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Upcoming Legislatiive Races. Democratic Primaries, Republican House Districts 26-50.

03/21/2032

Last week we began our series on the upcoming legislative primaries to be held Tuesday, June 7. We looked at the Democratic House races, or possible Democratic House races in House Districts 1-25: http://goo.gl/9S42ph

In the coming days we will be reviewing Republican House primaries as well as both Democratic and Republican Senate nomination battles—if there are any at all.

Below are synopses of the districts' Democratic Primary possibilities. Those likely to be HOT are shown in RED. Those with potential for a race are in ORANGE. Those likely to be COLD in blue, and BLACK = not sure, not much happening that we know of. Here is our initial look:

Democratic Party Primaries, Part 2

House Districts 26-50

HD 26  Far west Albuquerque/Bernalillo County. This is essentially a non-competitive for Republicans, despite the fact Governor Martinez actually did carry it with 53% of the vote in 2014, in a low turnout election. Incumbent Georgene Louis, a Native American (Ácoma) represents this district which is only 5% Native American, 23% Anglo and 65% Hispanic. She has been unopposed in the last two primaries, and we would expect the same in 2016.

HD 27-28 Non-competitive for Democrats, and we don't expect Democrat Primary activity in these Northeast Heights districts. 

HD 29  It's possible. Indian Country, Cíbola & McKinley. Another district where Diné (Navajo) used to have a representative. Over time, the Democrats have systematically reduced the percentage of Native Americans in the district—in a way that is inconsistent with the ruling of the late Federal Judge Juan G. Burciaga in 1984—so that Anglos or Hispanics 

could defeat Native Americans in the Democratic Primary.

The incumbent, Eliseo Alcón, by all accounts one of the more cognitively challenged sitting members, who throws insane language around, like "Voter ID equals the KGB," went unchallenged in 2014. In this district that is 65% Native American, a Navajo Democrat should give the race a shot. (He or she would certainly be in no danger of losing a debate.) But we see no evidence of anything happening. 

HD 30 Valencia County (eastern shore). 2014 Results:  Teresa K. E. Smith de Cherif 792 (51.4%) Andrew J. Barreras (48.6%) Republican incumbent Kelly Fajardo swamped Smith de Cherif in the General Election, and this seat may not be viewed as challengeable by the Democrats—and we believe it is not. But this primary had one of the more exotically-named candidates defeating a former representative for the chance to get beat by 14 points. So there's that.

HD 31 Valencia County (western shore). 2014 Results:  Frank A. Otero 1,102 (58.1%) Jim D. Tanner 794 (41.9%)  The facts here for the other Valencia County seat are pretty much the same as for HD 7, the General Election went to the Republican incumbent, Alonzo Baldonado, by 17½ points.

HD 32 McKinley County. This is another district formerly held by a Navajo representative. Democrats colluded in 2001 redistricting to reduce the Native American share of the district from 93% to 64% so that Patricia Lundstrom would have the upper hand against Leo Watchman, Jr. The ploy worked, as Lundstrom took the seat from him, further reducing Navajo clout in the legislature.

Lundstrom has ingratiated herself with the business and social community of Gallup and environs, and would be tough to beat. But if the Diné knew about her shenanigans in redistricting and it became an issue, a single Navajo opponent, one on one, could give her a good run. Native Americans currently make up 70% of the district. 2014 Result: Lundstrom 1,769 (63.6%) Three opponents combined 1,012 (36.4%).

HD 33. Bernalillo County. In the 2014 race to succeed longtime Representative Kiki Saavedra, G. Andres Romero prevailed with 51% (619 votes) to 49% (594 votes) for two other candidates. Could someone knock him off in June? We don't know. But he was less than an overwhelming choice last time out.

HD 34. Non-competitive in 2014.

HD 35 Bernalillo County. similar to HD 11, a 2014 retirement opened this seat, with this result: 2014 Result: Patricio R. Ruiloba 438 (42.1%) Mark D. Armijo 405 (38.9%) Lorenzo J. Pino 197 (18.9%)  So Ruiloba is the incumbent, but a 33-vote winning margin is something to ponder, especially when nearly 20% of the votes went to yet another candidate.

 

HD 36. Bernalillo County. Incumbent Patricia Roybal-Caballero again faced no opposition despite the fact she clearly did not live in the district when she was elected in 2012 — and most likely still does not. (She gained ballot access when opposing witnesses were browbeaten in a tag-team courtroom display of incredible political bias and establishment-led political machinery, by state district court Judge Alan Malott and County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver.

Roybal-Caballero continues to embarrass the district regularly with inane remarks and "debate" on the house floor, as well as in committee. She will always be vulnerable to an intelligent Democrat challenger with some financing. 

HD 37  This district is held by a latter-day Cesar Chavez-wannabe who has reinvented himself several times, and faced no opposition in 2014. 

