If Rasmussen's latest poll is accurate, Republican candidate Steve Pearce has experienced a significant polling bounce thanks to a series of negative ads from his campaign and the Club for Growth.

Rasmussen. 8/20. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (7/24 results)

With leaners included, it's 53-44 for Udall, down from an astonishing 61-35 margin last month.

Now, this poll could well be an outlier. Pearce has been advertising statewide of late, hitting Udall on energy, and the Club for Growth has given him a timely assist. Still, it's almost impossible to see how a 26-point edge with leaners could be trimmed to a 9-point lead in less than a month.

Still, this race was bound to tighten up eventually, and perhaps we are seeing the first indications of this phenomenon. This race should still be considered "Likely Democratic" until further polling confirms this result, of course.

This result does speak to the one real ace in the hole that GOP candidates have: they've got a few powerful, well-financed independent organizations like the Club for Growth and Freedom's Watch that have the money to do the dirty work the GOP can't afford to do.

Stare into the center of the mandala, Steve

As I commented on Matt's post at New Mexico FBIHOP about the Steve Pearce hippie attack ad on Tom Udall, Grace Slick used to sing "One pill makes you larger. And one pill makes you small." GOP Senate candidate Steve Pearce must have gotten the one that makes you small -- and that causes flashbacks for 40 years. Steve isn't looking for somebody to love -- he's trying to get people to dredge up old grudges from decades past. He must still carry that baggage from all those years ago. Stuck in the past like an angrily buzzing fly in a time-warp web.

GOP Senate candidate Steve Pearce of New Mexico seems to have discovered the ability for time travel, as he has apparently gone back in time to the 60s - or in his case, perhaps never left - and found some compelling reasons to vote for him over his Dem opponent, Tom Udall.

Plus he seems to have the same understanding of the Inter-Tubes as John McCain.

Good morning peeps!  

Yesterday I published a link to Steve Pearce's website.  For those of you who don't know, Steve Pearce is the idiot who gave up a safe republican congressional seat to take on one of New Mexico's most popular and respected sons, Tom Udall, for the US Senate.  Most of the polls show Tom winning by 25-28%.  It's going to be a wild west ass kicking, kids.

The geniuses at the Steve Pearce campaign (for those of you who don't know Pearce, he is the guy who is going to lose the US Senate race in a landslide to Tom Udall, one of the greatest guys I have ever known, here in New Mexico) have a great gimmick on their website, an online poll asking us who we are voting for in the Presidential Race.  So far the results are like 200-5 for Obama, not the results they were looking for.  Go, do your duty...

Show Steve who we are voting for...Show Steve who we are voting for...

We're a lot better at this internet organizing stuff - that much is apparent. After a successful Netroots Nation meeting and our ongoing collective muscle flexing on the net - it's a wonder that the Grand Oil Party even tries anymore.

Here in New Mexico, Republican Senate candidate Congressman Steve Pearce put a poll on his website yesterday asking simply, "Who Do You Support for President?" The user gets to pick from three answers: John McCain, Barack Obama, or Other.

Last night, your friendly New Mexico DKos Caucus caught wind and decided to voice our opinions!

See the results below!

(cross-posted over at NMFBIhop.com. NMFBIhop and Democracy for New Mexico are raising money for all the NM Candidates, so you can show some love here.)

So, I am sure you've already heard (either from LP or at our place), but Steve Pearce wants big oil to tell him what to do about gas prices. Probably has something to do with the $648,324 he's gotten in contributions from them...

Anyway, we want him to listen to YOU.

Just text SP and your message to MyTOM (#69866) and we'll  have them displaying online (and get them to him in hardcopy). You can see everybody's messages at TomUdall.com/Make_Pearce_listen.

(we tried to embed the display here... no luck... :)

Thanks!
Steve

John McCain must be confused these days. According to this report, he either doesn't know what office he is running for or he fully expects to lose. While at a stop in New Mexico, he made a quick plus for senate candidate Steve Pearce and said

• Jane Mayer's new book, The Dark Side, The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, includes this tidbit:

  In the days after 9/11, when fears of another terrorist strike were at their peak, Vice President Dick Cheney was convinced that he had been subjected to a lethal dose of anthrax ...

  White House insiders from that white-knuckle time [said] the scare contributed to Cheney's insistence on hard-line tactics for fighting terror.

