Tag: Harry Teague

• DE-Sen: Delaware AG Beau Biden will be returning from his service in Iraq later this month, meaning it’s time for him to decide whether or not he runs for his dad’s former Senate seat. One journo (National Journal’s Erin McPike) already tweets that he’s “definitely in,” which could serve to scare off the already seemingly gun-shy Rep. Mike Castle.

• MA-Sen: There are reports that there are enough votes in both chambers of the state legislature to give Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint a short-term replacement Senator. Republicans can use procedural tactics to stall it for a week, but would be out of options after that, meaning a new Senator could be in place by late next week.

• MO-Sen, MO-07: Former state Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Sarah Steelman’s 2010 cycle is ending with a whimper, not a bang: after starting out looking like a strong primary challenger to Rep. Roy Blunt in the Senate race, she gradually faded from view, then re-emerged to explore a race for Blunt’s old seat in the 7th. Now she’s confirming that she won’t run for anything, at least not in 2010.

• NJ-Sen (pdf): PPP has some extra info from their sample from their gubernatorial poll. As usual, New Jerseyites don’t like anyone: not Barack Obama (45/48 approval), Robert Menendez (27/40), or Frank Lautenberg (38/44). As a bonus, they also find that even in well-educated, affluent New Jersey, there’s still a lot of birtherism (64-21, with 16% unsure) and even a new category: people who think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. 8% are… let’s just call them anti-Christers… with another 13% not sure.

• MD-Gov: Maryland Republicans have found, well, somebody to run for Governor: businessman Lawrence Hogan, Jr. Hogan says he’ll run but he’ll get out of the race in case his friend ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich shows up, although that’s not looking likely. Hogan ran unsuccessfully against Steny Hoyer in 1992. A better-known figure, State Delegate and radio talk show host Patrick McDonough, also expressed his interest in the race in August, although he too would stand down for Ehrlich.

• MN-Gov: As expected, state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher officially announced that she’s running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. She joins (taking in a really deep breath here first): Ramsey Co. Attorney Susan Gaertner, former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, state Senators John Marty and Tom Bakk, state Reps. Tom Rukavina and Paul Thissen, and former legislators Matt Entenza and Steve Kelley, with Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak and St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman also expected to enter the field soon. Also looming on the horizon, according to the article: a possible run by Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley, who broke into double-digits in last year’s Senate race.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Yet another poll of the New York Governor’s race, this time from Marist. As always, Paterson is in disastrous condition, with an approval rating of 20/76. Paterson loses the Dem primary to Andrew Cuomo 70-23, and, if Cuomo happens to die in a bizarre gardening accident before the primary, Paterson loses to Rudy Giuliani 60-34 (although he still manages to tie Rick Lazio, 43-43). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-43 and Lazio 71-21.

• PA-Gov: This might pique Joe Hoeffel’s interest. The ex-Rep. and MontCo Commissioner has been considering the gubernatorial race (where there isn’t much of a progressive option in the Dem primary), and now he won a straw poll of 1,000 progressive activists done by Keystone Progress, picking up 35%. Auditor Jack Wagner was at 22, with Allegheny County Exec Dan Onorato at 14, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 11, and businessman Tom Knox at 7. Of course, the caveats about generalizing this sample to the larger population are obvious here; the actual Democratic electorate contains a lot of pro-life Catholic voters and ex-GOP suburban moderates.

• SC-Gov: Here’s some very good news out of the Palmetto State: Superintendent of Education Jim Rex is officially in the Governor’s race. Rex had previously expressed his interest and his candidacy started looking likely when he said last week that he wouldn’t run again for his current job. Rex is the only Dem holding statewide office in South Carolina, so despite the state’s dark-red hue may be able to get some traction here thanks to the GOP’s descent into chaos over the Mark Sanford affair (and their reluctance to get behind his Lt. Gov, Andre Bauer). Rex’s new website is here.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds has to be pleased with the new poll from Clarus, an independent pollster whose first poll of the race finds a 42-37 lead for Bob McDonnell, a narrower gap than most pollsters are seeing. They also find 48/43 approvals for Obama, 47/23 for Jim Webb, and 61/21 for Mark Warner. Meanwhile, new fundraising numbers for the race are available. Deeds raised more than McDonnell for the July/August period, $3.5 million to McDonnell’s $3 million. McDonnell still has more cash on hand, $5.8 million to Deeds’ $4.3 million. Also an advantage for McDonnell: the RNC is pledging to spend up to $7 million on behalf of McDonnell (although that figure includes $2.4 million they’ve already spent).

