Swing State Swing: New Mexico

We asked our chief political writer, David Paul Kuhn, to get in a car and drive from Portland, Maine to Portland, Ore., via all the Battleground States – those states expected to be the most hotly contested in the presidential election. Armed with a pen, laptop, camera and plenty of No Doz, Kuhn is sending back dispatches that will offer impressions and snapshots of a country making up its mind.

NEW MEXICO

Wagon Mound

Where the parched mountains of southern Colorado flatten to the deserts of New Mexico, Kathy Kruse has built a diner. In Wagon Mound, named for the western Santa Fe Trail that ran through this territory, Kruse grills burgers and explains, "I am very much for Bush."

"A lot of stances I agree with, on the abortion issue. I am right to life," she says, in an apron, her blonde hair pulled back. "The war, I think there was a lot of blunders there, a lot of mistakes, but I hope he knew what he was doing there. I hope he knows what he's doing."

Part of her feels compelled to believe Mr. Bush, she says, because she's patriotic. Outside the small red diner there's a flag and a copy of the Ten Commandants.

Al Gore edged out a victory in New Mexico by less than 400 votes in 2000, the closest margin of any state race. Although the state could go either way in 2004, it is only worth 5 electoral votes.

"I don't know if there was or wasn't the WMDs – which I'm tired of hearing about and I imagine everyone else is tired hearing about – I believe it was something that needed to have been done," she continues. "I wish we could have done it a different way, but it wasn't to be."

She tosses some buns on the grill. Hamburgers are sizzling. It's been a slow summer, she explains, as one man eats inside. Kathy and her husband have a 4,600-acre ranch near town and use the diner for side income.

She puts fries in the fryer and says, "I don't like him," about John Kerry. "His beliefs, he changes all the time. I don't care for his beliefs, the way he's always voted and everything."

Carey Weiss, a 50-year-old anesthesiologist, voted for George Bush in 2000, but now he's undecided.

"I'm not sure that we are in the right direction at this point in the time," says Carey. "We don't seem to have a positive agenda or positive plan and I think it's carried over to the campaign. You hear lots of negatives but no one is putting forth an agenda of this is what I'm going to do."

He voted for President Bush in 2000 because he "put forth an agenda of inclusiveness." But he questions that agenda today. Still, he is genuinely unsure if he'll support John Kerry or President Bush.

"I think the debates will be important and seeing whether either candidate is successful in establishing an agenda, as opposed to a series of negative attacks on his opponent, will be very important," he says.

Continuing, he explains that he is "not a fan of the ever-expanding government." He thinks "people really need to be able to do things for themselves," adding, "the government isn't an all-inclusive, all-accommodating paternalistic structure."

That's the Republican in him. The Democrat is upset over the state of health care.

"I find it difficult to see how health care could be more broken then it already is. Access to health care is a significant issue for most people in this country, most people need to be able to go to the doctor without fear that that's going to cause them to be economically ruined," he says.

But Carey's against universal healthcare. It "kind of goes back to the Republican in me," he says. "The government hasn't shown an ability to run large enterprises very successfully or very efficiently."

Thirty-nine-year-old Brad Baskett didn't vote four years ago.

"I wish I had now," he says sedately, as tourists pass and a mariachi band plays behind him.

This is Santa Fe's Indian Market, where hundreds of Native American artists display their wares for thousands of tourists

Brad loves it here. He loves the pace. And maybe that's why, he suggests, he was disengaged from the election four years ago.

"At the time I felt pretty comfortable with Bill Clinton, things were good. I didn't really realize the changes that would come around in the world. You know how important it is to choose good leadership, and these last four years did open up my eyes to that point," he says.

"I've already got my card, I've already registered, am ready to go this time," Brad says excitedly. "I don't want to miss this opportunity. It's the only way that the Americans can really take back control of the country and just do what we need to do."

Mariachi singer Eddie Hernandez takes a quick break to say he's voting for John Kerry. Beneath his massive black sombrero, chubby and jovial Eddie says, "one term for any maniac is too much."

"I'm voting for the man. [Bush] is a psycho," he says. "There are a lot things that he's not fixing, that he's made worse."

The 36-year-old has been playing for 15 years. He says Kerry is "not really much better, but something different."

He adds, "I wasn't even going to vote, but now I'm going to vote. This has made me vote."

Hopi Indian Delmar Polacca is a short, proud man. When he stands his chest sticks out. His thick arms cross over one another like a man demanding to be taken seriously.

"You know, with Bush we really didn't have any kind of a plan or input from him on Native American issues or anything. He more or less pushed everything to the side related to Native Americans," he says.

"[John Kerry] was out here a couple of weeks ago and we were able to hear him talk, meet with all the tribal leaders and what not. I think he is a man that will actually do some work with the Native Americans," Delmar, 46, continues.

"We have all the treaties with the United States. That's the main thing that gets pushed aside. They promised all these things but still we're living in a third-world country."

Artist Sam Montoya has lived in the Santa Fe area for all his 60 years. Born on his grandfather's ranch 20 miles into the desert, he's never voted, never registered. He never felt the need to participate politically.

Sam Montoya registered to vote three weeks ago. Outside an exhibition featuring his horse sculptures, Sam, wearing a white cowboy hat, his top lip covered by a drooping gray mustache, says he's voting now because we "gotta get Bush out of there. He didn't have no reason to go to Iraq, in my opinion."

It's not that Sam hasn't been paying attention all these years. Since John F. Kennedy, Sam explains that he's "absorbed what administrations" have done. He's been fine with it. Until now. The first vote of Sam's 60 years will be for John Kerry.

When voters view a coming election as a matter of life and death it usually means they want change.

"The thing that presses my buttons the most is when he talks about bringing freedom to the world… if that was the case we would be in every country in the world trying to bring," she says, making quote signs with her hands, "freedom."

"I'm going to vote for Kerry because I believe he's the only one that can give us some relief from the president we have now," says Laura, a 40-ish woman with brown frizzy hair.

She believes President Bush is "basically taking a healthy world to potential nightmare, a dangerous place to live, to a place that I wouldn't want my children or my grandchildren to live in.

"The Native Americans have something called the seventh generation," Laura continues, "which means you make decisions based on the seventh generation. Which means your children, your grandchildren and on into the future. And I believe that if anybody is going to survive into that seventh generation that we've got to do something really extreme. I think we are at the cross roads of humanity."

It's a matter of life and death, says Laura.

By David Paul Kuhn