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Dendahl down

Human Events, May 19, 2003 by Gizzi, John

No one disputed that in his nine years as Republican state chairman of New Mexico, John Dendahl ran a tight ship and was a successful party fundraiser. Even those party activists who did not particularly care for Dendahl agreed that the Santa Fe engineer and former state secretary of economic development and tourism was a first-rate administrator.

And that was the problem, because, for varying reasons, the ranks of those who did not care for Dendahl were substantial and, earlier this month, they proved to be substantial enough to bring him down. By a vote of 197 to 156, the Republican state central committee in the Land of Enchantment elected State Sen. Ramsay Gorham as chairman over the embattled Dendahl. The wife of wealthy Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) entrepreneur Frank Gorham, Ramsay Gorham is considered a strong conservative and is a particular favorite of cultural conservatives in the state party.

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Dendahl was also considered a strong conservative, but his downfall had little to do with ideology. Dendahl had strongly weighed in behind close friend and then-Republican Gov. (1994-2002) Gary Johnson two years ago after the governor made nationwide headlines denouncing the federal war on drugs and suggesting that some narcotics be decriminalized. After several years of a tempestuous working relationship with State GOP Executive Director Kevin Moomaw, the chairman fired Moomaw in 2000. In Dendahl's angry words, "Kevin is someone who believes in revenge and has devoted the years since to it." In part because of his firing of Moomaw, Dendahl's relationship with Sen. Pete Domenici (R.-N.M.) deteriorated and this year both the senator and his son, Albuquerque attorney and state central committee member Pete Domenici, Jr., were publicly in the Gorham camp. (Interestingly, New Mexico's two Republican U.S. representatives, Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce, issued statements expressing their belief that elected officials should remain neutral in party fights-their position, Dendahl noted, had the effect of "leaving my opponent with Domenici in her camp and me with no one from the congressional delegation.")

Last summer, Dendahl weathered a firestorm of negative publicity when he told national Republican officials that he knew of someone who would donate a six-figure amount to the Green Party candidates for Congress in order to help them take votes from the Democratic nominees and thereby assist Republican candidates Wilson and Pearce. "Dirty tricks!" charged Democrats, after the story about Dendahl and the prospective Green contributor made the front page of the New York Times.

For his part, Dendahl later explained to me, he had broken no law, no deal with the Green was ever made, and Dendahl has never disclosed the name of the mystery donor. But the firestorm surrounding the incident, he admitted, helped the cause of "those who do not like me."

At a packed meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Albuquerque, with only two members of the committee missing, Dendahl went down. He immediately conceded and congratulated Gorham, who announced that her first goal as chairman was to end the acrimony that had so plagued the party.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. May 19, 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

Dendahl down

Human Events, May 19, 2003 by Gizzi, John

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