Editor,
My letter on Sept. 13 urging the College Democrats to convince their candidates to debate their Republican opponents at UNM has brought forth a torrent: B. Lee Drake had a guest column on Sept. 23, and Juan Carlos Holmes wrote on Oct. 10.
Once again, I e-mailed Drake four times but received a response only to the first query. The initial response was positive, agreeing to cooperate on debates between Lisa Torraco and Kari Brandenburg for Bernalillo County district attorney as well as between Reps. Steve Pearce and Tom Udall for the U.S. Senate. Regarding my three e-mails thereafter, I did not receive even the courtesy of a reply. Thanks to UNM law students, and not to College Democrats, there was an informative debate for the district attorney position at the law school Oct. 23.
Drake and Holmes charged that the College Republicans did not register voters, received lavish funding, did not bring Republican candidates to campus and did not promote volunteerism. None of this is true. Our field representative registered many voters on campus. College Republicans' fiscal budget from the University is $450, while College Democrats' is $1,600. We have sponsored talks and Q&As at UNM by Darren White, Torraco and Pearce. This is easily verified as ads were run in the Daily Lobo for each appearance.
We hope to have one more speaker before the election: Rick Abraham, the candidate for Bernalillo County clerk. Our presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, was at UNM a few weeks ago sponsored by our sister club, Students for McCain. We are active in volunteer work. Recently at Navajo Elementary School, our members picked weeds, swept, removed dead leaves and picked up trash. Also, we just conducted a fundraiser in Smith Plaza for injured Marines. Lastly, Holmes argued, "I should have known that the Student Activities Web site is in error and that Drake's title is president and not co-chairman." Sorry about that, Holmes. I knew that Barack Obama was the one. Thanks for letting me know that Drake is the other one.
Donald Gluck
President of UNM College Republicans
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