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Grant County Progressives
Joe Mondragon		Carlos Provencio
Christie Miller		Matt Runnels
Bill McCamley	Candidate Forum	Al Kissling

On 30 April 2008, with the NM primary election looming on the horizon, The Grant County Progressives presented a candidate forum featuring the NM 2nd US Congressional District hopeful Bill McCamley and 4 of the 8 contenders for 2 seats on the Grant County Commission  at the historic Silco Theater in Beautiful Downtown Silver City, NM.

This election presents two strong progressives for the two county commission seats.  Joe Mondragon and Carlos Provencio both have deep roots in this community and proven track records as progressives and committed community organizers. Given the number of contenders in the primary, Joe & Carlos' distinct backgrounds and positioning, and the fact that a plurality wins, their chances of victory are much better than idle speculation, particularly when progressives in Grant County - sometimes uncoordinated but at others very effective - are fired up and ready to work.

One of the recurring themes in the forum is the role of WNMU / Western New Mexico University in our community.  NM LULAC /  League of United Latin American Citizens, convened their statewide convention here in Silver City recently and passed a reolution in favor of electing NM Regents rather than having them appointed by the governor.  This is a thorny issue as the regents role is defined in the NM constitution and changing that is more than a notion.  But nonetheless, a tide is rising to sweep away the present entrenched and unresponsive administrations statewide and inject a strong component of accountability and transparency into the higher education system.

Due to time/length constraints, this program is focused on the county commissioners but at this same event, Democrat Bill McCamley spoke on the issues and his candidacy for the US Congress.  McCamley is presently a Dona Ana County (Las Cruces) Commissioner and announced his candidacy over a year ago - before Stevan Pearce had opted out of the house race to contend for Pete Domenici's vacant Senate Seat.  CD2 has been one of the safest seats in the country and the "property" of the Republican Party after 22 years under Skeen and 6 under Pearce.

It was hoped that this would be a debate and discussion with his democratic primary rival, oil services millionaire Harry Teague, but Teague declined the offer to debate.  In fact, unless you were present (as Radio Free Silver was) at the LULAC NM State Convention here in Silver City, you probably won't see McCamley and Teague at the same venue at any time despite McCamley's offer to debate Teague anytime, anywhere and specifically to set four debates in various parts of CD2 in the four final weeks of the campaign.  Look for their faceoff on RFS! before the election.

Teague opted instead to use some of the $700,000 he took out of his oil services company profits pocket and stick in his congressional campaign pocket to throw a free dinner party at the Red Barn in Silver City on the preceding Monday.  Figuring $10 to $15 a head, that's a cheap price per vote for anybody that showed up that was not only hungry but also willing to  swallow his pitch.  Teague seems to have a lot more in common with his SE NM oil services buddy Stevan Pearce who voted for Bush policies 97% of the time.  Teague contributed thousands of dollars in the last two elections in which Gary King and Al Kissling were the Democratic candidates, respectively.

There's certainly no certainty on the outcome of the County Commission, US Congress or US Senate races.  Udall was present at the NM LULAC convention and a very strong contender to defeat either Pearce or Heather Wilson - both are whom have the stink of Bush on them for their 90% plus support of Bush policies which brought you

• Iraq and endless war

• The Patriot Act

• Alberto Gonzales / John Ashcroft

• Walter Read Army Hospital Fiasco 

• NSA and Spying on American Citizens

• Sellout to the Pharmaceutical industry

• "The Ownership Society" otherwise called the National Debt of almost 10 trillion dollars... That's right YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN OWN IT!

• The Sub Prime theft of American citizens wealth

• Attacks on Social Security

• The meltdown of the US economy and increasing recession

• Torture

• Threat of ANOTHER War with Iran

• and too many other horrors to even catalog, much less address here

But looking on the bright side, maybe we can look forward to NO NM Republicans in congress and for the first time, a progressive majority on the Grant County Commision.

Click here to watch or here to listen.

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