2012 Election

Based on percentages of the popular vote awarded each candidate in the last presidential election, Santa Fe has once again proven itself the most liberal place in the Rocky Mountain West.

Boulder, Colorado, which many assume to hold that title, gave Barack Obama 69.7% of the popular vote in the 2012 presidential election. Santa Fe County awarded him 73.5%.

(In the 2008 election, 72% of the Boulder voters went for Obama; almost 77% of Santa Fe voters voted for him.)

Ex-New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson received .99 percent of the national popular vote in the 2012 presidential election. Santa Fe County gave him 3.3 %, slightly less than the New Mexico count of 3.5%

2012 Newspaper Endorsements

The newspapers distributed in Northern New Mexico have made their endorsements for the 2012 general election. (The Los Alamos Monitor and the Las Vegas Optic, both owned by media conglomerate Landmark Communications, do not make endorsements.)

The usually conservative Albuquerque Journal, owned by the Lang family, has endorsed Republicans Romney and Wilson for President and Senate. In a departure from the party line, the paper has endorsed incumbent Democrat Ben Ray Luján for return to his 3rd District Congressional seat.

The reliably Democratic Santa Fe New Mexican and Taos News, both owned by Robin McKinney Martin, have endorsed Democrats Obama and Heinrich for President and Senate, and Luján for Congress. The Santa Fe Reporter, which is owned by Portland, Oregon’s Willamette Week, has also endorsed the Democratic slate.

 

Newspaper        President        Senate                       Congress (3^rd Dist.)

ABQ Journal       Romney (R)        Wilson(R)         Luján (D)

Las Vegas Optic                                Does not endorse

Los Alamos Monitor                       Does not endorse

New Mexican      Obama (D)           Heinrich (D)     Luján (D)

Reporter              Obama (D)            Heinrich (D)     Luján (D)

Taos News          Obama (D)            Heinrich (D)      Luján (D)

 

Santa Fe airport

The Santa Fe airport will soon offer service to Denver, in addition to the current flights to Los Angeles and Dallas. There have always been mixed opinions about expanding the airport. Former mayor Debbie Jaramillo summed up one side of the argument when she said, “Santa Fe already has a perfectly good airport.  We keep it in Albuquerque.”

KSFR

I will be on KSFR (101.1 FM) at 5:00 pm today.  Diego Mulligan will be giving away a few copies of the encyclopedia as part of the public radio station’s fundraising drive.

Means, Russell

Indian actor and activist Russell Means died on October 22, 2012.

A Santa Fe Moment

My girlfriend, Beth, and I went to DeVargas Mall to see The Master, with Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. We had just exited the theater and were standing outside, talking about the movie, when Shirley MacLaine walked out. Someone asked her what she thought of the film, and she said, “Brilliant!” So we stopped thinking about it.

Haussamen, Heath

Heath Haussamen shut down his website, NMPolitics.net, in September 2012.  Haussamen has joined veteran journalist Trip Jennings in a project called New Mexico In Depth.  Haussamen and Jennings will conduct in-depth investigations that New Mexico newspapers have not had the resources to do on their own. New Mexico In Depth got its start with a $500,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Black Hole

The Black Hole is closing. Ed Grothus, who established the Los Alamos surplus store in 1953, died in 2009. His daughter Barbara announced in September 2012 that the family has decided to close the store and sell the four-and-a half-acre property.

Santa Fe Reporter

The owners of the Santa Fe Reporter have added another newspaper to their stable.  The owners of the Willamette Week, based in Portland, OR, bought the Reporter in 1997. In August 2012 they acquired the Independent Weekly, which is based in Durham, NC.

Travis, Randy

Randy Travis left Santa Fe after he and his wife Elizabeth divorced in 2010. He moved to Tioga, Texas, where he has been arrested twice in 2012 for drinking-related offenses.