Free Republic

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was an interesting character in the 2012 Republican Primaries that didn’t get the attention he deserved. I was never a Johnson devotee by any means, but his fiscal record was impressive and his libertarian leanings were worth giving a fair shake in the process. Now Johnson is running as the Libertarian Party candidate for President with hopes of playing spoiler, and as RealClearPolitics reports, he’s doing it with the help of Roger Stone, a rather interesting but mostly mythical operative legend: He doesn’t have a vast campaign account, as the two major-party candidates do,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's re-election effort is paying close attention to two candidates mounting third-party campaigns for the presidency, believing they could draw votes from Republican rival Mitt Romney and help Obama win a few tightly contested states. One candidate is Virgil Goode, a former conservative Virginia congressman who is running as a member of the Constitution Party. The other is Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico who is the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee. Obama's team has scenarios whereby Obama can win states like Virginia and Colorado with less than 50 percent of the...

Robocalls urge pro-drug legalization voters to support libertarian Gary Johnson, and could push the state to Romney The term “perfect storm” is so overused as to be a pathetic cliche — but alas, in politics, it is about the best phrase to describe Colorado in the upcoming election. The state could decide the outcome. And if it comes down to that, it will likely be messy, for we are watching an epic convergence of factors that seem poised to make the square state 2012′s version of Florida in 2000. Here in the center of the Intermountain West, we have polls...

Larry King, the celebrated talk show host accustomed to A-list interview guests, has agreed to moderate a debate featuring a squad of minor-party presidential candidates.

If you think an election that can't be won with your ideal candidate is an election not worth winning at all, think again.

Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson said Monday he thinks President Barack Obama will defeat Mitt Romney to win a second term. “I think Obama’s going to win, that’s what I think,” Johnson told POLITICO in an interview. “[My vote is] really spread out, meaning I don’t think there’s any state that I’m going to do better than another.” Johnson, who’s on the ballot in 48 states and the District of Columbia, hovers in single digits in the polls. The former two-term New Mexico governor declined to single out any state where he expected to do particularly well but said...

This email was sent out by Cheri Jimeno, Ph.D., the President of New Mexico State University Alamogordo to the university students. Jimeno encourages students to vote early and often. “Remember – early voting is available through Saturday. Please be sure to turn over your ballots to read about GO Bond A, GO Bond B and GO Bond C. Yep, Bond B and C have a direct (and wonderful) impact on NMSU-A. So, if you are going to vote “yes” on the bonds, I would encourage you to vote as often as possible….

TIJUANA — A Mexican federal district judge in Tijuana on Friday ordered the immediate release of a U.S. Marine veteran behind bars in Baja California on federal weapons charges.

WASHINGTON – New Mexico's Senate race suddenly is on the radar screen, as new polls show the Republican candidate within single digits of incumbent Democratic Sen. Tom Udall. Most political observers had written off the contest as a slam dunk for Democrats. But a pair of new polls shows the race tightening in the final days. ADVERTISEMENT A new Vox Populi poll shows Udall up only 4 points over Republican Allen Weh. The poll puts Udall at 47 percent and Weh at 43 percent, with 11 percent of voters undecided. “The deteriorating national political environment for Democrats and President Obama...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is paying a researcher $17,500 to make students at New Mexico State University wear a fat vest for “weight sensitivity training.” The 20-pound fat vest will be worn for an “empathy exercise” so non-obese students can experience what it is like to be obese. The premise of the project is to fight “weight prejudice.” “Weight prejudice (a.k.a. anti-fat prejudice and weight bias) is the presence of negative beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors toward individuals who appear to be overweight or obese,” a grant awarded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture explains. The grant...

A scion of the Udall family is losing ground in this year’s Senate contest, but this time it’s Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico. The Democratic incumbent saw his once-formidable lead over Republican Allen Weh shrink in two polls released Monday. A survey taken by Research & Polling Inc. for the Albuquerque Journal has Mr. Udall ahead by 50 to 43 points, down from 51 to 38 percent in its mid-September poll.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, one of the U.S. Senate’s most vocal advocates for preserving federal lands, argued against efforts to transfer federally-owned tracts to the states in an op-ed published today in the New York Times. In the article titled “The Land Grab Out West,” the freshman Democrat from New Mexico argues that attempts by conservative public policy groups and congressional Republicans to transfer federally-owned lands to states, if successful, could open those lands up to eventual privatization for oil, gas and mineral extraction. That, in turn, could leave an American public who has long enjoyed the lands for recreational purposes...

It’s a mundane assignment, transporting a prisoner to another state. Some deputies consider it a perk, a break from the everyday stress of police work. But for two bright, young Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies with unblemished records, the assignment turned deadly early Tuesday morning. The deputies, Tai Chan and Jeremy Martin, had stopped to spend the night at a Las Cruces hotel, then went for a drink at a pub near the New Mexico State University campus. According to police reports, an argument that started at the pub continued back at the hotel, and shortly after midnight, Chan fired...

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Las Cruces police were called to the lobby of the Hotel Encanto around 12:30 a.m. Monday, said spokesman Dan Trujillo, where they found Deputy Jeremy Martin, 29, who had been shot "multiple times." Martin, who was found bleeding profusely just outside the elevator, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. The other deputy, who is being identified only as a 27-year-old man, is in custody, police said. He is being interviewed by detectives and charges are pending, police said.

Electoral cheating is not the "myth" the Left pretends it is ... More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. ... Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities...

On October 27, the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty, the Southwest Organizing Project, and a number of food stamp recipients filed suit to halt work requirements for food stamp recipients which are set to go into effect in November. The Associated Press reports the changes would require "some childless adults [to] work in order to receive food stamps." Other recipients would have to "search for a job or participate in community service or job training."

The U.S. Senate race in New Mexico has flown under the radar for months as political handicappers have almost universally predicted an easy re-election for Democrat Tom Udall. But a new survey from the Albuquerque Journal suggests that the race may be tightening in its closing days. Fifty percent of state voters support Udall (pictured), and 43 percent favor his Republican challenger, Allen Weh. About 8 percent remain undecided. Udall holds key advantages over Weh with Hispanic voters (62 percent to 27 percent) and women (53 percent to 37 percent). Weh leads among men (49 percent to 46 percent) and...

A member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told President Obama Monday that the administration’s reported plan to grant work permits to millions of illegal immigrants of illegal immigrants would have a harmful effect on black American workers. Peter Kirsanow, a Republican appointee to the panel, said in a letter to the president and to the Congressional Black Caucus that issuing millions of work permits to potentially low-wage workers “will devastate the black community.”

Maricopa Co., AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio reported that 36 percent of the criminals his sheriffs turned over to ICE “keep coming back” ... Last month a guy came back 25 times. So what is this? Either the border is really unsecure, or they're letting these guys out in the streets of Maricopa County. We got a big problem” he said. Arpaio added that releasing illegal aliens with criminal records was a “form of amnesty by the Obama administration.” ... Arpaio also said that the Mexican border has become so dangerous, law enforcement are afraid to cross,