It didn't take long for a "university" group to react in exactly the manner that the American Left is conducting themselves all around the country.  And the group is in New Mexico, and it is, at least nominally, "Republican."

We are not that concerned with the ad hominem attacks—people who can't debate issues do that all the time.

The problem is that the attitude and the conclusions, which were not at all related to anything academic, let alone intellectual—were agreed to by about eight or nine young Republicans right away.  

No need to think through any real questions about how our Constitution works, or anything like that.  Not from this group.  It's all about "love is love" and other such clichés.

Intellectual Vigor, Intellectual Curiosity

It makes you wonder how much are students being challenged in college history classes, political science classes or constittutional law classes.  At some of our universities it appears the answer is "not at all."  I have to wonder if constitutional law is even being taught at some of our universities.

, or are they

e was attacked

Email us with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas. 

Intelligent Political Discourse— for the Thoughtful New Mexican

Brian Colón and the Delta Consulting Scandal: Tell me who your friends are…

Lots of time and attention this election cycle has gone to a private company known as Delta Consulting. Delta Consulting has a sole-source contract to run the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool (NMMIP), aka "The Pool." The company was founded by Michelle Lujan Grisham and Rep. Deborah Armstrong. 

The Affordable Care Act has long since made the entire role of Delta Consulting completely obsolete. Yet the program continues, and New Mexico taxpayers continue paying Delta Consulting millions to "run" a program that no longer needs them.

Cover-up of the Delta Consulting Sweetheart Deal

Several months ago, the new State Auditor Wayne Johnson discovered the strange situation regarding what appear to be either unnecessary costs to New Mexico taxpayers, or, at the very least, vastly greater costs than New Mexicans need to bear. To be certain however, he concluded the entity needed an audit—someting that should have been occurring in any case for the past 15 years or so. But they haven't been.

The Pool spends millions of dollars in public money, so a government audit makes complete sense. And, like any other government agency, or government contractor, they should have nothing to hide.

Unexpectedly however, they responded to the Office of the State Auditor's with a lawsuit to prevent a peek behind the Delta curtains. So now this matter is before the courts.

Two State Auditor Candidates: Two Different Approaches to Transparency

We know that if he wins Tuesday the current state auditor, Wayne Johnson, will continue this effort to provide transparency to New Mexico taxpayers. 

But what happens if Brian Colón becomes state auditor? Will he continue the fight? The short answer is, probably not. And you don’t have to take our word for it. Brian himself has made his position clear.

Brian’s Word:

At a recent forum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHvyrufgdCg

Brian Colón was asked if he would continue to push for an audit of the NMMIP. You can see it for yourself at 5:31 in the video, but basically his answer is that he will let the judge decide. And he doesn’t plan to pursue an appeal if the State Auditor’s office loses.

Now that’s an auditor with absolutely no teeth.

Brian “I won’t fight for anything” Colón is happy to sit back and let a judge direct his office.

But don’t be too hard on Brian. He knows his friend Michelle Lujan Grisham is watching, and he wouldn’t want to upset her. In fact, Lujan Grisham’s strategy has clearly been to delay this process at every turn with the hopes that Colón will take the wheel at the auditor’s office and do….  nothing.

And Brian has already said publicly that’s exactly what he intends to do to held this public entity accountable to New Mexicans. Nothing.

Tell me who Brian’s friends are:

Remember the saying, “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.”? Well let’s see who Brian’s friends are.

At the same forum, Brian was asked if there were any audits he would recuse himself from. He blanched at the question and gave a typical Brian answer…. Lots of words and little substance. He didn’t identify any audits from which he would recuse himself. Not a single one. Not even the NMMIP. Now, his relationship with Michelle Lujan Grisham is not a secret. Google their names and you’ll find pictures of them hugging and dancing together along the campaign trail. This relationship alone would seem to preclude Brian from being able to carry out the sacred duties of the State Auditor’s office with respect to the NMMIP without bias or favoritism to the top of his ticket. But let’s forget that one for now, and dig a bit deeper.

Are there other connections that present a conflict of interest to a potential Auditor Colón’s analysis of the NMMIP and whether or not they should be audited?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is, “Holy conflicts of interest, batman!”

Many Democrats remember the fiasco that was the 2008 presidential caucus in New Mexico. Brian Colón, as State Democratic Party chair, was in charge of that humiliating flop. It led to CNN’s Jack Cafferty openly mocking Colón on the air, with a traumatized Wolf Blitzer laughing along. It took nine tortuous days for Brian and his team to count the ballots and announce the results. New Mexico took a national black eye that day for sure.

But there was one other person in the trenches with Brian: and that was Laura Sanchez, the executive director Brian hired and paid to carry out Democratic State Party projects – like the 2008 presidential caucus. Brian and Laura served in the trenches together in what was probably one of the hardest nine days of their professional lives. Weathering such a storm together can create quite the bond. In fact, just two years later Laura gave her boss $250 in his doomed run for Lt. Governor.

Fast forward a decade to 2018, where the 2008 disaster is a faint memory in New Mexico political lore.

As we’ve outlined here, the NMMIP is suing state auditors to prevent the public from seeing how the program operates. It’s a program forced on big insurance companies who refuse to insure really sick New Mexicans…. The ones who most need health insurance because they’re facing serious and in many cases fatal illnesses. Legislators created the NMMIP and forced big insurance companies to pay into it, creating a safety net for sick New Mexicans.

