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Predictably, his aggressive tactics have drawn fire. But it is his appearances across the country to promote Hispanic Force '84, and some say himself, that particularly irk New Mexicans. "There is a feeling out there that he is not taking care of things at home," admits Harvey Fruman, Anaya's executive assistant and former law partner. In a single week last August, Anaya appeared on Night Line, Meet the Press and The Mac Neil-Lehrer Report. Cars in New Mexico sport bumper stickers that say TONEY, PHONE HOME. Anaya is unapologetic. Nevertheless, to allay the criticism, he has canceled some trips outside New Mexico and stepped up his public appearances instate.
But he is unlikely to absent himself from the circuit for long. Since his Governor's stint ends in January 1987, and the only near-term Senate contest would pit him against popular Incumbent Republican Pete Domenici, Anaya personally has a great deal riding on a Democratic victory in 1984. "In the short term, my involvement with the Hispanic Force is for the party and for the state of New Mexico and for Hispanics," he says. "But in the long term, the involvement is for myself. If a Democrat gets elected President, it opens up a lot of possibilities for me." He is known to aspire to a Cabinet post, perhaps U.S. Attorney General or Secretary of the Interior, or even the vice presidency. "I'm not promoting myself for the ticket," he maintains, "but if a Hispanic were considered, I would be one of them."
The main goal of Hispanic Force '84 is as ambitious as its chairman: to register 1 million new Hispanics by November 1984, bringing the total to 4.4 million (4.5% of the projected 1984 voter rolls). Coordinating the national sign-up campaign is the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in San Antonio, a nominally nonpartisan group credited with great success in registering Hispanics in electorally critical Texas and California. Hispanics are concentrated in six populous states — California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas — that cast 173 electoral votes, about three-fifths of the 270 needed to elect a President. On paper they have enormous clout: in California, for example, which has 47 electoral votes, 19% of the population is Hispanic. But the raw numbers over state their political strength. Nearly one-third of voting-age Hispanics nationwide are resident aliens and thus ineligible to vote. Of those who are eligible, slightly more than half are registered, and their turnout rate, 30%, is 23 percentage points below the national average. More over, Hispanics, who can be Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, or South or Central Americans, are diverse culturally and economically. Though they are overwhelmingly Democratic, they rarely vote as a bloc.
Indeed, in 1980, 30% of the Hispanic vote went to Ronald Reagan. In 1984 the G.O.P. is hoping for close to 35%, most of it from upwardly mobile Hispanics in the Sunbelt. The Republicans, like the Democrats, are heavily courting the Hispanic vote: Reagan recently proclaimed a National Hispanic Heritage Week, and the G.O.P. has established Viva '84, a program aimed at registering half a million new Hispanic Republicans.