- brownsox
• Oil prices plunge on demand concerns. Reasons for the sell-off? Mostly "whines" about the economy. There was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke saying that "numerous difficulties" are affecting the U.S. economy of the world's largest oil consumer, and rising prices for energy and food. The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation jumped by 1.8 percent last month, with a year-to-year rise of 9.2 percent, the most since 1981. Meanwhile, GM announced more cuts, including health benefits for salaried retirees and several thousand more jobs. Truck production will be cut by 300,000 units, 150,000 more than approved last month. - brownsox/Meteor Blades
• From our Don't Know Whether to Laugh or Cry Department: Senator Joe Lieberman said today he won't accept a vice presidential offer if John McCain makes offers it this year. Nor would he take a Cabinet post in a McCain administration.

  "I'm where I was meant to be," said Lieberman, who won re-election to his Senate seat two years ago as an independent after losing the Democratic primary.

  -  brownsox

• Meanwhile, Charlie Cook at The National Journal warns that the political community has a lousy track record of predicting who will get vice presidential nods. But it doesn't stop anybody from trying.

  All of this is pretty pointless, and the more certain that folks around Washington and the political community are that they have figured out the pick, the more laughable it is.

  - Meteor Blades

• Bush Drops to 28% Approval. Just 28 percent of Americans approve of President Bush's job performance, a match for Jimmy Carter's career low. Only two presidents produced lower ratings: Richard Nixon, 24 percent in July and August 1974 just before he resigned in the face of impeachment; and Harry Truman, 22 percent in February 1952. - brownsox
• Several folks at the Center for American Progress via Alternet have taken on The Three Biggest Myths the Bush Administration Wants You to Believe About Offshore Drilling.

  No. 1 - Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less. A Newt Gingrich group is promoting that theme. The truth: No significant impact on production or prices before 2030.

  No. 2 - China on Our Coasts. Rudy Guiliani, Dick Cheney and others claim the Chinese are drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba. They aren't.

  No. 3 - Not a Drop Was Spilled. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Mike Huckabee, George Will, and Bill O'Reilly have all claimed "not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina or Rita." BS piled deep. According to the Minerals Management Service, those hurricanes caused 124 offshore spills for a total of 743,700 gallons. - Meteor Blades

• New Mexico blogger Heath Haussamen interviewed John McCain yesterday on the "Straight Talk Express" in Albuquerque.  He talked about how he "philosophically" supports protecting the environment (whatever that means); in that context, he had a few words about the Udalls:

  I love and revere the Udall family. Mo was very good to me, and Mark (Tom's cousin) and Tom are good friends, McCain said. He added that he has a "great appreciation" for former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, Tom Udall's father and Mo Udall's brother.

  That doesn't mean McCain supports Tom Udall in his race against Republican Steve Pearce.

  "I want him elected," McCain said of Pearce. "It's just a matter of philosophy. We're both conservative Republicans."

  Sorry to disappoint you, Senator, but it's going to take a miracle to get Pearce elected. - Plutonium Page

Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP

Kate Nash of the Santa Fe New Mexican had an article on the differences in drilling and the environment between Steve Pearce and Tom Udall.  The differences between the two on just about every issue are stark and real.  On this issue perhaps more than any other.

Udall wants to push renewable energy; meanwhile, Pearce's energy plan is to "drill everywhere" and give reassurance that money will eventually be given to fund renewable energy.  Meanwhile, just last week, Pearce voted against providing money to renewable energy sources.

Udall already is airing TV ads aimed at tapping into consumer frustration at the gas pumps and advocating we "get serious" about alternative energy sources. Pearce, meanwhile, fired off a barrage of news releases blaming Democrats and "the Tom Udalls of the world" for contributing to high fuel prices by restricting domestic production of oil and gas.

New Mexico GOP senate candidate doesn't even know who his opponent is, but that doesn't mean he won't advocate strip mining 16,000 square miles of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. From the Denver Post:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—The campaign manager for Democrat Tom Udall had only a couple of words for the candidate's opponent in New Mexico's hotly contested U.S. Senate race: "Wrong guy."

...Pearce, who recently won the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, pointed to language that was included in a spending measure that would have prevented the Bureau of Land Management from completing regulation to allow oil shale leases.

The problem, according to Udall's campaign, is that the New Mexico congressman wasn't responsible for that language. It was his cousin, Democrat Mark Udall of Colorado, campaign spokeswoman Marissa Padilla said.

Follow me after the fold, for the rest of the story...

I wrote this weekend about the $4,000 Steve Pearce has received from Clayton Williams over the past two election cycles.  Williams made remarks about rape, comparing it to the weather in 1990:

"As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Much of the attention has gone to the money that Williams raised for McCain.  And that's no surprise; a fundraiser for a Presidential campaign's horrible comments will trump a the same story for a Senate candidate.

