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Sunday, July 18, 2004

New Mexico Voters About as Predictable as Weather

By Andy Lenderman
Of the Journal
    New Mexico voters have stood recently in the hot sun, been sprinkled on and crammed into hotel rooms to get involved in this year's presidential campaign.
    They talked to the Journal at a rally for Democrat John Kerry on July 9, and at a July 15 Republican "Party for the President," featuring first lady Laura Bush.
   

"I'm a more moderate Republican, and the national party has gone so far to the right and I'm not comfortable with it," Bob Stuart said at the Kerry rally.
   

"I think George Bush has character and integrity," Rosemarie Fritz said at the rally for President Bush. "We need a man who is strong and who isn't going to waver, who will face the terrorists and say, 'You're not going to get away with this.'"
   

"I'm not only against Bush, but I'm against the war in Iraq," said Gabriel Ledger, an emergency room doctor at the University of New Mexico Hospital, outside the Kerry rally. "Bush didn't make the decision to go to war for America or the world but for himself— his one-man crusade. So, I'm here to support Kerry because, as a veteran himself, he understands what war is and how horrible it can be."
   

"This president has the backbone to protect America," Yolanda Acosta said at the Bush rally. When asked why she supported the president, Acosta mentioned the abortion issue. "If you cannot respect the unborn, I don't think you can respect life in general," she said.
   

Debbi Dietz, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Garfield Middle School in Albuquerque, said one of the reasons she supports Kerry is his pledge of more money for the federal No Child Left Behind Act. "I think it's jeopardizing the education of children more than helping it," she said of the cornerstone of Bush's education agenda.
   

"I think that the Bush administration has not been very supportive of Native American issues," said JoAnn Melchor, a Santo Domingo Pueblo member who had never attended a political rally before. She came to the Kerry rally.
   

Terrorism is a top concern for Helen Ondes, president of the Cottonwood Federation of Republican Women in Sandoval County.
    "I really think our freedom is the most important thing that we have and we have to protect ourselves," Ondes said.
   

"It's my first year voting so I thought I'd see all the viewpoints that I could," Derek Richard, 20, said at the Kerry rally.
   

Lori Fritz, a Colorado voter at the Bush rally, studies education and history at Colorado Christian University. She said the No Child Left Behind Act is "a necessary reform for the country that has been ignored for so long."
    There's a lot of money, and action, on Albuquerque streets already: People knocking on doors, rallies, fund-raisers.
    And lots of professionals say things like this that keep campaigners working overtime:
    "There's a heavy streak of independence in the voters of New Mexico, regardless of party affiliation," said Courtney Hunter, spokeswoman for the political action committee America Coming Together.
   

    Recently I wrote about the relatively low number of American Indian educators in New Mexico compared to the student population, and the so-called achievement gap, or differences in student test scores among different ethnic groups.
    Greg Johnston of the University of New Mexico contacted me about a new program that aims to create more American Indian school leaders.
    American Indian students who intend to teach in New Mexico can get free tuition, fees, books, travel expenses and a $750 stipend through the two-year program.
    "The intent of course is to get teachers and administrators to come home to their villages and provide services where they're needed the most," education professor Joseph Suina said.
    The first class begins this fall. Eighty-nine applicants applied for 34 slots, said Suina, who's from Cochiti Pueblo.
    "They do make terrific role models for Indian children who have not had those role models in the past," Suina said.
    The program is funded by a three-year, $900,000 grant from the state Public Education Department, and is administered by UNM's Institute for American Indian Education.
    Call Suina at 277-7781 for more information.