New Mexico Independent: GOP women’s group board quits en masse after Stirman refuses to quit

New Mexico Independent

GOP women’s group board quits en masse after Stirman refuses to quit

All of the members of the Republican Women of Otero County have quit after the embattled head of the group, Martha Stirman, refused to resign her post.

As the Independent’s Heath Haussamen reported, on Oct. 21 the Alamogordo Daily News published a letter in which Stirman wrote, “I believe Muslims are our enemies. … I believe war is a fact of life and we should always win. … I believe there is a moderate and a socialist in this election. I agree with a two-party system, but Obama isn’t a messiah or a democrat. He’s a Muslim socialist.”

Last week, after a firestorm of angry response to Stirman’s letter, the executive board of the Otero County Republican Party and the Republican Women of Otero County asked Stirman to resign.

As the Carlsbad Current Argus reports today:

The executive board of the Otero County Republican Party and the Republican Women of Otero County asked Stirman to resign last week, county GOP Chairwoman Sassy Tinling said. Stirman refused, and Tinling said the rest of the board of the Republican Women’s group immediately gave their resignations to Stirman.

Tinling also said the county party’s executive committee ”has chosen to disassociate itself from the RWOOC as it exists today” and that the Otero County GOP will no longer recognize Stirman’s position on its board.

…”It is unfortunate that Mrs. Stirman used the RPOC and RWOOC as a conduit for her personal views,” said Tinling, who apologized on behalf of the Republican Party of Otero County and its board ”to anyone offended by Mrs. Stirman’s comments.”

New Mexico FBIHOP: Xenophobic, Anti-Muslim Otero County Republican to Run for Re-election

New Mexico FBIHOP

Xenophobic, Anti-Muslim Otero County Republican to Run for Re-election

Marcia Stirman, who touched off a firestorm by writing a letter to the editor in the Alamogordo Daily News which called Obama a Muslim socialist has no plans to resign her position.In fact, she intends to run for re-election next Wednesday as chair of Republican Women of Otero County according to the Albuquerque Journal.

It is also quite funny how all of a sudden her story has changed on whether all Muslims are enemies in her xenophobic mind or not.

Stirman also said her comments have been misunderstood. She said she never meant to suggest that all Muslims are America’s enemies, only that those “who are trying to kill us” are.”It’s taken on a life of its own. It’s taken on a meaning that I never intended,” Stirman said in a telephone interview.

She added: “Can you say that all Christians are good? Absolutely not. … It’s not true.”

Yet, she told the Associated Press this:

When asked why she thought Muslims are an enemy Stirman said, “Well in the Muslim world, if you are not Muslim, you are an infidel, and if you are an infidel, they consider you the enemy.”

Talking Points Memo: Did New Mexico GOP Lawyer Hire P.I. To Intimidate Minority Voters?

Talking Points Memo

Did New Mexico GOP Lawyer Hire P.I. To Intimidate Minority Voters?

Minority voters in New Mexico report to TPMmuckraker that a private investigator working with Republican party lawyer Pat Rogers has appeared in person at the homes of their family members, intimidating and confusing them about their right to vote in the general election.

Earlier this week, we reported that Rogers — a lawyer and state committeeman for the GOP, who in previous elections worked closely with the party in pressuring New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to pursue bogus voter fraud cases — isinvolved with a new effort to gin up concerns about the issue. Last week the state party falsely claimed that 28 people had voted fraudulently in a local Democratic primary race in June. Rogers, described in an Associated Press report on the allegations as “an attorney who advises the state GOP,” told the news wire that the party planned to turn the suspect forms over to law enforcement authorities.

The visits to minority voters by the P.I. appear to be connected to last week’s effort.

The story starts last week, when several representatives of the New Mexico Republican party, including Rogers, held a press conference to announce that 28 people had voted fraudulently in a Democratic primary in June in Bernalillo county, which contains Albuquerque. The party released the names of ten of these people — almost all of whom are Hispanic.

The allegations quickly fell apart. ACORN announced that it had contacted the county clerk’s office, who had verified that all of the voters were in fact legitimate. The group now says it has independently contacted 8 of these 10 voters to separately verify their validity.

…

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Guadalupe Bojorquez, who works in law enforcement in Albuquerque, told TPMmuckraker today that her mother, Dora Escobedo, was one of the ten voters whose names were released by the GOP. After this happened, said Bojorquez, her mother had been contacted by the voter registration group ACORN. Bojorquez, with ACORN’s help, confirmed with the county clerk that her mother, who does not speak English, is indeed eligible to vote, and had been when she voted in June.

Nonetheless, Bojorquez said that her mother yesterday received a visit from a man who asked for her personal information, including an ID, in reference to her eligibility to vote. Bojorquez told TPMmuckraker that according to her mother, at one point the man asked what she would do if immigration authorities contacted her.

After Bojorquez’s mother, frightened, refused to let him in the door, the man waited outside her house. Eventually, Bojorquez’s brother arrived at the house, emboldening Bojorquez’s mother to go outside, call Bojorquez, and put her on the phone with the man.

New Mexico Independent: N.M. GOP leader calls Obama a ‘Muslim socialist’

New Mexico Independent

N.M. GOP leader calls Obama a ‘Muslim socialist’

A New Mexico Republican leader is under fire today for writing a letter to the editor of theAlamogordo Daily News in which she called Barack Obama a “Muslim socialist.” Oh, but it gets worse. Marcia Stirman, the leader of a group called the Republican Women of Otero County, defended herself to the AP by saying something far, far more offensive and embarrassing:

Asked for a response to Awad’s concerns, she said of Muslims: ”I don’t trust them at all. They’ve sworn across the world that they are our enemies. Why we’re trying to elect one is beside me.”

