BUT WHAT COLOR DO WE GET?

The National Journal's Chuck Todd argues that we need to start thinking in terms of a new political map.

Forget "red" and "blue." The country is basically divided into four voting blocs: the Democratic Northeast, the Republican South, the populist Midwest and the libertarian West. Democrats probably have a decent grip on those populist Midwest voters for a while (at least until the area transforms completely into a new economy). As for the libertarian West (home of the first state -- Arizona -- to reject a gay marriage ban), this is a region that is more up for grabs than it should be. And it's because the Republican Party has grown more religious and more pro-government which turns off these "leave me alone," small-government libertarian Republicans.

The entire column can be found HERE.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 12, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Change in the Weather by John Fogerty
Pink Slip by The Unband
Dopefiend Boogie by The Cramps
I Wanna Be Loved by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
My Wig Fell Off by Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band
Bless You by The Devil Dogs
You Don't Need a Doctor by The Leaving Trains
This Guy's in Love With You by Faith No More

Stolen Cadillac by Pere Ubu
Jams Run Free by Sonic Youth
Ocean by The Velvet Underground
Mountains by Sparklehorse

Where There Are No Children by Kult
Buri Na Laty by Cankisou
Asfalt Tango by Fanfare Ciocarlia
Ciganka by Kocani Orkestar
Adje Idi by Zdravko Colic
God Bless the Ottoman Empire by A Hawk & A Hacksaw
It Was Floating in the Air by Zach Condon

The Concept by Teenage Fanclub
Shut Us Down by Lindsey Buckingham
Into Oblivion by Lisa Germano
Questions in a World of Blue by Julee Cruise
American Tune by Paul Simon
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

AUTOPSY ON LAND COMMISSIONER RACE

Why, in an election where everyone was talking about a "Democratic Wave" -- and New Mexico Democrats like Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Gov. Bill Richardson were pulling about 70 percent of the vote -- didn't Jim Baca pull it off in the race for land commissioner?

For one thing, despite all the talk about voter disgust and winds of change, it seems in New Mexico, for the most part, incumbents won.

For those not completely ODed on politics, HERE is my analysis of the race, published in today's New Mexican.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 10, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Takin' the Country Back by John Anderson
Love's Gonna Live Here Again by Leon Russell
See Willie Fly By by The Waco Brothers
What's a Simple Man to Do by Steve Earle
Wanted Man by Johnny Cash
Barstow Barstool by The Texas Sapphires
Cash on the Barrelhead by Dolly Parton
Miller, Jack and Mad Dog by Wayne Hancock
Whiskey, Women and Money to Burn by Joe Ely
Every Man a King by Randy Newman

Ringmaster by Ramsay Midwood
My Eyes by Tony Gilkyson
Heather's All Bummed Out by Lonesome Bob
Roadmap For the Blues by Butch Hancock
I'd Rather Be Gone by Merle Haggard
Round Eye Blues by Marah
Dirty Leather by Carrie Rodriguez
Don't Let the Deal Go Down by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

Where's the Devil When You Need Him by The Legendary Shack Shakers
Christian Lady Talkin' on a Bus by Blaze Foley
Poor Howard by the Volo Bogtrotters
Shady Grove by Colby Maddox
Mole in the Ground by Doc & Merle Watson
Bottle of Wine by Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs
Shoot Me to the Moon by Dan Reeder
Cowboys to Girls by The Hacienda Brothers
Nashville Bum by Waylon Jennings

Girls by Eleni Mandell
Sold American by Lyle Lovett
Tired Giants by Smutfish
Drinkin' Thing by Gary Stewart
Some Humans Ain't Human by John Prine
Sally Let Your Bangs Hang Down by The Maddox Brothers & Rose
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

THE RACE IS ON !

... and here comes pride at the backstretch ....

Congressional Quarterly has profiles of 2008 presidential candidates.

There's 13 Democrats and 13 Republicans. (Hmmm ... 13, same number as a witches coven.)


