Do you think the media will run with this story even though it doesn't meet with their preconceived notions.

In another nail in the coffin of the "Hispanics won't vote for Obama" line of thought, Gallup found that Hispanics not only are behind Obama -- but at a pretty high rate.

Also see my write-up at the New Mexico Independent and crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP.

Barack Obama visited the Flying Star on Broadway in Albuquerque today to speak to working women.  I was lucky enough to get a press credential be allowed to cover the event.

And I got some really good pictures of the event.  Click on any of the pictures to get a larger-sized image.

Obama is a powerful speaker, and he clearly cares about women's issues.  He has two daughters and told the group of about 30 women that some of the biggest influences in his life were working women.

Note: Daily Kos diarist Environmentalist had a great guest post at Democracy for New Mexico on this subject.  Also a recced diary at Kos.

This is crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP.

You may wonder what New Mexico, as landlocked as any state, has to do with off-shore drilling.  Let's just say isn't much threat of oil platforms dotting the landscape of Tingley Beach.

But with Pete Domenici as the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Jeff Bingaman as the chairman of that same committee, New Mexico holds some significant sway in any energy policy discussion.  Add in the fact that our governor, Bill Richardson, is a former Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton and we have even more clout in energy policy discussions.  

Read more about it below.

We've all seen horrible reporting on the facts on polling.  We've all seen people misinterpret polls, exaggerate, even blatantly lie.  I give many people the benefit of the doubt; they probably just don't know better.

A great resource which was forwarded to me from an AP writer is this link from the National Council on Public Polling.  It is "20 Questions a Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results."  It is an invaluable resource any journalist or blogger who mentions or writes about polling.

Over at the New Mexico Independent, the online news organization for which I write, Gwenyth Doland writes about the politics of beer.

John McCain's wife, as you all know by now, is beer heiress Cindy Hensley McCain. What you may not know (or remember) is that Cindy McCain's father and uncle -- former bootleggers -- owned the Ruidoso Downs racetrack in the 1950s. Back then the Hensleys caused quite a stir with their connections to a reputed mob boss named Kemper Marley, who later was implicated in the 1976 bombing death of Arizona investigative journalist Don Bolles.

A version of this appears at New Mexico FBIHOP and Daily Kos

New Mexico had our primaries on Tuesday.  Everything but the Democratic Presidential primaries were on the ballot.  Three open house seats, an open senate seat and the Republican Presidential race.  

Not to mention every single state House and Senate race.  It was a pretty good day, warm, no wind, and a lot of people heading out to their local school or library to vote.

Oddly enough, for New Mexico, we know the winners of every single race already.  We're used to having our elections then waiting for a couple of days before readying ourselves to announce tot he world just who won.  There were some extremely close races, and some blowouts.

The great news?  Progressives in the house and senate races ousted DINOs in three seats.

While the only numbers that officially matter are who received how many votes in each race, there were some other interesting numbers that came out of the Tuesday election.  Let's do this in a "By the numbers" style.

Does anyone else remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books?  The ones where you got to make choices and decide what the main character was going to do next (or to "choose your own adventure"). My favorite was one that had something to do with a bicycle and a cone-shaped machine that eliminated air resistance.

As a kid, I loved those books.  Thanks to those books and countless Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and Redwall books, I grew to love reading books and still do.  I'll read a couple of books a week if given the chance.

But now over at FiveThirtyEight.com, one of my daily must-reads, Nate (or as I like to call him, the Analyst Formerly Known as Poblano) has something suited for all of us -- a choose your own vote total counter.

No matter what happened today, someone was going to be pissed.  Someone's supporters would be complaining about the decision.  We all knew this going in.

Were the results fair?  Depends on your point of view.

First of all, the results of both states were clearly not fully representative of the full amount of people who wished to vote.  In either state.  Voters were told repeatedly, including by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Since the main bone of contention with the RBC ruling seems to be Michigan, I'm going to go ahead and just concentrate on Michigan first, and spend the most time discussing this.