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Danny
Vargas, the recently elected
chairman of the Dulles Regional
Chamber of Commerce, has now been
elected as the national chairman of
the Republican National Hispanic
Assembly.
The RNHA is the only national
organization of Hispanic Republicans and
conservative Latinos.
The stated mission
of the RNHA is to build a membership
organization to foster the principles of
the Republican Party in the Hispanic
community, provide Hispanic Americans
with a forum to play an influential role
in local, state, and national party
activities, increase the number of
Hispanic Republican elected officials,
and create and maintain a network of
Hispanic Republican leaders.
"The Hispanic vote will be a decisive
factor in the 2008 elections. Our next
president could very well be elected as
a result of the choices made by Hispanic
Americans," Vargas said. "The new
leadership of the RNHA is committed to
advancing and promoting the core beliefs
and principles of Republicanism.
Hispanic values are Republican values
and our job is to make that clear."
Having come from a Democratic New York
family of Puerto Rican descent, Vargas
admits that he is not the most likely
candidate to have become a Republican.
But he says that he joined the military
when Ronald Reagan was president in 1983
and just "gravitated toward the basic
core values of the party."
Vargas says that he still sees the
Republican Party as "the party of
Abraham Lincoln and the party that
believes in the dignity of the
individual and above all else, the party
that believes that civil liberties and
human rights ought to be respected."
"We want to make sure our people are
hearing both sides of the story and that
they know there are two parties out
there," he said. |