Here's one of them:

Bill Richardson — Governor, New Mexico
Rationale: For starters, ethnicity and geography argue in favor of Richardson, a Latino governor in a battleground state that backed Al Gore in 2000 but George W. Bush in 2004. Add to that his varied Washington experience — 14 years in the House plus four years in the Clinton administration, first as U.N. ambassador and then as Energy secretary — and on paper you have the ingredients for national office.
Richardson is a larger-than-life character who is charming on the stump. On policy matters, he is a pragmatist who remains quite popular in his politically fluid state, recently winning kudos for making good on a 2003 campaign promise to save taxpayers $90 million in state budget costs. Governors do well in presidential contests, which is enough of a reason to consider Richardson a player.
Resources: Richardson raised more than $8 million (note from swt: Make that $13 million) for his bid for a second term as governor this year, a sizable sum in New Mexico politics. And his shoo-in standing in that race has allowed him to spread his money around to other Democrats in the state, always good for earning chits to solidify his home-state base in a presidential campaign. Also, the bulk of his campaign funds come from business interests instead of big labor, a good talking point for any Democrat in a general-election bid.
Hobby Horse: Richardson earned foreign- policy credentials as the ambassador to the United Nations, troubleshooting hot spots from Iraq to North Korea, and he also can emphasize his popular management of New Mexico and tout what is expected to be a lopsided re-election victory.
Hobble Horse: Richardson’s closet is not entirely clean. At a minimum, a presidential bid will again bring to light his brush with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in which he reportedly offered her a job, and revelations that for years he erroneously claimed to have been drafted as a pitcher by the Kansas City A’s.

By the way, one of the Republicans in this list, obviously compiled before the election, (in fact there's a sheepish note at the top of the page) is none other than soon-to-be-former Sen. George Allen.

Macaca '08!

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BUCKINGHAM'S PALACE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 4, 2006

My only real complaint about Under the Skin, the new album by Lindsey Buckingham, is this: What took him so dang long? The last time Buckingham released a solo album, the simple but stunning Out of the Cradle, George Bush was president.
Bush senior.

Buckingham reportedly was working on an album sometime in the Clinton era, but that got shelved when he decided to rejoin Fleetwood Mac for one of those reunion tours. I’m not the first writer to note that this is only the fourth Buckingham solo album in 25 years.

While Fleetwood Mac generally — if sometimes unfairly — is considered the ultimate white-bread, mainstream, corporate, classic-rock band, Buckingham has been responsible for many of its darker, crazier, and more experimental moments. True, Stevie Nicks’ witchy-poo image probably has received more attention, but Buckingham — who recorded an album called Go Insane — is the one who’s truly nuts. I mean that in the best possible way. “I’m a madman out on a bad man route/Looking for paradise,” he sings in “Show You How.”

Buckingham is experimental, though in a pop-savvy way, a Brian Wilson way. I’m sure he’s tired of that comparison, but like Wilson, Buckingham has a way of capturing gorgeous melodies and irresistible hooks and, like a sonic stalker, nearly loving them to death. He addresses his critical reputation as Fleetwood Mac’s resident mad genius in the first line of the second song on Under the Skin: “Reading the paper saw a review/Said I was a visionary, but nobody knew/Now that’s been a problem, feeling unseen.”

The first song, “Not Too Late,” will do nothing to dispel that reputation. The instrumental accompaniment is a hundred-mile-an-hour, Segovia-on-angel-dust flamenco-like guitar.
Basically it’s an acoustic album. Though he’s an ace electric guitarist, Buckingham’s acoustic guitar reigns supreme here. His picking style goes back to old British folk rock bands like Pentangle rather than a Delta blues groove.

And his voice. Sometimes it’s a lonely, breathless whisper, sometimes a Wilsonesque falsetto. Often it’s multitracked, creating a one-man choir. On the chorus of “It Was You,” his vocal parts create a psychedelic calliope.

