Columns

Seldom recounted today, there erupted in New Mexico in the late 1940s, an impassioned struggle between Catholics and Protestants — especially in Hispanic communities ­— over the dominant role of the Catholic church in tax-supported public schools.

So acrimonious was the conflict, that near-riots broke out in the small community of Dixon, in Rio Arriba county, where public school facilities were owned by the Catholic church and run by Catholic nuns, who provided religious instruction as part of the public school curriculum.

If the Albuquerque Journal’s polling is accurate — and I’m told it is about as accurate as polling gets — the five biggest races in New Mexico are pretty much done deals.

As a journalist and political junkie, I have had countless conversations with my contemporaries about the special perspective I have because of my hometown.

Recently, the New York Times ran a piece about the country’s changing political demographics, and I was pleasantly surprised to see “Las Vegas, N.M.” as the dateline for the story (“NM Offers Look At US Elections Of The Future,” Sept 29). Seems some of those contemporaries are starting to notice what I’ve been crowing about for years.

Here we are, in the depths of the 2012 presidential election campaign, and cold, hard facts have taken a back  seat to political spin.
Both campaigns, and their superPAC backers, have become quite agile in manipulating the truth. And while many media outlets are performing an admirable service by calling the campaigns out on their falsifications, the truth is still getting bested by the politicos.