President Obama’s campaign workers can skip trying to persuade one particular voter in southern New Mexico into supporting the president’s re-election.

State Rep. Andy Nuñez (I-Hatch), while appearing on the syndicated radio program News New Mexico on Friday (July 27), said of the upcoming presidential race, “I’m dadgum sure I’m not voting for Obama. Voting for Obama is like the Titanic backing up to the iceberg again.”

A former Democrat before he became “Decline To State” in the legislature in 2011, the plain-spoken Nuñez didn’t mention supporting Mitt Romney. What about Gary Johnson, a fellow third-party guy?

“I like Gary Johnson,” Nuñez said, “but I don’t think he’s the right guy for president.”

In the past couple Roundhouse sessions, Nuñez has become best known for sponsoring legislation aimed at rescinding the state law that grants driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Nuñez said Friday he’ll re-introduce the bill again in the next session — and said he’ll re-introduce another piece of legislation as well: To change the state law so that voters unaffiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties can vote in primaries.

“I think we’re [independents] are being disenfranchised,” Nuñez said.

Under the resolution Nuñez supports, voters who declare themselves “Decline To State” would be able to request a Democratic or Republican ballot in the June primaries. As Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican pointed out earlier this year, “17 percent of voters statewide are independents — which means they can’t participate in primary elections, which are paid for by the state. In Santa Fe County, declined-to-states outnumber Republicans.”

Nuñez introduced such a resolution in the last legislative session but Democrats and Republicans in committee combined to squash it.

Changing the law would require amending the state constitution so the resolution would have to pass both chambers of the Roundhouse, get signed by the governor and then be approved by voters in a general election.

“The people in Santa Fe [legislators] don’t realize that it has to go to the voters anyway,” Nuñez said. “Let the voters decide if they want us to vote or not in the primary.”

To introduce the resolution next year, Nuñez has to get re-elected in November. A member of the Roundhouse since 2001, Nuñez is facing a Republican challenger (Mike Tellez of Las Cruces) and a Democratic challenger (Phillip Archuleta of Las Cruces) in November in a district that was slightly reapportioned in redistricting.

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Click here to listen to the audio archive of the Nuñez interview on News New Mexico.