This is indeed a solo album. The only help Buckingham gets is from Mac-mates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who supply a rhythm section on the song “Down on the Rodeo,” and someone named David Campbell, who supplies “orchestration” on “Someone’s Gotta Change Your Mind.” Don’t let the orchestration tag scare you. It’s low-key and sounds a lot more like the Memphis Horns than the Moody Blues.

Buckingham wrote all but two of the tunes on the album. He covers the obscure Rolling Stones song “I Am Waiting” (originally from Aftermath, Stones fans) and an even more obscure Donovan number called “To Try for the Sun.” But I didn’t know this until I read the liner notes. Both songs fit seamlessly with the rest of Under the Skin. Buckingham gives the Donovan song a jittery beat you don’t find much outside his productions.

So far my favorite Skin song is “Cast Away Dreams.” Buckingham’s voice is nearly a sob. Over a strumming guitar, he again raises the “visionary” thing, which he seems to view as a burden. “Lay down my visionary eyes dancing on my cast away dreams,” he sings. It’s a song about going away, not coming home, as he comes to grips with the faith he’s lost.

I just hope he doesn’t go away for another 14 years.

Also recommended

* In the Maybe World by Lisa Germano. Sweet Lisa reminds me of the unnamed “she” of Butch Hancock’s “She Never Spoke Spanish to Me” (“She spoke to all the shadows in her bungalow”). Germano’s talking to a lot of shadows in her latest album.

Normally I don’t care that much for sensitive-female singer-songwriters. But Germano, with her broken-wing songbird persona and lyrics so unabashedly self-absorbed they’re nearly clinical, is hard to dismiss.

And she’s almost always sonically fascinating in her lo-fi way. Often there’s a low rumble in the background or some weird discordance about to erupt. Many of the songs here are like dream fragments, featuring demented little piano lines that would be right at home in soundtracks to creepy 1960s black-and-white movies like Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

One of the prettiest melodies on this album — one of the prettiest tunes she’s ever written — is “Too Much Space.” By the end of this song about a love gone wrong, Germano is evoking a scene from Tod Browning’s infamous movie Freaks. “One of us,” she sings repeatedly, as if she’s welcoming herself into the world of the carnival’s human oddities. “One of us. One of us.” (Or maybe she’s just revealing — awkwardly — that she’s a fan of the Ramones.)

On Maybe World, the singer even encounters supernatural beings. When I saw the title “In the Land of Fairies,” I feared Germano had become a born-again New Ager. When I heard the song’s bizarre little melody, which sounds like it’s lifted from some hoary Italian folk tune, I couldn’t resist it. She’s seeing fairies, but they only annoy her. You can almost see her in some garden bickering with little creatures nobody else can see.

Speaking of arguments, in “Red Thread” she seems to be having one with herself. The refrain is a one-woman call and response that begins “Go to hell” and responds with "Fuck you."

But the song has a happy ending: “I love you,” she sings, then answers herself, “I love you too.”

NAKED CONGRESS

I'm sure most of you have seen those "Worst Album Covers" emails and Web pages that have floated around the Internets for a couple of years. Hell, half of you have sent me emails and links to these pages.

The classic list includes this cover by the band Orleans -- one of the few acts listed on these lists that anyone ever actually heard of.

Well here's the deal. John Hall, the lead singer of Orleans just got elected to Congress! CLICK HERE

I'm not sure, but I think the new congressman is the one in the middle.

Almost makes up for Kinky Friedman losing the Texas governor's race.


I think I'll start a exploratory committee for Devastatin' Dave.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: A NEW DEMOCRAT

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 10, 2006

I saw the hair and the mustache across the crowded ballroom.

There among the giddy Democrats celebrating at the Hotel Albuquerque Old Town, was Bob Schwartz, former district attorney in Bernalillo County and, for a few months this year, a candidate in the Republican primary for state attorney general.

Just to be a wise guy, I asked him, “So are you a Democrat now, Bob?”

His answer surprised me. “Yes, I sure am.”

