I'd heard New Mexico leaned liberal. Is Gov Martinez actually typical of the attitude there?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

[Warpy]

1. NO!

She was kind of a pig in a poke, nobody knew that much about her except that she'd been a lawnorder DA in the southern part of the state.

She was swept into office mostly by a months long smear of everybody in the Richardson administration by a few far right wing newspaper people and partly because of her name.

Since her first tumultuous weeks in office when she was trying to repay the Koch boys by gutting environmental restrictions by fiat, followed by a smackdown by the court, she's been largely invisible, which is how the state likes their governors.

This speech might not do her that many favors here.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. Thanks!

I've never been to NM but for some weird reason I've felt a pull there the last few years. Knowing it's not RW is part of that draw.

[Warpy]

4. NM is a very odd state

Some folks here are conservative in their daily lives but remember that the only president to realize this is a state was FDR. It's a strange brew of liberal and conservative, the southern and eastern parts of the state more conservative than the center, north and west. There are loads of different reservations and they're all pretty solidly Democratic. Hispanos will inform you that their families were settled here while they were building the Mayflower at the drop of a sneer from a Gringo. White folks are just another minority, along with everybody else.

I like it here. The weather is paradise if you like to dessicate and the brew of cultures is always fascinating. The scenery is barren and can appear harsh but is a geologist's dream, all the various processes that created the state right out there in the open and not covered by forest or much worn by weathering.

I'm the first to admit I'm spoiled by living here and I will be very sorry to leave if Romney gets in.

[JI7]

3. NM does not lean liberal, it's more of a purple state