New Mexico Political Journal Volume I, No. 7

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Monday, June 21, 2004 Roswell
Circulation: 4,632
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In this issue:

GOP Convention Results, analysis and comment
Candidates: Ethnicity, Race and Diversity

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State Republican Convention

The Republican Party of New Mexico held its quadrennial convention last Saturday, June 12 in Albuquerque. Listed below are the results of the voting.

Delegates to the Republican National Convention

At-large delegates: (12 Delegates, shown in bold, and 12 Alternates)

5 other candidates received votes

Delegates chosen by Congressional District:
(3 Delegates, shown in bold, and 3 Alternates in each district)

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Electors

New Mexico has five electoral votes in presidential elections. All parties fielding presidential candidates must select five electors, whose names are forwarded to the Office of the Secretary of State. On November 2 voters will make their choice among six presidential candidates in New Mexico. However, they will actually be choosing from the six slates of electors proposed by each of the presidential candidates' state party organizations. The five electors winning the most votes will meet in Santa Fe on December 13 to cast their electoral votes. The simultaneous gathering of 538 electors in 50 state capitols and the District of Columbia on that date constitutes the Electoral College. Voting for electors at the Republican State Convention was as follows:

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National Committeeman and National Committeewoman

In its reporting the day after the convention, the Albuquerque Journal described the position of National Commiteeman as the "boss" of the Republican Party of New Mexico. This is of course not at all true. It was revealing in that the Journal yet again, unwittingly, revealed the internal bigotry that dominates its editorializing, and bleeds over almost daily into its reporting. Why would the national committeeman be described as the "boss"? Why not the national committeewoman? (For the record, neither has anything to do with running the state party. That is the role of the state chairman.)

The Journal's bigotry is usually the in-your-face variety of the old Democrat Party in its halcyon days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rather it is largely subsumed into a supporting role to the principle mission of "taking down" conservatives.

The main objective of both the Journal and its ideological close relative, the Albuquerque Tribune, as well as several other left-leaning media outlets in the state, is to damage the Republican Party. The Democrat Party has dominated New Mexico since 1930, with Republicans occasionally holding the governor's office and one or two other positions, but never controlling the legislature. The Journal, Tribune and others have grown comfortable with the status quo, the institutionalized corruption it has brought, and the complete absence of intellectual rigor in either politics or the press.

They observe, wisely, that one of the most effective things they can do, both in state politics and national, is to continuously attack the most effective individuals, officials or operatives of the Republican Party: If they happen to be conservatives, endorse the liberal. If they are challengers, endorse the incumbent. If they are incumbents, endorse the challenger. If the more effective Republicans are on the right side of the issues, endorse those who are on the wrong side. Do anything, anything at all, to undercut the effectiveness of the conservative political alternative to the Journal-Tribune backed status quo.

This of course ends up in increasingly disrespectful treatment of Hispanics, women, Christians, Jews and conservatives. It is, we are sure, largely unconscious. Examples were the attacks by the Journal and Tribune on Representative Larry Larrañaga, a respected 10-year veteran of the legislature, and the substance-free, indeed borderline inane, endorsements of his Anglo challenger in the Republican primary race for State House District 27. You could tell they were "working it" pretty hard to justify going against a Hispanic Republican with a spotless, much-admired record. That is the way of bigotry.

The same papers, oddly, have always been knee-jerk in their efforts to attack the Republican Party the very second the GOP has had less than an exact quota of racial and ethnic representation for any meeting or convention. These attacks of course have been phony and insincere, but that's the Journal-Tribune. They are the same papers that have been unrelentingly merciless in attacks on John Sanchez, David Iglesias, Tom Benavides, Mario Burgos (another Republican Hispanic House candidate the Journal ganged up on) and many, many others whose only "crime" has been to be Republican AND Hispanic. The authors of the attacks unfailingly end up working in the Richardson Administration. Those cooking up stories now are angling for the same kind of position.

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Candidates: ethnicity, race, and diversity

We have written at length on the so-called "diversity" issue, and thoroughly reject the popular notions put forth in the media, and encouraged by modern liberals concerning what it truly means. We thought however it might be of interest to see what kind of ethnic and racial makeup was present at the Republican convention. Here are some observations.

The delegation to the Republican National Convention consists of 42 people, 21 delegates and 21 alternates. The convention also chose 5 electors and two members to serve on the Republican National Committee. A grand total of 49 positions were filled Saturday. 28 were filled by Anglos (though from a demographic viewpoint, the bulk of those were ethnic, e.g. Italian surnamed or other non Anglo-Saxon derivation) 16 were Hispanic, 3 were Black and 2 Native American.

The 21 delegates consisted of 11 Anglos (52%) and 10 minority (48%), very close to the voting age population, and more heavily minority than the actual universe of voters in the state.

More interesting perhaps is the participation. To be elected delegate, alternate or any other position, you have to run. 49 out of a total of 69 people seeking one or more positions at the convention were successful. Of these 69 candidates, 44 were Anglo, 20 were Hispanic, 3 Black and 2 Native American. 49 were elected.

The most successful racial group was Blacks. A Black candidate had a 100% chance of becoming a member of the New Mexico delegation. The same for Native Americans, 100% of candidates not only won, but were elected delegate. Among Hispanic candidates, 16 of 20 were successful, a success rate of 80%.

The odds of an Anglo candidate being elected were also good, 63.6%, though far below the probability of success of a minority candidate.

The conclusion is obvious. If more Hispanic, Native American and Black candidates had filed, they would have dominated the convention winners in all categories. The Republican delegation to New York would likely have been at least 60% minority, if not two-thirds.

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