HD 38  Bernalillo County. No opposition to then-incumbent Emily Kane in 2014. But this seat has been hotly and closely contested in General Elections for twelve consecutive cycles, beginning in 1992, and it is almost certain to be a battleground again. Just in the 14 years from 2000-2014, the district elected six representatives, passing from (former Speaker) Raymond G. Sanchez to (current Lt. Gov.) John Sanchez, to Teresa Zanetti, to (now Senator) Bill O'Neill, to Emily Kane, and now Sarah Maestas Barnes.  

HD 39

HD 40 through HD 42 Non-competitive in 2014.

HD 43 Bernalillo County. A district with another problem child incumbent with a gigantic mouth that often roars, along the lines of Representatives Alcón and Roybal-Caballero. Sheryl M. Williams Stapleton is seen as a racist by most observers, and is famous for her attack on Governor Martinez, hollering that she is "that Mexican on the fourth floor." The house Democrats not only did not repudiate her bigotry (for arguably much worse than Donald Trump has said) they promoted her—to minority whip.

In 2012, Cara A. Valente-Compton, an attractive and more articulate candidate, challenged Stapleton, spending very little money, but running surprisingly well (for a primary against an entrenched incumbent) losing 1,159 to 1,533. (43% -57%). Stapleton is a wine that does not get better with age, but seems more and more like vinegar very year. An attractive, educated, well-financed Democrat could probably knock her off.

HD 44. Non-competitive for many years, 2014 was the first time Democrats filed anyone at all in 20 years—since Robert F. Ingersoll filed to face Republican (and later minority leader) Ted Hobbs. So it was somewhat unnerving when the Republican, though winning the General Election, finished with an unimpressive and surprisingly narrow 54.8% - 45.2% margin, 820 votes (4,688 - 3,868). It is possible that Democrat Josh R. Anderson knew something no one else did, or it was just a fluke. In any case, in a reasonably strong Republican year—at least for New Mexico (though nowhere near as strong as some observers believe) — the result raised our eyebrows, at least a little bit.

HD 45 Shaping up to be a doozy. Non-competitive for many years under former Rep. Mimi Stewart (now a senator). But the district has been in constant upheaval since Stewart was appointed to replace former state Senator Tim Keller, who held the odd position of being a lobbyist for New Mexico Indian tribes while also serving as a state senator, voting on issues in which his clients had a financial interest.

When Keller left to become state auditor, the Bernalillo County Commission elevated sitting State Representative Mimi Stewart to the senate seat. They then turned to—YET ANOTHER LOBBYIST—appointing Stephanie Maez. Maez's stint was short-lived, as she bowed out to take care of family issues.

The county commission then appointed Democrat Idalia Lechuga-Tena (left) a move that angered some Democrats because two Republican joined with one Democrat to make a bipartisan appointment. Left holding the bag was the other two Democratic commissioners' choice, Debbie Sariñana (shown at right).  As best we can tell, both will go all out to win the first Democratic primary in this district in a generation.

HD 46. Non-competitive.

HD47. Non-competitive primary, and non-competitive General Election. Incumbent Republican Paul Pacheco seems to have solidified a base of support in this once-highly competitive district.

HD 48. After two fiercely contested races this is likely to be the scene of a battle royal again. Incumbent Conrad James, perhaps the most intelligent legislator in either house, decided to not seek reelection. The former Democratic representative, considerably less-qualified (but the winner of a previous race nonetheless) is apparently running again. This may be good news for Democrats, but better news for Republicans, all things considered. The General Election is likely to be a barn burner.

HD 49 Non-competitive. Incumbent Christine Trujillo established herself as a chowderhead (if it had not already been well-known in all circles) by heckling Governor Martinez during her State of the State address. Trujillo when asked about it, admitted pretty much that she had made an ass of herself, but that it's nothing new for her, and she plans to continue doing so. Still, this is hardly enough to get anyone a serious challenger in a Democratic Primary, let alone get beat. 

HD 50


¹The Supreme Court decision, in the best New Mexico tradition, was made without issuing an opinion. The justices just huddled for a few minutes back stage and came back and threw Jeff off the ballot. (Jeff was unpopular with Democratic establishment types and of course the Supreme Court was well aware of their preferences.)


NEXT ISSUE:  DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES PREVIEW (CONTINUED: Districts 26-50)


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2016 Presidential Campaign - Democrats

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2016 Presidential Campaign - Republicans

Jeb Bush gets religion.

"They said he got religion at the end, and I'm glad that he did."  — Tom T. Hall. The Year Clayton Delaney died.

Well, it's official.  Jeb Bush has changed quite of few of his positions on illegal immigration.  The single most significant is that he no longer endorses the "path to citizenship" for those who came here illegally. 

