Roswell Daily Record
INSIDE NEWS
SANTA FE (AP) — Democrats have controlled the New Mexico Legislature for decades, but Republican Gov. Susana Martinez is waging an unusually aggressive and costly battle to change that in the general election to overcome Democratic opposition to her legislative proposals.
NYSE REOPENS; DOW SLIPS
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Gov targets Jennings, other Dems
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Using a barrage of hardhitting mailings and advertisements, the first-term governor and her political allies have targeted two dozen legislative races
November 1, 2012
THURSDAY
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across the state. Those races involve Senate Democratic leaders who helped derail a Martinez proposal to stop New Mexico from granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. The license issue has been a centerpiece of the governor’s legislative agenda since she took office last year. Her proposal passed the House with some Democratic support, but failed in the Senate. This year’s legislative races are playing out in a
Pro-Martinez forces also have aired a TV ad blistering Jennings and Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, a Belen Democrat, for voting against a measure in 2005 that increased the penalty to life imprisonment for someone who kills a child because of intentional abuse.
more expensive political landscape because of federal court cases loosening campaign finance restrictions. Certain groups can spend unlimited money on races, while individual candidates remain subject to
contribution limits. It’s triggered the political equivalent of an arms race — with political committees for and against Martinez raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence legislative races that previously
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks closed mixed on Wednesday in their first session since Hurricane Sandy forced a historic two-day shutdown of trading. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 10.75 points to 13,096.46. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose, but barely — up 0.22 of a point to 1,412.16. - PAGE B4
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• Community food drive • Community Paramedic classes to begin ... • Reins for Life receives donation • 12 finish revamped AMT program ... • Artesia dominant in 3-0 victory
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
Parks & Rec hosts annual Fall Festival
Monsters and ghouls mingle with princesses and superheroes during the Fall Festival, Wednesday, at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center.
NOAH VERNAU RECORD STAFF WRITER
Roswell Parks & Recreation’s annual Fall Festival at the Civic Center was the place to be for a
WITTEN CLOSE TO PASSING IRVIN
IRVING, Texas (AP) — Jason Witten still remembers vividly his first NFL catch, though at the time the Dallas Cowboys tight end didn’t think enough about it to even keep the ball. It was a 13-yard pass from Quincy Carter in the fourth quarter of a loss against Atlanta, the only catch of his NFL debut in the 2003 season opener. “It’s one of those deals, you catch it, you get up. It’s just football, this is what we do,” Witten recalled Wednesday. “It seems like it was yesterday.” - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Michael Ray Gonzales • Joseph Carrillo - PAGE A7
HIGH ...79˚ LOW ....41˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B5 COMICS.................B3 FINANCIAL .............B4 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
INDEX
fun alternative to trick-ortreating on Halloween night, complete with inflatable soccer, jolly jumps, Pin-the-Face-onthe-Pumpkin, beanbag tosses and oh yeah, lots
and lots of candy.
Girl Scouts of the Desert Southwest greeted families at the door with free arts and crafts, inviting children to make spiders and little vampires
Poll favors Romney to fix gridlock
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just about everybody agrees Washington is a gridlocked mess. But who’s the man to fix it? After two years of brawling and brinkmanship between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans, more voters trust Mitt Romney to break the stalemate, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows. Romney’s message — a vote for Obama is a vote for more gridlock — seems to be getting through. Almost half of likely voters, 47 percent, think the Republican challenger would be better at ending the logjam, compared with 37 percent for Obama. With the race charging
into its final week, Romney is pushing that idea. He increasingly portrays himself as a get-things-done, work-with-everybody pragmatist, in hopes of convincing independent voters that he can overcome Washington’s bitter partisanship. The AP-GfK poll shows the race in a virtual dead heat, with Romney at 47 percent to Obama’s 45 percent, a difference within the margin of sampling error. Obama made his own show of bipartisanship Wednesday, touring superstorm Sandy devastation alongside Republican Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey. A major Romney supporter, Christie has been praising Obama’s “out-
standing” response to the natural disaster. Obama counters the Washington gridlock question by predicting that Republican lawmakers focused on opposing his reelection will become more cooperative once he wins a second term and becomes ineligible to run again. Obama also argues that Romney is more conservative these days than when he was elected gover nor and will find his newer ideas don’t go down easily with Senate Democrats. For example, Romney, who worked with legislators to pass a health care overhaul in Massachusetts, has
out of pipe cleaners and lollipops. Spring River Park & Zoo brought along its Creepy Crawler Grotto, showing off curious creatures like See FALL, Page A3
Grass fire
cost a fraction of that amount. No recent New Mexico gover nor has pushed as hard as Martinez to influence the outcome of so many legislative races. Her predecessor, Democrat Bill Richardson, at times flexed his political muscle in primary elections to try to ensure the election of Democrats loyal to his agenda, but he never tried to oust large numbers of
It’s a big struggle for NYC
See GOV, Page A3
NEW YORK (AP) — Flights resumed, but slowly. The New York Stock Exchange got back to business, but on generator power. And with the subways still down, great numbers of people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan in a reverse of the exodus of 9/11. Two days after Superstor m Sandy rampaged across the Northeast, killing at least 63 people, New York struggled Wednesday to find its way. Swaths of the city were still without power, and all of it was tor n from its daily rhythms. At luxury hotels and drugstores and Starbucks shops that bubbled back to life, people clustered around outlets and electrical strips, desperate to recharge their phones. In the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, a line of people filled pails with water from a fire hydrant. Two children used jack-o’-lantern trickor-treat buckets. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that parts of the subway See NYC, Page A3
Mark Wilson Photo
The Bureau of Land Management called for assistance when it noticed a grass fire near Bottomless Lakes, Wednesday. The fire was started by a vehicle fire off NM Highway 409, at mile marker 7, on the east side of Lea Lake near the Pecos River. Midway and East Grand Plains fire departments were called in with four brush trucks and two tankers. Three BLM units assisted in fighting the fire.
RPD arrests teenager, cites 3 more after joy ride wreaks havoc See POLL, Page A3
JESSICA PALMER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Three youths were issued arrest citations and one 17year -old was arrested, Tuesday, when a joy ride ended in an accident that resulted in damages of more than $20,000 in the 1000 block of East Bland Street and forced the evacuation of 60 people from a local bingo parlor. The saga began when teenagers grabbed two cases of beer from Albertsons on South Main Street. As one Roswell police officer took a report of the theft, a second saw the vehicle swerving at the intersection of Garden and Summit. “He flashed his
Jessica Palmer Photo
This 2004 Honda Civic was parked next door before it was pushed into the next yard by a Ford Explorer driven by Josh Linares, Tuesday night.
lights and they sped up,” said RPD spokeswoman Sabrina Morales. According to the police, the officer followed the vehicle and then
saw a large cloud of dust on East Bland and people running. The Ford Explorer driven by Josh Linares, 17,
Josh Linares
knocked down a stop sign and side-swiped a light pole. The SUV drove through a vacant lot, through two chain link fences, struck a car in a driveway and pushed it into a neighbor’s lot, plowed
Estrella Montantez
down a third fence and hit a second vehicle before coming to rest on Bland Street. One family estimates repair costs of $8,000 to See RIDE, Page A2