gm:
 
Are you seriously taking pride in your refusal to educate yourself?  That is nearly as amazing as your insistence upon debating what you choose to think people say and not what they actually write; the very fact that you automatically assume that I’m a knee-jerk party-line guy, for example – despite reams of evidence to the contrary – shows that you are more interested in arguing absolute points in a non-absolute world, and your complete lack of grasp in elementary nuance is further bolstered by the fact that just because I pointed out the ludicrously obvious once – that not all (indeed, not even a majority) of Democrats are actually liberals, particularly in western states – you bizarrely thought that I said all Democrats aren’t liberals.  Insisting on absolute points without evidence and then turning around and accusing other people of refusing to accept more than one idea because they don’t automatically agree with your one idea – despite your inability or unwillingness to defend your beliefs with actual facts – requires a remarkable lack of self-awareness.

chuckle–The Greek just made my point…..He has the textbook….Took too many courses taught by liberal college profs who live in a highly imaginary and theoretical world……….. I believe he once wrote that Dems in NM weren’t really liberals…….Amazing….I still have breakfast once a week in SF with old St Mike’s Hi buddies and they are all lefties but definitely not insufferable……The PhD historian is almost commie except for his Catholicism….
I suppose if it’s as clear as The Greek pontificates, we should all vote Democrat and accept the liberal catechism as divinely inspired….Never mind that in NM 2 state treasurers went to License-Plate U, the former prez pro-tem of the senate is there now, a former sec of state is under fire for blowing millions, a former guv is being investigated, a SF Co sheriff just got out, a former PRC member is inches away from more time in the chincero, and more ………all members of the Democrat(not Democratic) party…….regards…..

gm:
 
I suggest you look up the definition of “liberal” before you pretend you have any idea what liberals actually believe, because you’re not even remotely close to accurate, particularly on the “know-it-all” bit and the part where you’re convinced that we are “positive that any question has only one single answer and [they have] it.”  That is actually the textbook definition of a conservative.  A liberal – by definition – questions their own viewpoints and has positions that evolve over time based upon evidence, rather than picking and choosing which facts to believe based upon preconceived opinions.  Just because you don’t understand a person doesn’t mean they are an absolutist – though I understand if an absolutist like yourself must automatically classify nuanced evidence-based positions into simplistic soundbite-friendly talking-points – nor that they are incorrect – particularly when one considers that you are so apparently lacking in maturity yourself that you can’t tell the difference between a personal attack and disagreement or between reality and your own opinion.  The world really isn’t as conveniently simplistic as you want it to be, kiddo, and your bizarre innate desire to create an unjustified persecution complex by hanging labels around people’s necks that prevent you from having to actually understand voting behavior isn’t going to change the fact that the electorate is neither as predictable as you’d like nor are they as lacking in the basic willingness to analyze their own positions as yourself.

I attribute The Greek’s frequent personal attacks and criticisms to immaturity and superciliousness. As one matures you learn that bright people are a dime a dozen. Typical of so many liberals he is positive that any question has only one single answer and he has it. My analysis of the picture in NM comes from the results of elections over these last many years. For example, Gov Martinez won by a very unusual 40K votes. This was after the disaster that was Richardson. Yet, SF, RA, Taos, and San Miguel voted 70% for Denish. Duran won by 80K I think and these counties voted the same percentages. The free-lunch crowd I refer to are those whose earning power depends on who wins the next election; and you’d be wise to bet your money on the Dems. The far-left, know-it-all liberals will, of course, vote for the big-govt candidates who promise to “fight” for “working families” and the “middle class”. Too many taxpayers don’t realize they pay for everything they get from government. If they get more from the system than they put in, we go broke as is happening now.

stever: When you’re not voting for people who are on the ticket, I’d say you have mixed feelings about your party’s candidate. 

Agreed, and there are many of us who do. I personally know some disappointed Dems who chose to decline to vote for Obama this primary in protest that he has not been progressive enough. 
But what will NOT happen is that translating into a significant number of votes going from Obama to Romney. More likely, we’ll see increased numbers from both parties towards a third candidate, or outright abstentions during the General.


 

Y mas economic woes due to predatory capitalism of the Bain.
http://www.scribd.com/jovica_racic/d/55639664/17-The-Bain-Buyout-of-KB-Toys

