Senator Mel Martinez is now chairman of the Republican National Committee. This blog seeks to keep a wary eye on the Martinez record on immigration and multiculturalism.
The key to any great sports movie? The quality of the Chill Scenes, those scenes
that give you goosebumps on top of your goosebumps. And Rocky was loaded with them:
...
The entire fight scene, basically a 10-minute Chill Scene (special emphasis on the
part when Adrian walks into the stadium just as Rocky gets knocked down in the 14th,
and then Rocky gets up and Creed, astounded, drops his shoulders in disbelief --
another 10.0 on the CFS, as well as my favorite moment in any Rocky movie).
Martinez’s record in campaigning, an important aspect of the top job at the RNC, is a bit more mixed. Aside from local offices, Martinez’s electoral experience on the state and federal level is a bit thinner than ideal.
While not an inexperienced lightweight, he is not a seasoned campaigner either. In 2000, he served as Bush’s co-chairman in Florida for the Presidential campaign. After serving as the President’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he was tapped to run for the open Senate seat in Florida in 2004. While the President won Florida by a 52% - 47% margin, Martinez squeaked by with 49 percent to Democrat Betty Castor’s percent While his statewide vote total was lower than Bush’s, he did manage to beat Castor in several traditional Democratic strongholds, such as Miami-Dade County.
Another and arguably a more important function of the RNC Federal Chairman (especially in split-responsibility arrangements) is to raise money. When there is both a General Chairman and a Chairman, the General Chairman’s job is to be the big name that draws in the money that will be used to campaign. Martinez’s record on fundraising for his only federal-level race is lackluster. In 2004 for his senate race, he raised $12,463,752 compared to the $11,601,990 raised by his Democratic opponent. To put that into perspective, Bob Corker, in his 2006 run for Senate, raised $15,173,962 against Harold Ford, Jr’s $9,886,998.
"We have had approximately 10 members of the Supreme Court that come from the United States Senate over the years," Reid said in June 2005. "There are people who serve in the Senate now, who are Republicans, who I think would be outstanding Supreme Court members." Reid named three Republican senators: Mike DeWine (Ohio), Mel Martinez (Fla.) and Mike Crapo (Idaho). A South Carolina newspaper reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also received his imprimatur.
SAUL SOLORZANO, CENTRAL AMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER: I certainly believe that 100 days are plenty to have Congress act on the immigration issue. The First Amendment gives the right to petition the government. And I think that civil participation is important, and I think that people will be posed to go back and again ask for action.
WIAN: Solorzano says the perfect storm now exists with President Bush, Republican party chair Mel Martinez, and top Democratic lawmakers all favoring a path to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens [emphasis added].
New Senate leader Harry Reid says an immigration bill will be among the first 10 introduced in the Senate. ...
WIAN: He [Reid] also says there will be no additional funding for the border fence bill signed by President Bush. Ironically, that bill was passed in part because of frustration with previous pro-amnesty protests.
Sen. John McCain’s Straight Talk America PAC held a Christmas Party last night ... Other names and faces seen at the party: Sens. Trent Lott, Lindsey Graham and Mel Martinez, as well as a beaming John Sununu, who insisted to the Hotline that he would stay neutral in his state’s primary. RNC chairman Ken Mehlman stopped by, as did about half of Mehlman’s senior RNC staff.
White House political director Sara Taylor, a protege of McCain adviser John Weaver’s, made her way from the White House.
I was shocked to discover that the hyperlink ostensibly explaining the "doubts about the translation" takes you to a Language Log post, specifically Mark Liberman's entry of Feb. 6, 2005, "Never pronouncing East Thursday?" ... Yes, Mark expressed doubts about that particular translation (since it had glaring errors like translating este jueves as "east Thursday"). But why in the world would the English Firsters commandeer a post about faulty MT as some sort of implicit critique of Martinez and his speech? ("Doubts about the translation" makes it sound like there was something sinister going on in the Spanish text that was omitted from the Senate's official English rendering.) Did they not actually read the post, or did they figure criticizing a translation of the speech  or rather a translation of an article about the speech  was tantamount to criticizing Martinez himself?