Schwartz, who took a lot of lumps from Republicans for accepting a job as Gov. Bill Richardson’s crime adviser during the first three years of the governor’s first term, said it was unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate John Dendahl who finally drove him from the GOP.

Specifically, he said, it was the day last June when J.R. Damron, who had been the party’s nominee for governor, stepped down and was replaced on the ticket by Dendahl. Some Democrats accused Dendahl of engineering Damron’s exit. Both Damron and Dendahl have denied it.

“I read that in the Sunday paper, and the next day I went down and changed my affiliation,” Schwartz said.

Dendahl and Schwartz go way back.

When Schwartz ran for mayor of Albuquerque in 2001, losing to Democrat Martin Chávez, the Republican establishment backed another candidate, Mike McEntee. At that time, Dendahl was state GOP chairman.

When Schwartz announced his candidacy late last year, Dendahl said: “Bob Schwartz is not regarded by many rank-and-file Republicans as a Republican. Especially since serving for three years at the feet of The Emperor.” You can guess who The Emperor he referred to was.

Dendahl said he’d rather vote for a Democrat than Schwartz.

When the state GOP had its pre-primary convention this year, Schwartz didn’t have enough votes to get on the primary ballot.

During the campaign, Schwartz was part of Democrat Attorney General-elect Gary King’s Truth Squad, which answered attacks from Republican AG candidate Jim Bibb.

Asked whether he might end up with a job in King’s office, Schwartz said, “We haven’t discussed that.”

Nice guys finish last?: Re-elected U.S. Rep Tom Udall was feeling magnanimous at the party Tuesday night.


In an interview, he praised his Republican opponent, Ron Dolin, for running a clean and positive campaign. “He refrained from personal attacks in all our joint appearances,” Udall said.

Of course, a cynic could argue the clean and positive campaign didn’t do Dolin any good. Udall trounced the underfunded political unknown by a 3-to-1 margin.

But in fairness, Udall is a “nice guy” also.

Pat the Cable Guy: The Republicans clearly didn’t have as much fun as the Democrats on Tuesday night.

My colleague, David Miles — who was covering the GOP — reported it wasn’t all gloom and doom over at the Marriott Pyramid North in Albuquerque.

The only statewide Republican to win Tuesday was incumbent Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons.

When Lyons took the stage to declare victory, someone in the audience, using his best Larry-the-Cable-Guy imitation, yelled, “Get ’er done!”

Not missing a beat, Lyons — who kind of talks like Larry, anyway — responded, “We got ’er done!”

Tuesday, by the way, was Lyons’ 53rd birthday.

I’m guessing it was a happy one.

World Wide Weak: Here’s something both Democrats and Republicans can agree upon.

The most useless political tool in New Mexico has to be the secretary of state’s Web site.
For months, reporters, campaign staffers and interested citizens have complained about the campaign finance reports posted on that site.

Most of the reports are not in a format that can be searched. So if you want to know whether, say, Charlie Manson contributed to any of the candidates, you have to go through each report page by page.

Complaints have also surfaced throughout the election cycle about how long it takes to get reports posted to the Web site.

This problem grew into a crisis by the last reporting deadline, Nov. 2.

By the end of that day, the reports of only two statewide candidates — gubernatorial candidates Richardson and Dendahl — were posted on the site.

As a matter of fact, nearly a week past that deadline — the day after the election — those still are the only reports of statewide candidates there.

As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, the site had only the reports of the two gubernatorial candidates, eight legislative candidates, a judicial candidate, a Public Regulation Commission candidate and a handful of county candidates.

No, I didn’t call the Secretary of State’s Office to find out the reason for this. At this point, I don’t want to hear the office’s excuses.

Someone should take the software used for this site back to Toys “R” Us and demand a refund.

HAIKUS BY TERRY

Terry Brunner, U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman's campaign manager, took it upon himself to write haikus for several New Mexico political reporters and bloggers.

That has a certain zen to it ...

He was interupted during this project by the birth of his daughter last month, but he managed to come up with a few.