The NMMIP has a hand-picked attorney leading the charge against the state auditor’s office. Brian Colon’s friend, Laura Sanchez.

Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are. 

Course Number 18

New Mexico Elections & Political Demography

Wednesday      10/21/15       01:00 - 02:30

Demographer and political consultant Rod Adair discusses the current 2015-16 election cycle in New Mexico, the political lay of the land in the Land of Enchantment, its evolution since statehood, and the current competitive balance. For 2016, he discusses and takes questions about the seats that are up and the potential for success of each party in the legislative, congressional, and presidential contests.

Progressives On the March

Throughout New Mexico there is a little-noticed but persistent battle taking place for control of the Democratic Party. By "control" we don't necessarily mean just seizing the party infrastructure, its chairmanships and other operative positions, although certainly that is part of what is being contested.

We also mean that there is a contest to represent to New Mexicans exactly what the Democratic Party is, and what it stands for.  

Increasingly, the traditional Democratic rank and file are being driven from the arena. This is the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and even to some degree Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

The Traditional New Mexico Democrats

Recognizing that it has been multi-ethnic, and that there has been some fluidity in its makeup, we can still make valid generalizations about the traditional New Mexico Democrats. They have essentially been the coalition that showed its first sparks of life in 1930, even a couple of years before FDR's election, and then gradually fused and consolidated before the decade was out. It was an amalgam of disaffected Hispanics (who hitherto had been largely Republican) and working class and lower middle class Anglos.

The Republicans held on to the longer-established and better-off Hispanics and Anglos for much longer. Of course that didn't come close to affording the GOP a majority. As a consequence, other than Senator Bronson Cutting's narrow win in 1934, they won no statewide races from 1930 to 1950.  

And it was not as though 1950 ushered in a new era for the GOP.  From 1950 to 1966, New Mexicans made an exception for Edwin L. Mechem only. And so it has gone. The story of New Mexico politics for the past 86 years has been one of consistent, if not necessarily constantly overwhelming, Democrat dominance. 

That dominance has been achieved by a Democratic Party that was liberal on many economic issues—the legacy of both the New Deal and the Great Society—but which supported national defense measures, internationalism and the Cold War (in the tradition of Kennedy, Truman, LBJ, and FDR). They were also to a large degree socially conservative, its Roman Catholic Hispanic and Anglo majority being leery of radical social change. 

All that began to change in the 1980s, with ever-more pressure from the Left regarding such issues as abortion, Gay rights, Gay marriage, Gun Control, elimination of the Death Penalty, the Nuclear Freeze movement, and judicial activism.  Still, the traditional Democrats held some power to push back. New Mexico was not New York, or California. Till now.

Today's New Mexico Democrats

Increasing in-migration from both the west and east coasts, largely by culturally liberal Anglos, has provided the major impetus in changing the shape and structure of the Democratic Party of New Mexico. Of course that does not explain all the change—?the Democratic Party has organically drifted further left in the passing decades, almost unconsciously and (to some) imperceptibly, carrying its passengers with it.

But the real energy, the drive, the organizational zeal and power has really been led by the newcomers. They call themselves "progressives," the term of art now used in lieu of the seemingly shopworn (and confusing to some) traditional moniker "liberal." These progressives are led nationally by such luminaries as Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Congresswoman     .   

They support abortion on demand—at any stage of a pregnancy, including the last 5 minutes, the unlimited expansion of the term "gender" and all that comes with that "identification" (to be determined at any given moment by an individual) including the restructuring of restrooms, locker rooms, etc. They are radically secular, disapproving of upport 

 3 saw Alicia Kay Edwards defeat Ralph A. Gomez 605-318. Edwards now faces Republican Henry Torres who was unopposed in June.

In District 4, there was a spirited 4-way Democratic primary, with progressive Marilyn Jean Alcorn emerging as the nominee with 43.5% share of the vote. She now faces Gerald Wayne Billings, Jr., the Republican nominee who had no primary opposition.

In District 5, Harry Francis Browne stormed to an impressive 55% Democratic primary victory in a three-way race, beating Simon G. Ortiz and Stephen R. Edwards, 455 to 267 to 105, respectively. The Republicans again had no primary battle, and Harry A. Pecotte emerged as the GOP nominee.

http://goo.gl/BMEpYu

Email us (at nmpj@dfn.com) with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas.

What is a fair way to assess the Ford-Kavanaugh Situation?

First, be aware of what psychologists call "motivated reasoning." Those who oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh will almost automatically say that they believe the allegations made by Ford. Those who support the nomination will almost automatically be skeptical or be extremely negative toward Ford.

Both have good points. While it is true that the revelation has come at an unusually politically opportune time, it is also true that Ford revealed it to her analyst in 2012. On the other hand, at the moment she brought up the incident with her analyst it appeared very possible that Mitt Romney might win the presidency and that Brett Kavanaugh was at the top of his list for nomination to the Supreme Court. None of the "facts" involved in this situation can possibly be seen as dispositive—nothing either side points to comes even remotely close to helping anyone reach a conclusion.

or proof of anything.