• KY-06: Republicans seem to have a candidate ready to go up against Rep. Ben Chandler in the 6th, who hasn’t faced much in the way of opposition in this GOP-leaning district. Lexington attorney (and former Jim Talent aide)Andy Barr has formed an exploratory committee.

• NJ-07: Woodbridge mayor (and former state Treasurer) John McCormac has turned down the DCCC’s overtures to run against freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in the 7th. (Woodbridge mayor may not sound like much, but it’s one of the largest municipalities in New Jersey and was Jim McGreevey’s launching pad to Governor.)

• NM-02: The race in the 2nd may turn into a clash of self-funding rich oilmen, as GOP ex-Rep. Steve Pearce says he may dip into his own cash to augment his bid to reclaim his seat from Democratic Rep. Harry Teague (who Roll Call says is the 10th richest member of Congress, and put more than a million of his own money into his 2008 bid).

• OR-04: Here’s one campaign that’s already in crash & burn mode: Springfield mayor Sid Leiken’s bid against Rep. Peter DeFazio. Remember Leiken’s tearful apology over the undocumented $2,000 that went to his mother’s real estate company, ostensibly to paying for polling? Now the state elections board is opening an investigation to see if any poll ever actually got taken, after widespread skepticism by polling experts about the poll’s conclusions (most notably that they got 200 respondents out of 268 calls).

• PA-06: The arrival of physician Manan Trivedi to the Dem field in the 6th, where Doug Pike seemed to have everything nailed down, has scrambled things a bit. Trivedi has already announced the endorsement of 2008 candidate Bob Roggio, and a more prominent insider, Berks County Recorder of Deeds Frederick Sheeler, switched to neutral from a Pike endorsement.

• VA-05: It looks like the Republicans have landed their first “real” candidate to go against Rep. Tom Perriello in the 5th: Albemarle County Commissioner Kenneth Boyd. Boyd is the only Republican on the board that runs the county that surrounds Charlottesville, home of UVA and the district’s liberal anchor; this may help Boyd eat a little into Perriello’s Charlottesville base, but he’s unknown in the rest of the district and may not make it out of the primary against state Sen. Rob Hurt, if Hurt gets off the fence and runs.

• Mayors: Amidst all the hullabaloo in New York City last night, there was also a big mayoral contest in Buffalo. Incumbent Dem Byron Brown has essentially been re-elected, beating Michael Kearns 63-37 in the Democratic primary. There is no Republican challenger on the November ballot and Brown controls the minor party lines.

• Votes: There seems to be absolutely no pattern behind who did and didn’t vote to reprimand Joe Wilson in the House. Although (sadly) the vote was mostly along party lines, 12 Dems and 7 GOPers broke ranks. Among Dems, the “no” votes were a mix of Blue Dogs and some of the most outspoken liberals: Arcuri, Delahunt, Giffords, Hinchey, Hodes, Kucinich, Maffei, Massa, McDermott, Gwen Moore, Gene Taylor, and Teague. Among the GOP, it was a few moderates and some of the more mavericky hard-liners: Cao, Emerson, Flake, Walter Jones, Petri, Rohrabacher, and maybe most notably, Bob Inglis, already facing the wrath of the teabagging wing of the party. Five Dems also voted “present,” the best you can do when you can’t vote “meh:” Engel, Foster, Frank, Shea-Porter, and Skelton.

Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce was last seen playing Wile E. Coyote to Tom Udall’s Roadrunner on some New Mexico backroad last year. Today, he announced that he’ll be back in 2010, to try and reclaim NM-02 from Democratic Rep. Harry Teague, who picked up the open seat in 2008. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as Pearce was considered a top contender for the GOP nomination for New Mexico’s open gubernatorial race in 2010. Pearce framed his decision in terms of Teague’s recent vote in favor of cap-and-trade in this oil-and-gas dependent district:

Former New Mexico congressman Steve Pearce told POLITICO today that he is running for his old House seat – primarily because of Teague’s vote on the energy bill. Pearce had been preparing to run for governor, but said Teague’s vote forced him to rethink his priorities.

“The cap-and-trade vote [from Teague] is the thing that put my decision over the hump,” Pearce said in an interview with POLITICO. “I was absolutely stunned over his vote. When he made the cap-and-trade vote, the hostility in the district was reflected in the way we feel out here. There are 23,000 statewide jobs in the oil and gas industry – and if this bill is passed, this will kill many of those jobs.”

NM-02 may also be a more fruitful target for Pearce than running statewide, as it’s an R+6 district that barely went for John McCain, 50-49, compared with Obama’s 57-42 win statewide… and also considering the one poll of NM-Gov (for the DGA) showed him getting squashed. Plus, this way he doesn’t have to introduce himself to the other two-thirds of the state (since clearly whatever he was doing in 2008 didn’t take). Unfortunately for the Republicans, however, this leaves a field of nobodies in the hunt for the GOP nod for NM-Gov, led by National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti. Ex-Rep. Heather Wilson is the only heavy hitter who hasn’t said “no” yet.

• CT-Sen: Economist/talking head Peter Schiff, who’s been talking himself up for Chris Dodd’s Senate seat, released an internal poll taken for him by Wilson Research Strategies. Schiff, from the Paulist wing of the party, loses the general to Dodd, 42-38; the bad news here is that, despite the AIG imbroglio falling down the memory hole, Dodd is still significantly behind ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, 47-38. One thing the poll doesn’t test (or at least release publicly): results in the GOP primary.

• OH-Sen: Car dealer Tom Ganley announced his candidacy for the GOP primary for the open Senate seat. (I thought he’d already announced on April 2, but I guess he needed to remind the media of his existence.) Ganley owns 38 dealerships, so he’s not just your average used car dealer; he vows to self-fund significantly in his uphill fight against Rob Portman.

• MN-Gov: Minnesota’s Independence Party seems determined to field a major candidate in 2010’s ultra-confusing gubernatorial race, and at the top of their wish list is ex-Rep. Jim Ramstad. Ramstad’s name has occasionally been linked to the race as a Republican, but he may be too moderate to make it out of the activist-dominated nominating process. Ramstad’s popularity would make him one to watch in the general, but he’d be laboring under the IP label, whose candidates (including moderate Dem ex-Rep. Tim Penny, who ran for Governor in 2002) have had trouble getting out of the 10-15% range this decade.

• NJ-Gov: Yet another poll of the New Jersey governor’s race, and while it still has Jon Corzine losing to Chris Christie, I’m going to file this in the “good news” column, as it has Corzine down by only 6, with Christie under 50%: 45-39. Interestingly, New Jerseyites seem to understand that the state has become fools gold to Republicans: despite their preferences, they still think Corzine will win, 46-38. Corzine also has a campaign appearance scheduled for July 16 with someone who’s actually maintaining a 62% approval rating in New Jersey (which would translate into about 105% approval in a normal state): Barack Obama. Which, I think, is the first in-the-flesh appearance Obama has made on behalf of any candidate since getting elected.

• NY-Gov: Maybe I’m feeling extra charitable today, but I’m also going to file yesterday’s Marist poll in the “good news” column, because it actually shows David Paterson beating someone: he tops feeble ex-Rep. Rick Lazio 41-40 in a potential matchup. Of course, he still loses to everyone else, whether Andrew Cuomo in a primary (69-24) or Rudy Giuliani in the general (54-37, although that’s also an improvement from May). In case you’re wondering how a Cuomo/Lazio matchup would go, Cuomo would win 68-22.