The Bain Buyout of KB Toys
In December 2000, at the height of the busy Christmas shopping season, Bain Capital purchased KB Toys in a highly leveraged buyout worth $300 million. Bain invested only $18.1 million of its own money and financed the rest with bank loans and other assorted I.O.U.s.
The early 2000s were a tough time for toy retailers, and competition was fierce from bulk discount sellers like Wal-Mart and Target. Yet in April of 2002, KB Toys’ new owners implemented a dividend recap — a second mortgage of sorts — to pay Bain and several KB Toys executives a special dividend of $120 million.
KB Toys employees and creditors, on the other hand, were about to face some serious financial challenges. In January 2004, KB Toys filed for bankruptcy protection. The new year started off with announcements that at least 30 percent of stores would close and nearly a third of the workforce would lose their jobs. Employees, creditors, and the communities KB Toys served waited to learn where the cuts would take place. In the end, nearly 600 stores closed and 4,000 employees received pink slips. Big Lots, from whom Bain had purchased KB Toys, had to reveal to its shareholders that not only had it not received payment on the $45 million note, but that it was also left holding the bag on store leases that KB Toys defaulted on as it closed stores nationwide. As of the close of 2006, some landlords were still waiting for payment of old rents.
In an action to recover the note and other damages, Big Lots alleged that Bain Capital’s 2002 dividend recap led to the company’s bankruptcy, characterizing the practice as an “unjustified return on [their] investment in excess of … 900 percent in a mere 16 months.” Bain Capital and KB Toys executives cited the difficulty of competing with the discount stores as the cause of the company’s woes. The Delaware state court dismissed Big Lots case, finding that Big Lots was limited to bankruptcy proceedings to enforce this claim.
KB Toys emerged from bankruptcy in 2005 when a new owner — another private equity
firm — invested $20 million. For the 4,000 former KB Toys employees who lost their jobs, it was a harsh lesson in the game of private equity buyouts.

I think there is too much emphasis on personalities…Obama v. Romney. I see it as a choice between conservatism and liberalism. Republicans took control of the House and made substantial gains in the Senate in 2010 showing quite clearly that voters disapproved of Obama’s liberal agenda. Voters are fickle so who knows what’ll happen in November but my hope is that if Obama wins again, there’ll be enuf Rs in the congress to keep him in check. Gridlock is fine with me if we can’t elect folks who will regulate the regulators. Regulators favored by libs don’t do anything but are empowered to stop the doers from doing. The economy depends on the doers, not government.

Oddly enough Thinker, Obama being the only democrat on the ballot, received 100% of the votes cast for president, although not as many votes as the total democrats who voted for Balderas or Heinrich.  Let me rephrase:

When you’re not voting for people who are on the ticket, I’d say you have mixed feelings about your party’s candidate.  That kind of logic requires lots of thinking.

Master_debater is correct for the state as a whole, but SE NM is doing alright.  I think unemployment is around 4% in Eddy and Lea Counties due to increased activity in the oil patch.  There was a graphic in the Business Outlook section of this Monday’s ABQ Journal (that notorious liberal rag) showing regional job growth in the last 12 months.  NM was at 0.5%.  Every other state in the region was two or three or four or five times that.  And all those states have larger populations than us.  The national average was 1.5%.  So much for Governor Martinez being a job creator, but I’m reasonably sure that is how she would refer to herself.

But Republican’ts (can’t balance a budqet, can’t win a war since Lincoln, can’t stay out of the citizen’s personal lives, etc.) never let the facts get in the away of their typically over-the-top opinions.  gm’s comments are an excellent example.  He sez libs “…tax tax, spend spend,…”, but fails to mention that conservatives for the past 30 years, Heather Wilson included (“…elect and elect philosopy”), have just spent and spent without considering they might need to pay for it.  Remember it was Dick Cheney who said deficits don’t matter.  At least when there is a Republican’t in the White House.  So who really is gm’s “free lunch crowd”? The facts would say it is conservatives.

Other amazing examples of today’s conservative hypocritical philosopy: Federal monies to renewable energy in the form of subsidies are bad whereas money that would otherwise reside with the US Treasury given to the fossil fuel industry in the form of tax breaks are good.  Elderly tea baggers insisting the government must stay out of “their” Social Security and Medicare.  The mandate with repect to health insurance was an idea straight from the Heritage Foundation.  Cap and trade was also a conservative thesis to provide a possible market-based way of dealing with global climate change.  But once actually passed by Democrats, Republican’ts start absolutely screaming that its socialism.

@qofdisks: Mr. Flynn, it is not religious bigotry to point out a fact.

I disagree. We all know what imagery propagandists from the Right are trying to conjure up when they use the President’s full name. They are appealing to the fear of the different. The “he’s not one of us”. So, yes, it’s a fact that Mr. Obama’s father was a Muslim and it’s a fact that Mr. Romney is a Mormon. What does either of those facts have to do with voters in New Mexico thinking as a block.

Hemingway said: “At least Mormon bishop Mitt Romney will definitely have the support of the 66,000 baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Mexico.”

That’s as stereotypical as saying that all of New Mexico’s Catholics would line up in lock step to vote for Rick Santorum. They would not.

Having grown up in the Jim Crow South, I know exactly what imagery a politician is invoking when he says “our Christian values.” That means, not you Catholics, not you non-white Protestants, and not you Jews.

And that’s a fact.

Michael J. Flynn

gm:
 
What are you babbling about?  You obviously don’t realize that Democratic administrations historically lower taxes on working Americans and government spending growth under them is actually slower than it is under their Republican counter-parts.  You’ve drank so much of the far-right Kool-Aid you seem to have lost the ability to check whether or not anything you just made up has any bearing on reality.  The fact that you seem to think Santa Fe (I assume that’s where you meant by “Wacko City”) – in which barely three percent of the state’s population resides – somehow is representative of voting trends in this state as a whole demonstrates a complete lack of realistic awareness, to say nothing of your tenuous grasp of English grammar.
 
qofdisks and Hemingway:
 
I have to agree with Mr. Flynn; the implication that Mormon parishioners are incapable of independent thought and voting behavior is offensive.  Will Governor Romney win most of their votes? Yes.  But I would like to think that it won’t be because they’re told to vote that way.