With his permission, I blog them all:

(Jeff Jones)
J Jones is the man
Journal political beat
Quiet but deadly

(Kate Nash)
Albuquerque Trib
Kate Nash their political lass
Damn good reporter

(Heath Haussamen)
A new perspective
The South is not forgotten
With Heath on the beat

(Joe Monahan)
Oh, Joe Monahan
You tawdry gossip monger
We are addicted

And last, but not least ...

Steve Terrell New Mex
Roundhouse inside track
Music for my ears

Still, I can't help but wonder: Could Bingaman have done better than his 71 percent if his campaign manager wasn't busy having babies and writing haiku?

ELECTION

Yikes, I'm exhausted ...

I'm unwinding in my motel room in the luxurious Comfort Inn West in Albuquerque. I spent several hours over at the Democratic victory party at the Hotel Albuquerque Old Town.

I think I'll just cut and paste what I wrote for the New Mexican The only update I'll offer is that at this point Heather Wilson has a slight lead over Patricia Madrid at this point in the Congressional District 1 race.

Here's my stuff:


ALBUQUERQUE — The wave of anti-war and anti-Bush sentiment that swept Democrats into control of the U.S. House of Representatives affected New Mexico races, Democratic leaders said Tuesday, even though it wasn’t a clean sweep for the party here.

In the Albuquerque area, the bitterly-fought 1st Congressional District race between Republican incumbent Heather Wilson and her Democratic opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, remained too close to call at press time.

“Great things are happening in this country tonight,” Madrid told cheering supporters at the Democrats’ election-night party at the Hotel Albuquerque Old Town. But she stopped short of declaring victory.

In other races for federal offices, incumbents won easily. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman and U.S. Rep. Tom Udall of Santa Fe, both Democrats, won huge victories, as did Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, who represents Southern New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District.

Gov. Bill Richardson, meanwhile, glided to an easy victory over his Republican opponent, John Dendahl. And it appeared the governor was joined in victory by most Democratic candidates for state offices.

Democratic state land commissioner candidate Jim Baca was the only Democrat statewide to lose. As was the case four years ago, Patrick Lyons appeared to be the only Republican to win election in a statewide race.

How much the national mood affected most New Mexico races is open to debate.

Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at The University of New Mexico, said Tuesday that anti-Bush sentiment likely helped some New Mexico Democrats. “There probably were a small number of people who said, ‘Screw it; I’m voting a straight Democratic ticket,’ ” she said.

The war in Iraq — and the tight Congressional race between Wilson and Madrid — probably helped bolster voter turnout in the Albuquerque area, Atkeson said.

However, judging by early voting turnout, she said, this issue did little to stimulate turnout in the state’s other two Congressional districts, where the races weren’t exciting.

Richardson told a reporter Tuesday: “The national mood has had a spillover on state races. The war in Iraq, the Hurricane Katrina rescue effort and ethics problems with the Bush administration have had a positive effect in state races — even in the governor’s race.”

Richardson’s campaign chairman, Dave Contarino, said Tuesday that the national mood had energized state Democrats and helped with turnout.

Richardson trounced Dendahl, a former party chairman who has been critical of Richardson since the Democrat’s days as Northern New Mexico’s congressman. The governor racked up impressive numbers.

The race was so one-sided that Richardson’s victory, however huge, can’t be considered a surprise. Even Republicans complained about Dendahl running an “invisible” campaign, while many wondered why the GOP couldn’t field more competitive gubernatorial candidates.
Richardson also was able to accumulate some political IOUs.

After amassing a huge campaign treasury — a record-smashing $12.9 million — the governor shared his wealth with other Democratic candidates.

He was the biggest single contributor to Baca’s unsuccessful campaign, giving him $75,000 at last count. He also donated $70,000 to secretary of state candidate Mary Herrera, $60,000 to state auditor candidate Hector Balderas and $50,000 to attorney general candidate Gary King.

