesday election.  Let's do this in a "By the numbers" style.

Here in New Mexico, we have our primaries today.  Three open House races with competitive races, of varying degrees of competitiveness, on both sides of all seats.  A Republican Senate race which is as close as you can get.

So lots of people should be going out to vote.

In New Mexico, we did a similar thing for Super Tuesday's Presidential primaries.  So join us below the fold for some New Mexico goodness.

And if you want to add your NM voting story, go ahead and send it to my e-mail which is listed in my profile.

Update: Oh so true...

Here's my little election story. I'm registered in Virginia now (at least it's still a swing state!), but one of my colleagues had a fun remark after I mentioned the close polling in the GOP Senate race:

"A good ole New Mexico election, we won't know the result for weeks."

From our pal Avelino.

No matter what happened today, someone was going to be pissed.  Someone's supporters would be complaining about the decision.  We all knew this going in.

Were the results fair?  Depends on your point of view.

First of all, the results of both states were clearly not fully representative of the full amount of people who wished to vote.  In either state.  Voters were told repeatedly, including by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Since the main bone of contention with the RBC ruling seems to be Michigan, I'm going to go ahead and just concentrate on Michigan first, and spend the most time discussing this.

"You may know me as Valerie Plame's husband..."
-Ambassador Joe Wilson

Iraq war critic Ambassador Joe Wilson has become the latest in a long line of people and organizations to back Martin Heinrich for Congress.  This looks to put an exclamation mark on a clean sweep of endorsements for Heinrich in the Democratic primary; if not a clean sweep, then the other candidates have been so inept in trumpeting their endorsements that it might as well be.

Wilson has a video, embedded in this post, of his endorsement as well as a letter announcing the endorsement.

Originally posted at New Mexico FBIHOP

The folks at the Tom Udall campaign were nice enough to allow New Mexico FBIHOP a few minutes out of Udall's busy schedule to speak to him on the phone after he got off an airplane earlier this week.

We spoke about a number of issues, from Iraq to gas prices to what he will decide in endorsing Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (no, he didn't say who).

Something that came up over and over: gas prices.  As anyone who drives (and if you live in New Mexico, then you probably drive a significant amount) knows, gas prices have gone through the roof.

So what is to blame?  What can be done?

"We should take a look at price-fixing," Udall told New Mexico FBIHOP in a phone interview. "This administration has been completely lax in looking at whether there is price fixing going on. I supported a price-gouging law. That legislation has passed the House it hasn’t been dealt with the Senate yet."

Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP

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.

Also at NM FBIHOP

OK, we're leading up to the big primaries in New Mexico (June 3) and things are getting pretty crazy here.  Local car dealers are having their TV ads pushed aside will candidates for Senate, NM-01, NM-02 and NM-03 all blanket the airwaves with ads that go the spectrum from pleasant introductions to outright attacks.

Oh, and there was a lesser-known candidate saying the frontrunner in the race is gay at a candidate forum and touching off a firestorm of controversy.  In the Democratic primary. sigh

Also, we have some campaign visits ahead. I wrote about coming appearances by George W Bush, John McCain and Michella Obama as well a visit by Barack Obama himself.

But we'll go ahead and start with the Senate race and the news from there, under the fold.

Also at NM FBIHOP and SSP

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.

Originally at New Mexico FBIHOP

n Mississippi, Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a special election for the 1st Congressional District on Tuesday by a substantial margin.  Earlier this month, Democrat Don Cazayoux defeated Republican Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins in Louisiana's 1st Congressional District.  Last month, Democrat Bill Foster prevailed in a special election in Illinois' 14th Congressional District over Republican Jim Oberweis.

These three defeats by the Republicans in special elections are surely troubling to Republicans in New Mexico and, indeed, nationwide.  Why?

First, a primer on The Cook Partisan Voter Index, which was developed by political analyst Charlie Cook in 1997 of the non-partisan Cook Political Report newsletter.

Also at New Mexico FBIHOP