But we should still not excuse this.

The primaries are over in New Mexico.  The presidential primaries are over (and should come to an official official end tomorrow).  Now it's time for us to turn our attention to the general election in November.

New Mexico is in a unique position.  Daryl Paranada of the Huffington Post called New Mexico "the ultimate swing state" and for good reason.  

President Bush lost the state to Al Gore by less than 600 votes in 2000. Four years later, Bush defeated John Kerry by nearly 6,000 votes, making New Mexico one of only two states to switch from blue to red between 2000 and 2004.

But it isn't just the Presidential stuff. We also have an open Senate seat.  Rare enough; there are only five open Senate seats this year, and of those, only three are competitive.

New Mexico's is competitive -- and all three U.S. Reps. from the state decided to leave their seats to take a crack at the Senate seat.

While we realize there's a contentious presidential primary going on at the moment, the Tom Udall for Senate campaign [Disclaimer: I work for the Tom Udall for Senate campaign] would like to bring you live coverage of the Democratic primary watching party in New Mexico tonight.  As many of you know, the Senate and House primaries for New Mexico took place today.

Tom Udall is running uncontested for the Democratic nomination for the Senate.  The Republicans running for nomination are Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce.  We'll be doing our best to keep you updated on the results of that race as well as the congressional primaries as they become available.

[6:09 AM] We're here early at the New Mexico Democratic Party's primary election watching party in Albuquerque, where people are slowly beginning to stream in. Tom will be speaking later on, and we'll have live video up as soon as the festivities and speeches begin. Stay tuned for updates from the floor, including primary results that will (possibly) be faster than can be found at the Secretary of State's website.

Hey y'all, Steve Olson here from the Tom Udall campaign. I realize that most of your eyes will be on Montana and South Dakota, but for those of you following the US House and Senate primaries here in New Mexico, here's some updates.

First, when Bush came to town to raise money for the NM GOP last Tuesday we launched a campaign to find 1000 donors by the time the polls close (7PM Mountain). As of this moment, we're only 283 donations away from that goal... and what's even more awesome is that some long-time supporters have offered to donate an additional $50 for each online donation between now and  the polls closing. As a result your gift of $5 or $10 is actually worth $55 or $60!

Click here if you have a gift to spare.

The Santa Fe New Mexican and Project Vote Smart have something in common: Republican U.S. Senate primary candidates Steve Pearce and Heather Wilson didn't feel it was worth their time to fill out their questionnaires.

The two weren't alone in failing PVS' "Political Courage Test" as first noted by the Swing State of Mind blog a couple weeks back.  The two were joined in their failure by Tom Udall, the sole Democrat in the U.S. Senate race, and a vast majority of federal and state candidates.  Only 21 percent of federal candidates and 11 percent of state candidates filled out the survey.

As Julia Goldberg of the Santa Fe Reporter and the Swing State of Mind blog noted, the survey (pdf) is more-detailed than your average questionnaire. It is four pages deep and has multiple questions on issues from abortion to education and every issue in between.

Also at NM FBIHOP

My friend, Tom Udall, is running for the US Senate seat being vacated by Pete Domenici.  He is unopposed in the primary, but will face either Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce in the general.  Tom is polling well ahead of either of the republicans at this point.

I first met Tom in 1988.  Rather, I first met Amanda, his daughter, while out canvassing for a state senate race while Tom was running for CD-1.  We were paired up to walk a precinct and she would hand out the lit at the door, saying, "and don't forget to vote for my dad, he's a great guy!"  Well, those who meet Amanda are guaranteed to be immediately smitten with her.  She has a warm, friendly smile, and eyes that sparkle with intellect, humor and quite a bit of mischief.  From then on, we were inseparable.  More after the jump...

Also at NM FBIHOP and SSP

It looks like Tom Udall is the big winner of the money race again.  

His campaign sent out a press release minutes ago touting the fact that he will enter the general election with $2,876,030 cash on hand.  Nearly three million dollars cash on hand -- before June.

From the release:

Udall reported total expenses of $431,865 and finished the period with $2,876,030 cash-on-hand.

This is the third consecutive reporting period Udall has outraised both of his potential GOP opponents combined. He reported a strong total of over $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2008, which ended March 31, and in the final months of 2007 he raised over $1 million.

Not only did Udall raise more money than both combined, his cash on hand advantage is tremendous.  

The AP reported on the numbers from Pearce and Wilson.