Two top GOP officials — U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and state party Chairman Allen Weh – say Bernalillo County Republican Party Chairman Fernando C. de Baca should resign because of racially charged comments he was quoted as making last week.
“Fernando C de Baca should resign,” Domenici told the Albuquerque Journal. “The Republican Party cannot let a high-ranking official remain in an active position having made this kind of statement. It’s a wrong statement to make. That’s not what Republicans believe.”
Weh agreed.
“There’s an overwhelming consensus in the Republican Party at large that he should step aside,” the Journal quoted Weh as saying. “It has become … an unfair distraction to every issue that should be focused on in this election.”
And Elaine Miller, the county party’s vice chairwoman, told the Journal that stepping down “would be in his best interest, so we could get it behind us, so it doesn’t affect the election.”
C. de Baca has said he will resign at this morning’s meeting of the county party’s executive board if that’s what the board desires, but he maintains that his quote was taken out of context.
BBC News blogger Jon Kelly quoted C. de Baca in a Friday blog posting about the presidential race as saying that, “The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors. African-Americans came here as slaves. Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.”
Kelly and BBC News say Kelly quoted C. de Baca accurately and in the proper context.