Politics News | New West Network

Diary Of A Mad Voter: Heath Haussamen

Shortly after the 2006 primary election, the Republican Party of New Mexico's central committee entered a closed-door meeting with J.R. Damron as its gubernatorial candidate and emerged with John Dendahl as its candidate. Damron's withdrawal from the race, which allowed the party to place Dendahl on the ballot, was a surprise move that didn't help the party at all: Dendahl was steamrolled by the Bill Richardson re-election train later that year.

The switcheroo earned the GOP some criticism. What happened in that private meeting? Was Damron pressured to drop out? Who orchestrated the change? Rank-and-file Republicans had no opportunity to vote in the primary for or against the man who represented their party at the top of the ticket that year -- a controversial, fire-breathing politico many Republicans loved but others were embarrassed to call their own.  [more]

from the new west blog: shouldn't we expect better?

Politicians on both teams are so busy hollering at each other and issuing dueling blame-game press releases about the price of gas and energy policy, other issues are drowning in the noise.

An inexhaustible supply of put-down quotes are standard fare at the Senate Republican website as well as the Senate Democrats’, not to mention in media reports worldwide.
  [more]

Sen. Barack Obama is leading Sen. John McCain by five percentage points, gaining ground with younger voters in Montana, according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.

Forty-eight percent of voters polled by telephone said they would vote for Obama while 43 percent said they would vote for McCain. The last time Rasmussen polled Montana voters, in April, it was just the opposite. McCain was leading with 48 percent to Obama's 43 percent.

The poll shows Obama is most popular with voters under the age of 30, where he has a 27-point lead. McCain was more popular than Obama with voters older than 50.

Party loyalty is strong for both candidates, with 89 percent of Democrats going for Obama and 85 percent of Republicans going for McCain.  [more]

WHERE IS THE HOUSE BILL?

On June 18, finally, Congress started seriously looking into the runaway recreational fee charging policy of federal agencies, primarily the U.S. Forest Service (FS), but it's still just talk. We've had enough of that, so let's just spike this pay-for-play policy, which is at best an extreme stretch of the legal authority given agencies by Congress--"given," sort of, I should say, since our elected leaders never even debated it or voted on it.

Even though it's moving at glacier speed, we at least have the Baucus-Crapo Bill, S. 2438, introduced in the Senate to spike the Recreation Access Tax. This is clearly a bipartisan issue, ripe for election-year politics. Now, we need a sponsor for a similar bill in the House.  [more]

From The New West Blog

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, the newly elected leader of the Western Governor's Association, is pushing other Western Governors at the annual meeting in Wyoming to collectively come up with a national energy initiative to guide the next president's policy.

The group will work over the next 12 months to come up with a plan, which governors have said the federal government has been sorely in need of, that addresses climate change and energy independence.

The timing is good, Huntsman said, and that means this time, the new administration might listen to what Western governors have to say. He tells the Deseret News that be it McCain or Obama, the next president is going to need to take advice from what Huntsman calls "the most energy relevant region."

More from The Denver Post here.
More from the Deseret News here.  [more]

From The New West Blog

The National Rifle Association plans to spend about $40 million on this year's presidential campaign, with $15 million of that devoted to portraying Barack Obama as a threat to the Second Amendment rights upheld last week by the Supreme Court, Jonathan Martin at Politico.com reports.

"Our members understand that if Barack Obama is elected president, and he has support in the Senate to confirm anti-gun Supreme Court nominees, [the District of Columbia v. Heller decision] could be taken away from us in the future,” Chris Cox, head of the NRA’s political arm, told Politico.

Ben Smith, a Politico.com blogger, says the consequences might be "tougher going in some of those long-shot states, notably Montana and Alaska, where gun rights are big but where Obama may out-organize McCain."  [more]

Column: U.S. Senate Race

Internal polling for former congressman Larry LaRocco, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, shows he trails opponent Lt. Gov. Jim Risch by 15 percentage points, plus or minus 4.5%. Risch had 43%, LaRocco 28%, Rammell 6%, Other 6%, and Undecided 18%.

But when voters were read LaRocco and Risch’s stance on issues, LaRocco took the lead at 40 to 37 percent, with the same margin of error. Rammell was 5%, Other 5% and Undecideds dropped to 13%.

The poll was conducted between May 20 and 25 by Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners. 500 likely Idaho voters were questioned.

As I wrote yesterday, President Bush’s disapproval rating came in at 54% in LaRocco’s poll – the first time a majority of Idahoans disapproved of the job Bush is doing. With a 4.5 margin of error, that could be as high as 59.50% or as low as 49.5%.  [more]

From The New West Blog

I've just gotten the chance to watch and read through the transcript from Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter's appearance on Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw and I'm impressed with how many Western issues (not just wolves and guns!) got solid (as in not watered down) national air time. See the full transcript here or watch the broadcast here:

  [more]