Rumble in the RNC: GOP Factions Brawl over Immigration, Martinez

[ck4829]

“With some people, the issue of amnesty is a litmus test and anything short of a concentration camp is amnesty,” said Republican National Committee member Paul Senft Jr. of Florida. He was speaking of his fellow RNC members, a number of whom are plotting a party coup to prevent Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida), Bush’s pick, from assuming the title of general chairman.

Bush picked Martinez to head the Republican Party shortly after the midterm elections, in which the party lost control of both houses of Congress in spite of – or because of – the obsessive efforts by many to cement a Republican alliance with anti-immigrant extremism. Despite Martinez’s partisan and right-wing credentials – the Family Research Council gave him a perfect score – the Right reacted immediately by attacking the senator, who immigrated from Cuba as a teenager, for his support for comprehensive immigration reform. Pat Buchanan accused Bush of “pandering” to minorities only to alienate whites, and Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies called the pick “disturbing.” Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) warned that if Martinez continues to support comprehensive reform he will alienate “rank-and-file Republicans” and cause “another shellacking at the polls.”

While the president’s selection seemed like a foregone conclusion, a group called English First unveiled a campaign to “defeat” the nomination, launching StopMartinez.com: “Wrong on English. Wrong on Amnesty. Wrong for the Republican National Committee.” In addition to immigration reform and declaring English as the national language, the web site decries Martinez’s use of Spanish in a Senate speech, as well as his alleged position on statehood for Puerto Rico. (“Think West Virginia or Alaska, only poorer,” warns the group ominously.)

Now, at the RNC meeting in Washington (which began today), many members are planning to vote against Martinez – and according to The Washington Times, some are planning to invoke parliamentary rules to disqualify him.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/01/rumble_in_the_r.html

[hobbit709]

1. The RNC version

of the Kilkenny Cats! Watch them eat their own! Watch them froth at the mouth! Watch their pointy little heads explode!:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[marmar]

2. The nativists are restless.....

They should have known that the core values of the Republican Party - racism and xenophobia - would bubble up to the top. Eventually the pit bulls would turn on their owner.

[SeattleVet]

3. Tancredo is now all up in arms about the Democratic 'prebuttal'

speech before the State of the Union address being translated into Spanish. He must be absolutely LIVID about this:

http://www.gop.com/Espanol

Think he'll be doing a lot of complaining about this, too?