WASHINGTON — President Bush's decision to back Sen. Mel Martinez to help lead the Republican Party, a move intended to appeal to disaffected Latino voters, drew sharp criticism Tuesday from some of the party's core conservatives, who disdain the Florida lawmaker's support for liberalized immigration laws.
The decision to name the Cuban-born Martinez as Republican National Committee general chairman served as an acknowledgment that the GOP had lost ground among Latinos; in last week's midterm election, the Republican share of the Latino vote dropped to 30% from more than 40% in 2004. Party leaders have said they need to build more support among Latinos for the GOP to regain its dominance.
Martinez supported legislation to create a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for many immigrants who are in this country illegally; Bush and many Latinos also backed versions of that plan. But the legislation that passed the Senate this year created a firestorm of opposition among conservative Republicans and much of the House GOP leadership, who derided it as amnesty for lawbreakers.
Criticism of Martinez came Tuesday from several conservatives, including Curly Haugland, an RNC member from North Dakota, who said he believed the party was far too focused on pandering to minorities.
"We're losing our base in droves because they don't get campaigned to," he said, referring to GOP-leaning conservatives.
Randy Pullen of Arizona, another RNC member and an activist against illegal immigration, likened Martinez's selection to the episode last year in which Bush named his longtime friend and legal counsel to the Supreme Court, only to reverse himself after a furious conservative backlash.
"I'm hoping that it's not another Harriet Miers moment," Pullen said.
Another leading critic of Bush's stance on immigration, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, offered tepid support for Martinez.
Tancredo called the senator a "competent spokesman for our party," but added that if he "rejects the will of rank-and-file Republicans and uses the position to advocate for things like the president's amnesty proposal, then I believe the party could be headed for another shellacking at the polls in 2008."
Members of the Republican National Committee will meet in January to replace outgoing Chairman Ken Mehlman, who will leave after a two-year term in which an aggressive minority outreach effort was hampered by the immigration debate and other issues.