If economics is so important why is Martinez so popular in NM? Our economy sucks!

According to the common logic as used nationally, I’d say Richardson.  If economics is so important why is Obama so popular? Our economy sucks!  Bush, of course.
  

Barack Obama:  121,769 or 100% of the Democratic vote.
Republicans, on the other hands, seem to have some “sticking” issues with the Mittster:

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

 
RON PAUL
Republican
9284
10.4%

 
NEWT GINGRICH
Republican
5255
5.9%

 
MITT ROMNEY
Republican
65475
73.2%

 
RICK SANTORUM
Republican
9446
10.6%

When you’re still voting for people who are no longer even on the ticket, I’d say you have mixed feelings about your party’s candidate.

If economics is so important why is Martinez so popular in NM? Our economy sucks!
 

NM now has what may be an unbeatable number of members of the free-lunch crowd to go red. Couple that with a 73% Dem majority in most elections in Wacko City and Obama has our 5? electoral votes. Add loony left states like California and NY and he barely needs to campaign…..Libs still subscribe to the tax tax, spend spend, elect and elect philosophy……So we have to borrow 40 cents out of every dollar we spend…..who cares?….

Mr. Flynn, it is not religious bigotry to point out a fact. 

I think New Mexico’s days in the arena of swing states are over.  For the near future it will be reliably blue in presidential elections and too small to spend much time/money on for Republicans.  Romney might win but its Obama’s to lose (which is entirely possible, all by himself)

@ Hemingway: At least Mormon bishop Mitt Romney will definitely have the support of the 66,000 baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Mexico.

Not funny. Religious bigotry is a cheap shot. Hemingway, I expect better from you.

Michael J. Flynn
Practicing and Faithful Roman Catholic, but not getting my instructions directly from the Vatican

Peace.
 

Mittens is a rolling economic catastrophe.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/06/romney-company-profited-as-steel-mill-it-owned-closed-government-bailed-out-pension-plan/
Mitt Romney company profited as steel mill it owned closed, government bailed out pension plan
” in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888.
The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, needed expensive updating, and demand for its products was susceptible to cycles in the mining industry and commodities markets.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they’d been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as US$400 a month.
What’s more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44-million to bail out the company’s underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12-million on its $8-million initial investment and at least $4.5-million in consulting fees.”
 

Don’t presume anything about possible outcomes regarding Romney simply because Gov. Martinez’ ratings are relatively good. A recent poll placed Obama ahead of Romney 48 to 35. And among women, who you say Obama can’t relate to any average Sarah, another poll shows Obama at 61 to 35 compared to Romney in New Mexico: 67-30 with Hispanics, and 56-35 with young voters.
You cite three presidents who were not re-elected because their approval ratings were below 50%. You failed to mention President Truman, who had a dismal approval rating at 36% in 1948, and who was generally thought unlikely to win against Dewey. SHOCKER! He had garnered about 2.2M more votes over Dewey!
You might think Romney will stick in New Mexico - I believe most people here can think for themselves.

Oh yeah, I can relate to Mitt. I, too, have made billions buying up companies, over-leveraging them, sucking out the capital, laying off the workforce, and then letting the taxpayer pick up the tab in bankruptcy court. Apparently, I don’t have a conscience, either. I should be ashamed of myself. Instead, I believe I should have one of the most important and powerful jobs in the world. I’ll defer to Mitt, this time however. Because public service is not about serving the public these days. It’s all about serving one’s self. And let’s face it, no one’s better at helping themselves than good ole Mitt. That’s why he’ll get all the votes I can buy on his behalf with the best Supreme Court approved slander, libel, and propaganda money can buy!!!!

It would be interesting to know the total NUMBER of Republicans that have voted in the primaries so far. and the NUMBER of votes that Romney has received.  About when Santorum dropped out, his campaign had spent about $18.50 per vote.  And with an estimate for the Super PACs that supported him, it comes to approximately $30 per vote.  You might also get a reality check by comparing the number that voted in the 2008 Republican primary to the 2012 number.  There’s a serious lack of interest out there.

At least Mormon bishop Mitt Romney will definitely have the support of the 66,000 baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Mexico.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_are_Mormons_located_in_New_Mexico
 
 

My prediction is Mitt Romney is going to bring down the Republican ticket unless he picked Governor Martinez as the VP candidate. That is highly unlikely. So Republican face a murky future.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I’m doubtful that Mitt Romney has ever trucked around the likes of Truth or Consequences, Elephant Butte, Hobbs, Socorro, Alamogordo, or even Los Alamos…

I know that he’s your candidate, Ms. Lenti, but proclaiming that “President Obama is hard to relate to” is somehow a benefit for former Gov. Romney is weird.