Stirman is now getting her 15 minutes of fame. She’s made an appearance on a Wall Street Journal blog, but she probably won’t be too happy about what it says:

One of the most striking parts of Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama was his accusation that Republicans have helped spread the rumor that Sen. Obama is Muslim, and turned the word into a smear. “I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists,” he said.

Some Republicans took umbrage at the comment, saying John McCain and Republicans haven’t directly made such an accusation. Jonah Goldberg, a writer for The National Review, said it was a “low and dishonest blow,” and asked: “Is there really much evidence that the GOP or the McCain campaign have had anything to do with the stories that Obama is a Muslim?”

New Mexico Independent: Don’t be resigned. Push back against racism

New Mexico Independent

Don’t be resigned. Push back against racism

Instead I’m thinking about race in America.

As in, Race.

I’m having a hard time with the gross racism that’s all of a sudden burst into the open during this presidential campaign. Call it the Palin-effect.

Sarah Palin said Barack Obama ” pals around with terrorists,” and further added that he’s “not like us” at a rally last week. That set off a round of Republican rallies that literally spewed racial hatred at Obama.

It’s been well-documented and picked over in the press, with Frank Rich summing the situation up in a New York Times Op-Ed:

At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. …

…what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

New Mexico FBIHOP: C. de Baca Defends His Remarks on Morning Talk Show

New Mexico FBIHOP (9/25/08)

C. de Baca Defends His Remarks on Morning Talk Show

So Fernando C, de Baca (note to out of towners: his last name is C. de Baca not just de Baca) is still refusing to resign; word is tomorrow Steve Pearce will go to make his case for C. de Baca to tell him to resign.

…

Listen to it at What’s the Word. Do you believe C. de Baca’s responses and excuses?

New Mexico FBIHOP: BREAKING: C de Baca Retains Post as County Chair (Updated x2)

New Mexico FBIHOP: BREAKING (9/23/08)

C de Baca Retains Post as County Chair (Updated x2)

As soon as I finished my last post on the increasingly tangled and convoluted Fernando C de Baca mess, I saw this tweet from Peter St. Cyr:

Breaking News: Bernalillo County Executive Board gives C. de Baca vote of confidence. Chairman retains leadership post. Audio to follow.

St. Cyr will have the audio up at his blog soon.How was this guy not relieved of his position? Unless they have agreed to let him resign on his own terms…

New Mexico FBIHOP: Damaging Audio of C. de Baca Emerges

New Mexico FBIHOP (9/23/08)

Damaging Audio of C. de Baca Emerges

While the full audio of Fernando C de Baca speaking to a BBC Reporter at the State Fair last week may never emerge, some damaging audio from a BBC interview has been broadcast on KSFR-FM, a Santa Fe radio station.Southern New Mexico blogger Heath Haussamen was the first with the audio, which you can hear to the right.

Here is what C de Baca said in the KSFR audio:

I feel strongly that Hispanics will not support, in my generation and the generation around my age, are not going to support the Democratic candidate for president primarily because there is a strong feeling that African Americans during the civil rights movement took advantage, full advantage, of all the benefits and programs that the government offered, that were supposed to be offered to all minorities. But we were left behind, we were left sucking air, and we resented that ever since the 60s, and I don’t see how a black president is going to change that.

New Mexico Politics From the Local Perspective: GOP Wants C de Baca To Resign; Will He Go Quietly?

New Mexico Politics From the Local Perspective (9/23/08)

GOP Wants C de Baca To Resign; Will He Go Quietly?

OK, this story isn’t going away and is, in fact, gaining more and more momentum as the days go on and Fernando C. de Baca refuses to talk to anyone about his horrible comments to a BBC reporter.

And the state Republican Party is noticing. The Albuquerque Journal reported:

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., joined state Republican Party Chairman Allen Weh and others in the GOP in asking C de Baca to step down.”Fernando C de Baca should resign,” Domenici said in a Journal telephone interview early Monday evening after he tried to reach C de Baca for an explanation.

“The Republican Party cannot let a high-ranking official remain in an active position having made this kind of statement,” Domenici said. “It’s a wrong statement to make. That’s not what Republicans believe.”

Weh also was unyielding. “There’s an overwhelming consensus in the Republican Party at large that he should step aside,” he said. “It has become … an unfair distraction to every issue that should be focused on in this election.”

New Mexico Politics From the Local Perspective: BBC Reporter Defends His Reporting

New Mexico Politics From the Local Perspective (9/23/08)

BBC Reporter Defends His Reporting

Jon Kelly is standing by the controversial quote which has landed Fernando C. de Baca in hot water. Kelly wrote this:

“The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors,” he said. “African-Americans came here as slaves.”Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.”

C. de Baca pushed back, saying he was quoted out of context by the BBC reporter in an interview with Peter St. Cyr.The BBC has issued a statement from Patricia Lodge, the International Communications Manager of BBC Global News.

“Jon Kelly accurately reported what Fernando C. de Baca said to him about Hispanic perceptions towards African Americans. The BBC has not received any complaints about the report from Mr de Baca or the Republican Party.”