This is, after all, the key portion of any proposal aimed at "reforming" our existing illegal immigration situation.

No sensible citizen can see any point in trying to deport between 12 and 16 million people currently living in America illegally.  And no candidate for any office that we know of supports that.  What the average American wants is for the country to "get a handle on it."  They want it stopped, our borders secured and future illegal immigration prevented.  It is a national security issue.

The Path to Legal Status

The only way to accomplish the above goals, is to identify current illegal immigrants, get them accounted for, have them documented, and placed on a path to legal status.  Neither they nor their children or spouses should live in a state of fear or anxiety.

But a path to "citizenship" is not the right course.  It is not morally or legally correct.  A merciful and compassionate nation can provide the safeguards of legal status without sending the message to the rest of the world that all you have to do is cross our border and you will eventually get to become a citizen, thus circumventing the legal framework scores of millions of Americans have followed, honored and respected.

If someone who is granted legal status eventually wants to become a citizen, that person should have to return to his or her country of origin and wait in line like 20 million people around the world are doing at any given time.  Failing that, America will forever send the signal that anyone in the world can "jump the line," and that there is no reason at all to obey our immigration and naturalization laws.

We Like Jeb Bush

We are glad Jeb Bush has learned this lesson.  He is a fine speaker, and can eloquently explain his positions on complex issue.  If he were not named "Bush" he would be an actual top tier candidate—in all that that title would entail, including likelihood of acceptance and support of and from the American people in the primaries, and in any theoretical general election.  

We also recognize that he already is a de facto top-tier candidate because of his fame and his fundraising.

If he were to be the nominee of the Republican Party we would heartily support him and endorse him.  We hope, however, that he is not, as he does not give the center-right coalition the best chance of winning.

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    Selma   ????? We have now seen the Oscar-nominated movie Selma.   Our earlier allusion to criticism that sounded as though it was in an Oliver Stone category for historical fabrication is some...

Sports

Sports

The Major League Baseball Playoffs are not realistic, and destroy the actual meaning of the sport. 

Major League Baseball is unique in this respect—its postseason is markedly different from the way the game is played normally.  No other major league sport suffers from this flaw.

Not that much is wrong with baseball. In some respects it's the most well thought-out sport there is.  The "perfect game" many aficionados say.

But the Major League Baseball postseason experience is unique in the world of professional sports, and not in a good way. 

In fact the playoffs are flawed in such a way as to detract from the sport itself and diminish the game and what it means to be the world champion of the sport. 

Among the Big Four team sports of North America: football, hockey, basketball and baseball—and all the 122 professional major league teams competing in the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB respectively—it is in baseball alone that the postseason turns the sport itself on its head and makes it reflect something that it is not.  This article will explain why that happens and why it is wrong-headed.

 

Background on the The Frequency of Play

The 30 teams in both the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association teams play a very similar schedule.  On average, each team has a day off between games, sometimes two days off.  Though there are back-to-back games, they are relatively infrequent.  NBA teams play between 14 and 22 back-to-back games a season, and for the NHL it usually ranges between 9 and 19. The NFL has a full week between games, the exception being the new Thursday games that each team plays once, leaving them only four days' rest once a year.

But baseball players play every single day.  Ten days straight, then a day off, then seven more games, then a day off, then ten more games.  Typically a baseball team plays 27 games every 30 days.  For the NHL and NBA it would be 14 per month, and for the NFL the number would be 4.

 

Getting to the Playoffs:  It's a grind

In all four sports, getting to the postseason requires a total team effort—in fact an all-out total organizational effort.  Teams must be deep, have bench strength and the capability of moving players in and out of the lineup, and on and off the roster, who can take the place of key players who go down for an injury, or who have to miss games for whatever reason.  While this is true of the other three major sports as well, it is most certainly even more of a concern for baseball teams because of the sheer volume of games in which a team must field a competitive lineup.

Each league's regular season* is a marathon, not a sprint.  NFL teams play for 17 weeks, 16 games.  The NHL has an 82-game season over six months, paralleled by an NBA season of 84 games over the same timeframe. Baseball is the biggest marathon of all—a true test of resilience and endurance—162 games usually starting around the beginning of April and finishing about the end of September.

NHL teams carry 23-man rosters, of which 20 can be active for any particular game.  The NBA is similar, with 15-man rosters of which 13 can be on the bench for a given game. In the NFL, the teams have 53 players on a roster, but only 46 can suit up on game day.  In Major League Baseball, teams have a 25-man active roster, and all 25 are at the park every day.

 

The Postseason Playoffs:  Sport by Sport

The National Football League:

Of the 32 teams, 12 qualify for the playoffs.  The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season.  Each team plays once a week, the exception being that the four top teams get the first week off.  For a typical qualifier to reach the Super Bowl, the team must play three consecutive weeks.  At that point both remaining teams have two weeks off before the Super Bowl.