In addition, the Richardson campaign donated thousands of dollars of in-kind services such as automatic “robo” calls for individual Democrats’ campaigns, which were a great help to the down-ticket candidates, Atkeson said. “His purse was overflowing to his friends,” she said of the Richardson treasury.

There was a danger of some Democratic voters staying home because Richardson’s race seemed so one-sided and pre-determined, Atkeson said. But, she said, Richardson did “an incredible job at encouraging turnout and getting out the vote.”

New Mexico Democrats weren’t the only beneficiaries of Richardson’s generosity. He also contributed to Democratic candidates and organizations in other states — most notably New Hampshire and Nevada, both early presidential-primary states in the 2008 election.

Atkeson said Richardson’s contributions and travels to primary states probably will help him get contributions from those states if he runs for president. However, it probably won’t immediately pay off in endorsements from party leaders, she said. Democratic leaders make presidential endorsements much later than their Republican counterparts, she said.

Democratic domination of most New Mexico state races was not unusual. The state has elected only one Republican attorney general since 1930 and no GOP secretary of state in more than 76 years.

But while the Republicans might be faulted for tacitly conceding the governor’s office, unlike 2002, the last year the statewide offices were on the ballot, the party this year fielded candidates for all the positions.

Most of the down-ticket Republicans ran aggressive, well-funded campaigns. Some, like GOP attorney general contender Jim Bibb and secretary of state candidate Vickie Perea, ran television commercials.

The GOP’s effort for these races was serious. Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman came to Albuquerque for a fundraiser in July. But it wasn’t for Wilson or Dendahl. It was for Perea’s race for secretary of state.

XXXXXXX

ALBUQUERQUE — To the surprise of virtually nobody who has paid attention to the governor’s race, voters by a staggering margin elected Bill Richardson to a second term.

Richardson led his Republican opponent and longtime critic John Dendahl, a former state GOP chairman, 67 percent to 33 percent as of about 10 p.m.


Most political observers believe the 2006 governor’s race was little more than a dress rehearsal for the 2008 elections in which Richardson is expected to seek the Democratic nomination for president. Richardson has said he will make an announcement about his possible presidential plans in January.

Richardson, who was at the state Democratic victory party at Hotel Albuquerque Old Town, said his victory was a mandate from the voters to continue his policies. He credited a superior campaign organization for his big win. He also said the nation’s mood against the Bush administration had some “spillover” effect on his and other state Democratic races.

Richardson said during his campaign his main focus in a second term would include increasing the state’s minimum wage, providing pre-kindergarten to all 4-year-olds in the state, overhauling the state’s health insurance system and reforming the state’s ethics and campaign finance rules. If re-elected, he said during the campaign, he would declare 2007 to be The Year of Water and he’d fight for funding new water projects to the tune of $103 million.

The governor’s race for months had the smell of a landslide. The only Republican to run in the primary for governor was J.R. Damron, a Santa Fe doctor and political novice. He was criticized by some within the GOP as not running an aggressive campaign against Richardson. Shortly after the June primary, Damron withdrew as a candidate. The state Republican Central Committee, meeting behind closed doors, nominated Dendahl for the position.

Dendahl, during his eight years as party chairman, earned a reputation as an “attack dog,” always ready to hit an opponent with his quick wit and a barbed tongue. Many assumed he was in the race to do as much damage to Richardson as possible. And many thought it could turn out to be an exciting race.

In his concession speech, Dendahl said, “We wish the best for New Mexico, so of course, we wish the victor of this election well.”

Dendahl stood at the podium with his wife, Jackie, his running mate, Sue Wilson Beffort, and her husband, Steve Beffort. “The main reason that I’ll sleep well tonight is knowing that the Dendahl-Beffort campaign was important work,” Dendahl said to gathered Republicans at the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North.

He said his disappointments included the brutal attack on his campaign spokeswoman, Paige McKenzie, the difficulty of raising cash and Richardson’s refusal to debate him on live television.
As the race increasingly looked like a Richardson rout, fundraising for Dendahl grew more difficult. By the end of last month, he’d been able to raise just over $300,000 — compared to the incumbent’s $11.9 million.

