The election is October 4 in Albuquerque and is nonpartisan, meaning there are two other Democrats and one Republican are in the running. The way this works is that if no candidate gets at least 40 percent of the vote, there's a runoff between the top two vote getters in November.

Eric's main competitor, and the current frontrunner, is a true Democrat In Name Only in the person of Martin Chavez, the incumbent. Mayor Chavez has big bucks in his campaign war chest because he has been kowtowing and worse to Republicans and big pocket, out-of-state developers. Moreover, Chavez has been plagued with serious scandals including the creation of a PAC early on that pretty much required city employees and contractors to donate to provide him with travel money and such, and a more recent police evidence room fiasco. There are continuing complaints that he is getting campaign donations from many of these same people by threatening the loss of city contracts or some other form of revenge if they don't give.

Meanwhile, Eric Griego is running second, and has a fair chance to win the October race outright, despite having substantially less money to spend. He has an excellent chance to finish second, and get into a runoff. Early polling showed Chavez with around 40 percent, while more than 30% are undecided and Griego had about 20%, in second place. Remember that Chavez has almost 100% name recognition, so his numbers are not expected to rise much, if at all. Meanwhile, the Griego campaign and its supporters have been working their butts off, conducting an under the radar, creative and strongly grassroots campaign. It's paying off.

However, as election day approaches, Griego needs some quick cash to increase his air time buys to run the clever ad linked above. This is where you come in. I know it can be difficult to get revved over a mayoral race far away, but this guy is the real deal. He was a Dean supporter, has sponsored antisprawl/planned growth, living wage and clean elections measures, among a myriad of other progressive measures in the City Council and has helped raise money for living wage and clean elections provisions on the October ballot.

Increasing his ad buys in the last two weeks of this election would do wonders to drive the stake in the heart of his rival's campaign. But New Mexico is a poor state, and Albuquerque a relatively poor city. An injection of a few bucks from a lot of you out there would be much, much appreciated!

You can donate online at

http://www.ericgriego.com/newsite/

Thanks for an opportunity to make my pitch! AND PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS DIARY!