The current kerfuffle in Alaska about a candidiate for U.S. Senate with a name similar to the state’s current Republican U.S. Senator, Dan S. Sullivan, reminds me of a similar incident in New Mexico politics back in the 1960s.
Republicans are claiming that a candidate with the name of Daniel J. Sullivan was deliberately placed on the Alaska general election ballot in order to dilute the vote for the current office holder and give a win to Democrat Mary Peltola. The current administration has asked the Justice Department to nullify results of the election if the Democrat wins.
My recollection of the case in New Mexico in the 1960s is a bit fuzzy and I couldn’t find anything in various searches, but what I do remember is this.* Montoya was seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1960s and was considered the front runner. Although it was never proved, some political operatives who didn’t favor Montoya rounded up two or three individuals with names like “Joseph E. Montoya,” “Joseph N. Montoya,” and “Joseph A. Montoya” and convinced them to enter the primary and have those confusing names on the primary ballot. The trickery did not work, and Montoya went on to serve from 1957 to 1964 in the U.S. House of Representatives, then won the U.S. Senate race in 1964 to serve 12 years.
His election to the Senate came during another bit of New Mexico political maneuvering. Republican Gov. Edwin Mechem had lost his bid for another term as governor on Nov. 6, 1962, when he arranged to have his lieutenant governor — now governor — to appoint him to the remaining term of U.S. Sen. Dennis Chavez. Chavez, a Democrat, had died later that month. Mechem hoped his brief tenure in the Senate would give him an advantage to retain the seat permanently. The maneuver didn’t work and Montoya went on to serve 12 years in the Senate.
Montoya’s political demise came after another notable event in New Mexico politics. In his re-election bid in in 1976, he gave a speech in Spanish denouncing his Republican opponent, former astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt. In his speech, which he apparently assumed no one but Spanish speakers would hear, he called Schmitt a “changito,” a derogatory term for “little monkey.” The remark intended to imply Schmitt was just another monkey that had been sent into space and not qualified to be a member of the U.S. Senate.
A former colleague and friend, Larry Calloway of the Associated Press, was present at that speech and understood Spanish. He wrote a story about Montoya’s remark, and the statewide fallout led to Schmitt being elected by a 57 percent to 42 percent margin.
Calloway’s story has been dubbed “The Monkey Speech.
*If you have a different recollection of this event, specifically the date of that election, please let me know and I will correct the error in a future post.