• SC-Gov: Well, maybe publicly proclaiming that your mistress is your “soulmate” and that you’ve had run-ins with other women (but never crossed “the sex line”) isn’t the best way to keep your job. After it looked like Mark Sanford was successfully digging in for the last few days, the tide seems to be turning: Columbia’s The State says that 12 (of 27) state Senate Republicans have signed a letter to Sanford asking him to resign (including state Sen. Larry Grooms, who’s running to replace Sanford and would suffer having to run against LG Andre Bauer as an incumbent), with 4 more on the record as supporting it but not signing it, or leaning in that direction; Jim DeMint also asked Sanford to pack it in. While the Columbia and Charleston papers haven’t called for resignation, the News in Greenville yesterday joined the Spartanburg Herald-Journal (the twin cities of the state’s bible belt) in publishing an editorial doing so.

• NY-23: Looks like moderate GOP Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who has attracted the interest of both parties in the NY-23 special election, is going full-speed-ahead on the GOP side. She told supporters she’ll be “aggressively seeking her party’s nomination.”

• NY-29: Corning (pop. 11,000) mayor Tom Reed announced that he’ll run against freshman Rep. Eric Massa in 2010. Reed seems to be running as an out-and-proud moderate, with the Main Street Partnership expected to support him. The NRCC has identified him as a leading recruit but hasn’t endorsed him, with several other candidates reportedly still exploring the race. (For what it’s worth, Corning is the hometown of Amo Houghton, former Corning Glass CEO and popular GOP moderate who held this seat for decades.)

• PA-15: I’m starting to like Bethlehem mayor John Callahan more and more, as it’s come out that in 2005 he proved he can match Rahm Emanuel F-bomb-for-F-bomb. Callahan’s response to Emanuel’s needling that “Are you tired of being fucking mayor yet?” was “It’s better than being a fucking congressman.” (The only reason this is relevant today is that the NRCC is now using this incident to argue that he’s now disqualified from becoming a congressman.)

• TN-03: Former GOP state chair Robin Smith made it official, that she’s running to replace Zach Wamp in the 3rd. She had previously quit her party job to focus full-time on exploring the race, so no surprise here; Smith is the likely GOP frontrunner.

• NRCC: The NRCC wasted no time in launching ads to go after the potentially vulnerable House Dems who voted yes on cap-and-trade. Rep. Tom Perriello is the recipient of the dread TV ad this time, while they also took out radio spots and robocalls against Harry Teague, Rick Boucher, Bruce Braley, Betsy Markey, Vic Snyder, Baron Hill, Mary Jo Kilroy, Alan Grayson, Zack Space, Bart Gordon, Debbie Halvorson, John Boccieri, and Ike Skelton.

• Votes (pdf): The Hill has a handy scorecard arranged by district lean while showing how many times vulnerable Dem representatives have broken ranks on 15 important bills. The biggest defector, unsurprisingly, is Bobby Bright, who flipped 13 out of 15 times. (Compared with Chet Edwards, in an even more difficult district but who defected only twice.) The guy who stands out like a sore thumb, though, is Joe Donnelly, who defected 8 times in IN-02, a district that Obama actually won, 54-45.

• MS-St. House: Democrats held the line in a special election in Mississippi state House district 82, as Democrat Wilber Jones held the seat. This is an African-American majority seat, but attracted some attention because the GOP ran a credible African-American candidate, Bill Marcy… but he still went on to lose, 66-34. Dems hold the edge in the House, 75-47.

• OH-Sen: Rob Portman’s great week continues: he just found himself admitting in an interview that Republicans have no position on health care, and that he reached this conclusion only by talking to GOP Senate leadership about that. However, he says, “There’s a task force, and I applaud them for that.”

