Editor:

Some thoughts about Super Tuesday have occurred to me. I attended and voted at the Democratic "Caucus," and developed these thoughts from that experience and from events of the past year in politics.

1. The Democrats held what they called a "caucus." It was not a real caucus, but was not allowed to be called a "Presidential Primary." Rules disallowed the party to hold an early primary, so it was called a "caucus." It was, in fact a primary election limited to presidential candidates only. We were instructed not to speak regarding support of any particular candidate, suggesting that whoever won this election was the candidate that was our collective "favorite." In other words, support the party, no matter what the individual desires.

2. The candidates had already been chosen. While the last year offered a great number of qualified persons for the available positions, because of biased media coverage and corporate support, those persons were whittled away until just two were actually available to New Mexicans. We were

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disenfranchised from voting any real choice, because of the prolonged campaigning process.

3. While this thought is my own bias, it appeared that the two candidates were close to the worst possible of all the nine candidates previously offered. If we ask how this happened, there is but one answer: the media promotion during all the previous campaigning, and the pronounced need for an exorbitant amount of money, available only from large corporate supports, eliminated the ability for others to continue in the battle.

4. Were the candidates actually eliminated because of a large number of voters who had shown them to be the favorites? If we add up all the actual votes of all the previous states, we find as little as 8 percent of the states had voted, amounting to a partial percentage of the available voters, who had already eliminated most of the quality candidates. Just what does the name "Democratic" mean?

Obviously, I am very disappointed with this brokered election. Republicans are not in much better shape. We are in danger of getting into a worse quagmire than Bush caused, if that is possible. In any case, our system of voting for qualified candidates of personal choice is becoming less and less a reality, and choices we used to have are being eliminated by the powerful media and corporate interests.

MIKE HIGGINS

Farmington