Dendahl was only able to buy one television commercial late in the campaign. Richardson, meanwhile, commanded the airwaves with a plethora of television ads, all of them positive, touting his achievements and never mentioning his opponent.

Richardson’s ads provided the major framework of the campaign. Voters never were able to see him directly contrast his ideas with those of his opponent.

Richardson was criticized in newspaper editorials across the state for refusing to debate Dendahl on television. However, that decision never seemed to make a dent in the governor’s poll numbers or fundraising.

Despite the criticism, Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at The University of New Mexico, said Tuesday that Richardson’s refusal to debate probably wouldn’t affect him in a presidential race. However, she said, there’s no way he’d be able to duck debates against other presidential contenders if he runs for president.

In the last weeks of the campaign, Richardson seemed to be campaigning more for other Democrats than himself. His overstuffed campaign coffers doled out thousands of dollars to the campaigns of fellow Democrats — both in New Mexico and out-of-state, including candidates and organizations in the early primary states of New Hampshire and Nevada.

Staff writer David Miles contributed to this report.

XXXXX

ALBUQUERQUE — After a hard-fought and often bitter race for state land commissioner, incumbent Patrick Lyons defeated his Democratic opponent Jim Baca, a former land commissioner.

As in his first election to the job in 2002, Lyons was the only GOP candidate to win a statewide office.


With 91 percent of the precincts reporting, Lyons had 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent for Baca.

In conceding the race late Tuesday, Baca said he had refrained from airing negative television ads against his Republican opponent and said that was probably a factor in the outcome.

“I made the decision not to do negative ads because I didn’t want his family to see them, like my family saw his ads about me,” Baca said in an interview. “That decision probably hurt me.”

Baca also said the fact he trailed in campaign funding was a factor. “I’m proud I didn’t take any oil company money,” Baca said.

Lyons is a rancher from Cuervo, a small community in Eastern new Mexico. He served in the state Senate for 12 years before winning his first four-year term as land commissioner.

“We ran a good, hard campaign,” Lyons commented while watching election results Tuesday night along with other Republicans gathered at the Albuquerque Mariott Pyramid North.

Baca, who lost despite help from Gov. Bill Richardson, held the job for four years in the 1980s. In 1990, he won another term, which was cut short when he was appointed by President Clinton to head the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The land commissioner manages the state Land Office, overseeing 9 million acres of state-owned land and 13 million acres of state mineral rights. Revenues from leases go into the state’s permanent fund and benefit several institutions, including public schools, universities and children’s hospitals. Last year, the office raised $386 million.

From the beginning, Lyons had much more money than Baca. According to the most recent campaign finance reports, Lyons had raised about $959,000, more than twice as much as Baca.

During the campaign, Lyons stressed how much money the Land Office had made for its beneficiaries during his term.

He also aggressively attacked Baca, blasting the Democrat’s stormy years as Albuquerque mayor.

Baca made a major issue of campaign contributions in his race against Lyons. He accused the Republican of being a “business agent” for the oil and gas industry because of the campaign funds Lyons has accepted from that industry, which accounts for much of the public revenue generated from state trust lands administered by the land commissioner.

The latest figures available from the Institute of Money in State Government — which don’t include contributions made during the past three months — show energy and natural resources interests are indeed Lyons’ top source of money, accounting for more than $87,000. His next largest source of industry support was agriculture ($67,050), which is another major sector that leases state lands.

Baca’s major contributor was Gov. Bill Richardson’s re-election campaign, which gave him $75,000.

Baca said this was probably his last political race. “I think I’m going to stay retired,” he said.

UPDATE: Blogger, bless its twisted little heart, has changed the way to upload and display photos, so I wasn't able to add the shots of Madrid, Richardson and Lyons (an old one of him)until Wednesday night -- and only then by figuring out a way around the new system. Anyway, I took a few snapshots (nothing great) of the Democratic festivities in Albuquerque last night, which can be found on my FLICKR site.