Assorted Land News in a Land of Lazy Voters (and Non-Voters)

No need for a recap of Wednesday night's Baca/Lyons "forum". Johnny Mango has a good write-up of the festivities, and a good follow-up on Baca's alleged inability to work with his 'ol BLM stomping grounds. My only additions to Mr. Mango's work would be snarky and have to do with Pat Lyons' Eastern New Mexico (i.e., Texan) accent and the fact that Lyons said as a rancher he'd been "managing the land all my life" roughly 500 times. I'd go on to mention that 500 is also roughly the number of times Jim Baca talked about his "first administration" of the Land Office way back in the pre-Internet, IBM XT/Kaypro mid-80s.

But I won't.

I have a bunch of notes filled with "managing the land all my life" and "my first administration" if anyone wants them. Basically my take on the Land race is that it's down ballot enough that turnout generated by Wilson/Madrid race in the central part of the state will help Baca, while the rest of the state will most likely have lower turnout due to the dearth of any good races. I don't know how many folks in Farmington, for instance, will vote given that the Auditor and Land races are the only competitive State/National ones going. I know the Land race gets more important the more rural you get, but it's sure not a Governor or U.S. Senate kind of pull to the polls even in the Sticks.

All in all, turnout would appear to be helping Baca, especially with lazy voters who'll just vote straight ticket because they don't want the embarrassment of picking between judges they have absolutely no idea about. Lyons' incumbency is also hurt by the fact that to the more unobservant voter Baca is seen as another incumbent, having, as mentioned, held the office back in the IBM XT/Kaypro days.

In sum, between non-voters and lazy voters it would appear Baca's race to lose, imho. Nothing that happened at Wednesday's "forum" did anything to change that, and given the public demeanor of the two candidates it's unlikely any Earth-shattering news, spin or allegation is gonna come along in the next 45 days.

Of course we live in a political time where by "Earth-shattering" we mean things like Patsy Madrid having non-NM saguaro cacti in an anti-Wilson TV ad. For a few of us things like Otero Mesa and alternative energy (or the Occupation of Iraq for that matter) are more important, but when a race goes into political hyperspace like Madrid/Wilson the real issues begin to succumb to the cacti. Maybe that's to be expected in a land of lazy voters..it's much easier to think/laugh about improperly placed cacti than about the complex issue of authorizing protections over State lands where the improperly placed cacti might thrive (if saguaros did, in fact, thrive in New Mexico).