• FL-Gov: Lakeland-area State Senator Paula Dockery, whose name has occasionally been bandied about for the GOP nomination for the open seat in FL-12, may be setting her sights higher: all the way to Governor. This would complicate things for the state party leadership, which got Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson to clear the path for AG Bill McCollum… but might secretly relieve some others in the Florida GOP, worried that McCollum has that warmed-over two-time-loser aroma. (I wonder, though, if she might really be angling for the still-vacant Lt. Gov. slot, as current Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp is heading over to the AG’s race, and Bronson said ‘no thanks’ to the idea. The GOP might need her there to avoid having an all-white-guy slate, what with state Senate President Jeff Atwater running for CFO and Howdy Doody Rep. Adam Putnam running for Ag Comm.)

• AZ-Gov: Another state legislator contemplating out loud about a Governor’s race is state Rep. David Bradley, who may resign this summer in order to explore the race. He has two disadvantages, though: his base is not Phoenix but the much-smaller Tucson, and he isn’t known statewide like other likely Dem candidates AG Terry Goddard and developer/former state party boss/2006 Senate candidate Jim Pederson.

• NY-Gov: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made some cryptic comments yesterday that have everyone scratching their heads: she believes there won’t be a Democratic primary for the 2010 Governor’s race. What she didn’t say is who she thinks will stand down, David Paterson or Andrew Cuomo?

• MD-01: The NRCC is up with another ad blitz, this time with freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil the prime target. The TV ad hits Kratovil for his ‘no’ vote against an investigation into Nancy Pelosi over whether she or the CIA is lying (not an issue I could ever see the public comprehending, let alone getting revved up about, but maybe that’s just me). The issue also merits radio spots in 6 more districts (those of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Suzanne Kosmas, Glenn Nye, Tom Perriello, Vic Snyder, and Harry Teague), and robocalls in 10 more (John Boccieri, Bobby Bright, John Hall, Steny Hoyer, Steve Kagen, Ann Kirkpatrick, Larry Kissell, Harry Mitchell, Walt Minnick, and Mark Schauer).

• CA-10: Running Some Guy is better than running No Guy, and the GOP has at least found Some Guy to run in the yet-to-be-scheduled special election to replace Ellen Tauscher: attorney David Harmer. Harmer once ran for Congress in UT-02 in 1996, and his father was California Lt. Gov under Ronald Reagan.

• NY-AG: The New York Times profiles half a dozen prominent Democrats who are jockeying to take over the Attorney General’s job if Andrew Cuomo follows through on the Governor’s race. Nassau County Exec Tom Suozzi is the best known, but two members of Paterson’s cabinet — insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo and criminal justice official Denise O’Donnell — are also looking. The article also cites Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, and state Senator Eric Schneiderman.

• TX-House: Democrats in the state House in Texas used parliamentary procedures to run out the clock on a Republican voter suppression bill. The voter ID bill would have disenfranchised thousands. The bill was so important to Republicans that they wouldn’t let any other bills jump ahead of it in the queue, though, creating a standoff that torpedoed hundreds of other pieces of legislation (including the override of Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to turn down $555 million in federal stimulus funds).

• MO-Sen: Law professor Tom Schweich has publicly floated running for the Missouri GOP Senate nomination. Schweich used to be John Danforth’s chief of staff and was Ambassador for counternarcotics in Afghanistan in the Bush administration. Interestingly, the main motivation for his run that he’s putting out there is the fear (nay, likelihood) that Roy Blunt would lose the general election and that he (as sort of a Danforth proxy) offers a more appealing figure.

• VA-Gov: Former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, who’s been demonstrating a lot of momentum in the polls lately, got another big boost: he picked up the endorsement of the SEIU today.

• NM-Gov: New Mexico’s only current statewide Republican elected official, Land Commissioner Pat Lyons, was a rumored gubernatorial candidate, especially since he’s term-limited out of his current job. In an indication of how popular the GOP brand is in New Mexico right now, Lyons decided to pass on the open seat race, instead running for an open position on New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission.

