Allen Weh, chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, has cancelled a special meeting of the state central committee he called for this weekend to ask members to delay the election of a new chairman by a few weeks.
In cancelling the meeting, he’s ensuring that the election of a new chairman will proceed as planned on Jan. 10. Possible candidates include U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce and Farmington doctor Allen McCulloch, a former U.S. Senate candidate.
Weh said he called the meeting because he wanted to change a rule that required the early January vote in part because holding the election so quickly after the holidays forced candidates to campaign over the holidays. Critics accused Weh of attempting to stall the vote to give another politico time to build a serious challenge to the potential candidacies of Pearce and McCulloch.
McCulloch, who pushed hard against Weh’s proposal to postpone the election, praised the chairman’s decision to cancel the meeting.
“After my strong opposition to postponing the election for new party leadership, I am pleased to hear that Colonel Weh has called off the Saturday meeting of the state central committee,” McCulloch said in a prepared statement. “… The Republican Party of New Mexico must focus on the issues facing our future. Now, the party will be allowed to move forward in electing new officers in January, just in time for the beginning of the 60-day legislative session and the beginning of a much-needed rebuilding process.”
In explaining Weh’s decision to cancel the meeting, the state party wrote in an e-mail to committee members that Weh “was contacted by several members, many of whom were supportive of his efforts and the proposed rule change, to express their concern for having a meeting at an inconvenient date such as this, and he opted to defer to their wishes.”
Weh will put the proposed rule change on the table at the Jan. 10 meeting. If approved, it would apply beginning with the 2011 election of a chairman, not the coming January vote.
Pearce and McCulloch have not formally announced their candidacies for the job, but McCulloch has been running an apparent campaign that included a guest column published on this site and elsewhere and a letter to central committee members attacking Weh’s attempt to delay the vote.
Pearce has told other Republicans he’s thinking about running for the position but would likely step down halfway through the two-year term to run for another office in 2010. Speculation is that he may run for governor or again seek the congressional seat he’s vacating at the end of this month.