The War Between the Left and the Center is all but over in Albuquerque. The Center has Won, and the Left's attempt to seize control of the city and turn us into another Portland or Seattle has Failed. Utter Victory. 
-WMS, busy hitting the booze as promised per the District 1 race results. 
I'm glad that your candidates won...
I'd like to know a little more about this left/centre conflict in Albuquerque...
What exactly are the main issues at stake?
What demographics support each group?
If I were to guess from your post, it seems that the split would be between the more yuppie left and more pro-growth Democrats...
Yuppie leftists, of course, are social liberals (though I dont know exactly how social liberalism would really be that important in local politics) but I'd venture to guess that the conflict revolves around their tendency to favor slow-growth and quality of life issues over policies that will expand business, jobs, and aggregate wage growth (rather than wage growth for well-educated propertied types)... is that a fair characterization?
In the center, I suppose, would be the poorer but hopefully upwardly mobile Latino community who seeks pro-growth policies and is not as concerned about regulations to preserve the status quo... I imagine they would be a bit more socially conservative... however, unlike right-wingers, they are not afraid of the government taking a necessary regulatory or unlike both right-wingers and left-wingers, a pro-business role....
I suppose a perfect example of conflict would be the minimum wage ordinance... while I'd like to see a dramatic increase in the minimum wage on the federal level and an increase in u.s. wages generally, such a dramatic increase at the municipal level would certainly cause problems...
Please tell me if my assumptions are way off.... and elaborate on the context of your election glee...
