So, I’m heading to New York this morning, to spend four nights in the Greatest City in the World™. I hope you’re all duly impressed. I’ll be doing my best to blog, and you can bet I’ll be snapping photos during the trip, so please stay tuned during the coming week.
Ta ta for now!
It looks like MapLight has finally added a slew of candidates from New Mexico to their database. I’ve got four MapLight widgets on the sidebar, broken down by the Senate race and congressional district, and you can see that Rep. Heather Wilson is beating both Rep. Tom Udall and Rep. Steve Pearce in the money game:
However, while Wilson and Pearce are spending cash fighting for the Republican nomination, Udall can relax a bit and save his dough for the general election.
Meanwhile, Martin Heinrich, Harry Teague and Don Wiviott are leading in fundraising for the first, second, and third congressional districts, respectfully.
The widgets will remain there on the right throughout the 2008 election cycle, so you can always check to see how much money the candidates have raised.
In the past 48 hours, Congresspedia (in conjunction with The Literary Outpost and OpenLeft) launched the Superdelegate Transparency Project. My editor (working from a café in Argentina while on vacation) drafted a pretty great support structure, while we imported a bunch of data volunteers have collected on the Democratic nomination.
The result is 55 pages — divided by state, district or territory — that compiles the popular vote, a pledged delegate count and, most importantly, a system to track the superdelegates. We’re identifying them, determining whether they’ve endorsed a candidate, and trying to track whether their vote is in line with what the constituents in each state want. With Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama racing toward a photo-finish, the superdelegates might decide who gets the nomination.
Chris Bowers wrote a great introduction over at OpenLeft, if you want some of the back story on the process. Otherwise, if you’re interested in the role these individuals will play in the Democratic nomination, you should head over to the project and read up. If you want to help shine some light on the process, help out. If you need any assistance, just let me know.
So, these are the news digs. I’m sporting two domains for now, and, regardless of how you arrive (whether you head to www.livefromsilercity.com or go to www.avelinomaestas.com) this should be your eventual destination. There’s mostly cosmetic changes, though I do hope the new hosting service (thanks for the recommendation Scott) will make things a little bit faster and a little more reliable.
If you see anything acting up (weird punctuation aside), please let me know: you can leave a comment at the bottom of this post, or shoot me a message via this form. Particularly, if you notice any broken links or anything like that, I’d appreciate you telling me about it.
Today, the GOP heavy hitters are fundraising to improve their chances in New Mexico: Dick Cheney is holding a D.C. event for Rep. Steve Pearce (similar to one he already headlined for Rep. Heather Wilson) and Karl Rove will be in Artesia helping raise cash for the state Republican Party.
As regular readers know, this year is a rare situation: four of New Mexico’s five Congressional seats are open, while the fifth is held by Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman. The seat being vacated by Sen. Pete Domenici is a likely pick-up opportunity with Rep. Tom Udall leading the charge, and Martin Heinrich and Bill McCamley have excellent chances in the 1st and 2nd Congressional districts, respectively. In addition, a good crop of candidates is in the field for the probably Democratic-safe 3rd Congressional District.
Some cohorts in the netroots, NewMexico FBIHOP and Democracy for New Mexico, have organized an ActBlue page to help counter the GOP fundraising efforts. Today is the kickoff for True Blue New Mexico. You can help by giving some cash to some great progressive candidates. Early money is more important than cash that comes late in the campaign, and every dollar you give now will help blunt the thousands of dollars that Rove and Cheney hope to raise today.
