First off, thanks to Mario and the Terrellian for their recent shout-outs.
On Monday, Mario Burgos referenced our July 29th entry "Sheriff Darren White: Defender of the Democratic Process?" , with a posting titled "Help Wanted: Democrats with Integrity." Mario's editorial didn't go much further than the headline, other than to note the supposed political leanings of the viewpoints expressed on this site and that he "was wondering when someone from the left was going to challenge ACORN's win by any means mentality."
In what some may see as an increasing and startling trend, I again agree with Mario, New Mexico does need Democrats with Integrity ! Lets face it, in a state that seemingly has more of an historic than ideologic allegiance to the Democratic party, there are more Democrats than Republicans.
Just look at the numbers; according to the Secretary of State's website, as of today, out of 1,075,601 registered voters in the state, 535,504 are Democrats (50%), 349,760 (33%) are Republicans, 29,927 (3%) Other and 163,410 or 15% of New Mexicans have registered as Independents. Statistical reasoning suggests that if a registered voter gets into trouble with the law, or does something unethical that lands them in the press, there is a greater chance that individual will be a Democrat than there is that they would be a Republican or member of any other party.
The same can be said of our state's elected officials; of the 70 seats in the State House of Representatives 42 are controlled by Democrats, 28 by Republicans and of the Senate's 42 seats, 23 are held by Democrats and 19 by Republicans. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that when a legislator does something wrong, again the chances are greater that that individual will be a Democrat- Sen. Grubesic, former state Rep. Bengie Regensberg just to name two off the top of the list (oh and there is a list and there are plenty of Republicans on it so all those readers with blue blood a boiling, don't worry and stay tuned).
So what does all this mean? Is NewMexicoMatters out to sink the Democratic Party in New Mexico? Well, it means a couple of things:
1) One can't be a "good" Democrat in this state without being critical of fellow Democrats.
2) I suspect there are people living in New Mexico who are registered as Republicans or Independents because they see the Democratic Party of New Mexico as an inept institution rife with corruption, complacency and complicity and won't be convinced that a Democrat deserves their vote until the party can hold it's members accountable when the act in a manner inconsistent with the virtues of representative government.
I don't agree that ACORN was doing anything that would equal a "win by any means mentality" in paying people to gather signatures. Almost every campaign that needs signatures does that. Moreover, ACORN cooperated completely with the investigation and provided the information they had on record about the person caught allegedly forging signatures. In other words, they acted exactly properly in dealing with the situation.
However, I do agree that all politicos, including Dems, should be held to a high standard of integrity and ethics. The impact of big money donors is definitely increasing the number of what I call "crooks" within our government and it starts right at the top.
Posted by: Prog NM | Thursday, August 04, 2005 at 01:32 PM