In short, the playoffs, with a game each week, reflects the same means of advancement as is present in regular season grind.

The National Hockey League: 

16 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason.  The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season: a game, a day off, a game, a day off, a game, a day off, and so on.  Just as in the regular season, there are occasionally two days off.  But the playoffs require the same stamina, the same approach as that required to make the playoffs.

 

The National Basketball Association

16 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason.  The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season: a game, a day off, a game, a day off, a game, a day off, and so on.  Just as in the regular season, there are occasionally two days off.  But the playoffs require the same stamina, the same approach as that required to make the playoffs.

Major League Baseball

10 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason.  (Although four of those teams qualify only for a one-game do-or-die play-in game.)

Here is where all similarity to baseball ends. 

Unlike the other three sports whose playoffs mirror the test of the regular season, and whose conditions are the same as the regular season, Major League Baseball playoffs in no way resemble the sport itself.  In hockey, basketball and football, the teams win playoff games and reach the pinacle of the sport in exactly the same way that they qualify to try to do so. 

Not so in baseball.  They are two entirely different concepts.  Teams make the playoffs only because they have depth, five-man pitching rotations and can play day-in and day-out at a high level.  But the baseball playoffs suddenly become a kind of "all-star" game within each team's roster.  MLB playoffs are conducted in a way that more closely follows the NBA and the NHL.  Teams have enormous numbers of days off. 

Here's the key point:  No Major League Baseball team could even qualify for the postseason if they played the same way during the regular season that they do in the playoffs.  None.

In the regular season Major League Baseball teams have to use a 5-man starting rotation, with pitchers pitching every 5th day.  There are not enough days off to have even a four-man rotation, let alone a team with three pitchers.  Even the best team in baseball using only a 4-man rotation, would wear them out, and most likely end up with a record of something like 66-96, or 70-92—and that would be if they were otherwise teh best team in the sport.

 

The 2014 Baseball Postseason is Typical

As examples, last year's World Series teams the Kansas City Royals played only 15 games in 30 days, and the San Francisco Giants played only 17 games in 30 days.  The 12 to 15 days off in the non-baseball fantasy world of the MLB postseason, means that teams can turn to three pitchers and give all of them plenty of rest.  But it isn't the way baseball really works.

At one point, the Royals had 5 consecutive days off, and the Giants had 4.  This never happens in the regular season.  Even the All-Star break is only three days.  Very rarely is there anything beyond a one-day break, and even that happens only a couple of times a month. 

What this means is that neither team used the team that got them to the playoffs.  (The NFL, NBA and NHL teams ALL used the very same teams that got them to the playoffs.) 

Baseball teams use a three-man pitching rotation in the playoffs.  Sometimes, they essentially opt for two pitchers only—conceding the likelihood that some of their games are going to be lost—when their third-, or rarely fourth-best pitcher has to face one of their opponents' two-man or three-man rotation members. 

Imagine an NFL team using only one running back and three wide receivers, instead of rotating through their roster in the course of a playoff game—or using only 4 defensive backs and 4 linebackers, instead of rotating 8 or 9 DBs and 6 or 7 linebackers?  In hockey, would a team use only two or three of their forward lines?  Would an NBA team use only the starting five?  They would never make the post season if they tried to present that product to their fans during the regular season.

Those are the equivalents of what Major League Baseball sets up every fall.  No other sport drags its playoffs out in such a way as to completely change the playing field—completely change the dynamics of its game.

Why Does Baseball Do This?

MLB does this because the TV networks want to drag out the games so that they can try to have one game each day  This requires an unnecessary staggering of games, and creates the phenomenon of 15 off-days in a month.

What about travel days?

What about them?  Baseball has travel days constantly.  A team may play in Chicago one day and in Miami the next, or in New York one day and Phoenix the very next day.  Travel days as a routine part of the game are again, a phenomenon of television, and stretching out the playoffs.

In years past, travel days were employed only when necessary. The famous "subway series" games were played on seven consecutive days.  Why?  Because there was no "travel day" required to go from Brooklyn to the Bronx.  Today, they would put in artificial travel days.

Even fairly long train trips didn't necessarily matter.  The 1948 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Braves was played in six consecutive days, October 6 & 7 in Boston, October 8, 9 & 10 in Cleveland, and October 11 back in Boston.

This reflects actual baseball, the way the teams play day-in and day-out, and the kind of unique test that baseball presents to its athletes, its managers and management, and to its fans.

In the modern world of charter planes, teams fly from coast to coast to play games on consecutive days.  The artificial "travel day" should be eliminated so that teams can play in the playoffs in the same way that got them there in the first place.


*All these leagues also have pre-seasons and training camps, which add an additional 6-8 weeks to each player's year.


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