• FL-Gov: I hadn’t even considered, with Charlie Crist bolting from Tallahassee, that Jeb! Bush might seek a return engagement as governor. After a Draft Jeb website popped up, Bush politely declined, saying that he will instead “continue to play a constructive role in the future of the Republican Party.”

• OH-Auditor: David Pepper (D), a Hamilton Co. Commissioner (and former Cinci Councilor/Cinci mayoral candidate who lost by a hair in 2005) is going to run against Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor (R). This is a crucial office because it controls a seat on the Ohio Reapportionment Board (which draws state legislative seats) and the GOP will be making a serious run at the open Secretary of State position that Jennifer Brunner is vacating (which also determines a seat on the board). Taylor says that she will announce whether she’ll run for re-election or in the GOP primary against Rob Portman for Senate later this week. (J)

• NH-01: Manchester mayor Frank Guinta has been acting like a candidate for a long time, but finally had his official kickoff event yesterday. Guinta hit every note in the libertarian book, singing the praises of tea baggers, criticizing the stimulus package, and saying that EFCA is “blatantly against” New Hampshire’s “live free or die” mentality.

• IL-06: Lost in the IL-Sen shuffle is Rep. Peter Roskam, who had occasionally been mentioned as a candidate for that (or governor). Roskam says it’s “increasingly less likely” that he’ll run for higher office, and seek to stay put instead.

• NRCC: The NRCC has launched a new wave of radio ads against theoretically vulnerable Dems in nine districts, still harping on the stimulus package, trying to tie them to John Murtha and his “airport for no one” (riffing on the “bridge to nowhere,” I suppose). Targets were Vic Snyder (AR-02), Mark Schauer (MI-07), Travis Childers (MS-01), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), Harry Teague (NM-02), Mike Arcuri (NY-24), Larry Kissell (NC-08), Kurt Schrader (OR-05), and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL).

• Mayors: Yet more mayoral elections in the news. Today, it’s Omaha, where there’s a faceoff between Democrat Jim Suttle and Republican Hal Daub (a former mayor and former Representative) to replaced retiring Dem mayor Mike Fahey. A recent poll had Daub up 42-39, but there may be a Democratic trend at work in Omaha (as seen in Obama’s victory in NE-02).

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/30-10/1, likely voters):

Harry Teague (D): 47

Ed Tinsley (R): 43

(MoE: ±5%)

In the wake of the recently-released (though slightly stale) Dem internal from New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District that gave Harry Teague a five-point lead, here’s a new poll from R2K that almost matches that.

The poll gives McCain a 49-42 edge over Obama, but this is by far New Mexico’s most Republican-leaning district (at R+5.7), one where Kerry lost 58-42. Teague (an oilman and a County Commissioner in dark-red Lea County in New Mexico’s oil patch) maintains a conservative profile, which seems apt for this district, as seen by how far he’s beating the district’s lean.

Swing State Project upgraded this race to Tossup yesterday.

Update (James): Also of note is Teague is just plain better liked than Tinsley: his favorables are at 46-33, a much better spread than Tinsley has (40-37).

Get a load of this. At an Association of Commerce and Industry candidate forum for the open seat race in New Mexico’s 2nd CD, Sante Fe Republican Ed Tinsley decided to let loose his inner Limbaugh when criticizing Democrat Harry Teague’s support of withdrawal from Iraq:

“How can I call my two nephews over there right now … and tell them I’m running against a guy that will cut your throat — that will cut the bottom out of your funding,” Tinsley said.

Wow, talk about getting ugly. The crowd, of course, drowned out Tinsley with a rousing chorus of boos.

LP asks: “Did we find Ed Tinsley’s macaca moment?” Maybe so. Check out NM FBIHOP for the video.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP

Click on photos for larger versions.  More available on my Flickr page, as always.

Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois was in the state and saw a good chunk of it in a short period of time — at least up and down I-25.  

