Domenici & Wilson
The reality of the changing of the guard on Capitol Hill is starting to hit home in our Enchanted Land. Look at this warning shot from NM GOP US Senator Pete Domenici. He laments his loss of a chairmanship of a key senate subcommittee that doles out vast amounts of money to the national defense labs here. And get a load of this quote from Domenici, in the Senate game now for nearly 35 years: "That’s what elections do. People wonder...whether elections count. You can cite this one — that we now don’t have Pete in a chairman’s role there. We’ve got to run uphill.”

While Domenici works to lower expectations on his future ability to deliver federal gravy, Democrats could take advantage and argue that ousting Pete in next year's election would not have a grave impact on the state's economic fortunes and could actually be boosted with the election of a majority Democrat. On the other hand, Dem Sen. Bingaman and D Rep. Tom Udall may now be faulted if they don't pick up the slack left by Domenici's loss of stroke.

HEATHER'S WAKE-UP CALL

The Democratic takeover is also now stark reality for ABQ GOP Congresswoman Heather Wilson. The NM GOP has been relentless in hammering the new Dem chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee for playing partisan and blocking the renaming of the veterans medical center in ABQ after Jerry Murphy, a NM Congressional Medal of Honor winner. They say he is doing so just to screw over Heather who sponsored the measure, and they are right. NM newspaper editorials have lambasted Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA.) and urged him to relent. But the larger story here is the punishment being doled out to Wilson and what that means to the ABQ district. If they are taking her out over renaming a building, what happens when she comes hat in hand asking for defense and energy funding important to the area economy? As Domenici said: "People wonder...whether elections count. You can cite this one."

ON A RATINGS ROLL

KRQE-TV has gone from steady winner in the 10 p.m weekday news contest to downright dominance in the ABQ market. The just completed May sweeps give the ABQ CBS affiliate bragging rights for the fifth ratings period in a row with a 10.9 rating at 1o p.m. in May, compared to KOB-TV's 7.3 and KOAT's 6.9. The KRQE newscast is anchored by Dick Knipfing and Erika Ruiz. The 10.9 rating means of all the households in the viewing area with television, 10.9 per cent of them were tuned in at 10 p.m to the KRQE newscast or about 72,000 households. The ABQ-Santa Fe market includes much of the state and is steadily climbing the list of ranked TV markets. Out of 210 in the USA, it now comes in as the 45th largest with over 662,000 households.

RELIGION & POLITICS

Ethnicity is often an indicator of how someone will vote; another is religion. It seems to be an issue in some quarters for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney who is a Mormon and seeking the nation's highest office. Here in New Mexico ethnicity has played a prominent role in voting patterns, while religion has had a lesser role. Take Dem US Rep. Tom Udall. He is apparently the highest ranking politician in the state of the Mormon faith. However, you rarely hear any mention of his religion, but you do hear grumbling that the state's most Hispanic congressional district is represented by an Anglo, not an Hispanic.

A SCORCHING VIDEO

Talk about a high-octane video. This group seeking the impeachment of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has put together a vid featuring ex-NM US attorney David Iglesias being questioned by Congress. Whether you agree with it or not, this thing blazes.

(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2007
Not for reproduction without permission of the author