The U.S. Republican Party, one of the two major political parties in the country, has recognized its CNMI counterpart, boosting the local party\u2019s bid in the next Commonwealth elections.<\/p>\n
The CNMI Republican Party now expects to have gained advantage in local elections, since it could tap the support of the national party and its members.<\/p>\n
The recognition allows the local Republican Party to field three voting delegates to the group\u2019s 2008 national convention that would determine who the next presidential standard bearer would be. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big deal,\u201d said Pete Callaghan, press secretary to Gov. Juan N. Babauta, a Republican.<\/p>\n
Besides projecting an advantage for the GOP in local elections, Callaghan said the governor would have expanded clout in garnering congressional and federal support on policies relevant to the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also brings recognition to the entire Commonwealth,\u201d Callaghan said. \u201cThey know who we are. They know we exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
The local GOP becomes the first CNMI party to be recognized nationally, Callaghan said.<\/p>\n
In a recent meeting among members of the Republican Party National Rules Committee in New York, the local GOP got the national party\u2019s nod for accreditation, garnering a \u201cclear majority\u201d votes among the members. Each state had two representatives in the meeting, Callaghan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Republican Party of the Northern Marianas is now recognized by the Republican Party of the United States. We can now vote for who is to be candidate for [U.S.] president for the party,\u201d Callaghan said.<\/p>\n
Callaghan said local GOP president John Reyes and Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio lobbied for party recognition.<\/p>\n
Callaghan said the national party also recognized local counterparts in Guam and American Samoa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Republican Party, one of the two major political parties in the country, has recognized its CNMI counterpart, boosting the local party\u2019s bid in the next Commonwealth elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}