I’m not quite sure where he met up with Second Congressional District candidate Harry Teague for a fundraiser, but Emanuel stopped by Gabriel’s Restaurant north of Santa Fe for a fundraiser and quick talk with the press (which is to mean myself and Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican).  

Emanuel spoke about the big year Democrats had in 2006 and how we won; it wasn’t just the war.

Yes, the war was a big factor. But the deteriorating economic condition in the middle class was a big factor in the fact that the Democrats took back the House and the Senate.  And it will again be a contributing factor because people realize that under the Republican Party stewardship, the middle class has been hurt.

After the Ben Ray event, it was time for Emanuel to hop in his rented car (I assume) and head down I-25 to Albuquerque for a press conference with Martin Heinrich, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano, Captain Ahren Griego IAFF Local 244 and other firefighters from IAFF Local 244.  

“We can fund our labs, and create new jobs, and we can fund our police departments across the United States,” Emanuel said in his short speech. “I’m going to be here to help Martin because it’s time for a change.”

President Bush took a beating — not a good sign for his staunch supporter, Darren White.

I got to speak to Heinrich for a few minutes after the event.  “It was a proud day to stand up there with them and to say I’m going to stand with them on these issues where we’ve seen President Bush and his allies cut back the COPS program dramatically, cut things like the Byrne Grants, do things that directly impact our first responders in a negative way.”

Byrne Grants help fund drug enforcement for the police.

But the cuts went deeper for Solano.  After all, he has to deal with the cuts to the funding; he’s a sheriff and knows firsthand what they do.

“Santa Fe County used to get enough money to get about 10-15 bullet proof vests a year.  Which wasn’t enough,” Solano told FBIHOP. “We have a department of about 90 officers, it wasn’t enough to fund it all — but it helped a lot.  Last year, we got funding for one vest, $500.  This year, we don’t expect any funding at all.”

This caused Solano to do something he “never would have imagined” doing a year ago — backing the opponent of a law enforcement officer for a Congressional seat.  

“You would think that Darren White, with his connections to Bush would have spoken up for us,” Solano said.  “And I’ve never heard of him doing so.”

The announcements for people running for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District open seat are starting to come in at a fast and furious pace.  The current Representative, Steve Pearce (R), is leaving the seat to take a crack at the now-open Senate seat.

Today, State Rep. Jose Campos and restaurant chain owner Ed Tinsley announced their intentions to run.  Jose Campos has political experience as a State Rep for four years and mayor of Santa Rosa for nearly a decade.  Tinsley’s political experience comes in the form of running against Pearce in 2002, when he lost to Pearce while running for the open seat.

More under the fold.  Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP.

Campos joins fellow Democrats Bill McCamley and Al Kissling in the race.  Another Democrat in the race is Frank McKinnon, a former schoolteacher.

They are expected to be joined soon by State Rep Joseph Cervantes and (officially) by Harry Teague.  Teague already told Democratic officials of his intention to run, but will make it public within the coming week.  And Cervantes, who has been rumored in every cycle in the recent past to run for the seat, is widely expected to also throw his hat in the ring.

On the Republican side of things, Tinsley is the first announced candidate, but will not be the last to opt for a shot at the open seat. 

Sid Goddard, chairman for the Republican Party of Doña Ana County, said he’s aware of about eight to 12 Republicans who are considering joining the race, but, other than Tinsley, none has stepped forward definitively yet. Potential candidates are likely gauging support, their competition and their odds, he said.

What makes this so interesting is not every candidate will get their names on the ballot.  In fact, at most, four candidates from each party will get their names on the ballot, thanks to a new law enacted by the state legislature this past session.  To get his/her name on a ballot, each candidate must garner the support of 20 percent of convention goers.  Previously, candidates who did not reach the 20 percent threshold were able to gather signatures on a petition to get their name on the ballot. 

No longer. And with three Democratic candidates already in the race, two more ready to jump in and possibly double-digit numbers of Republicans… things could get interesting before the March pre-Primary convention.

Actually, things seem to be getting interesting already when it comes to the Second Congressional District.