Media Mentions: Spaceport and Gov. Martinez

New Mexico got a couple of nice national media mentions yesterday, one in passing, one a full page.

The passing mention came from Richard Branson, English billionaire entrepreneur and leader of all things Virgin, airlines, music operations and, for New Mexico’s purpose, Virgin Galatic, prime tenant at Spaceport America, located on the mesa between Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences.

The interview with the Wall Street Journal went to space travel as a topic. The mention was brief, just a linkage of Virgin Galactic and the Spaceport.

Branson predicts the first commercial space flight from Spaceport America will happen in about a year. He fudged a bit, though, but consider the fudge in light of his record.

The full page was an article in the December 17 “The Economist.” (www.economist.com) The headline says, “Susana Martinez shows how Republicans might one day woo Latinos.”

The premise of the article is this. “Her Democratic predecessor, Bill Richardson, is of Mexican descent on his mother’s side. And Brian Sandoval in Nevada is both Latino and Republican. But Ms Martinez is the only governor who is simultaneously Hispanic, female and Republican. As such, she seems well on the way to embodying the party’s hoped-for future as a conservative movement that can appeal to, rather than repel, Latinos, America’s fastest-growing main ethnic group.”

Martinez is described as “tough and wonkish.” Well, one of two ain’t bad.

The article doesn’t quite say Martinez has no overall philosophy beyond being roughly conservative. But the suggestion is there.

The correspondent, as The Economist calls it’s reporters, missed a couple of things. Our “remarkably informal” capitol “is nicknamed (the Roundhouse) in homage to old Navajo hogans,” the article said.

I didn’t check that assertion, which is new to me. I think the Roundhouse, built roughly in the shape of the Zia sun, is called “the Roundhouse” because it is round. I have never heard a hogan connection, old hogan or new hogan.

Also, the correspondent claimed the legislature “still tilts Democratic.” Tilts?