Former Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, R-N.Y., was clearly enjoying himself Tuesday as he addressed the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention, telling old campaign stories and recalling days when New York Republicans constituted a powerful force.
But the three-term former senator assumed a much more serious tone when he later told reporters that the New York GOP must reach out to Hispanics and immigrants in order to once again become viable statewide.
“We need to make a concerted effort to get the biggest growing bloc participating in politics – the Hispanic community,” he said. “I look at that community as a very hardworking, family-oriented community that Republicans should be appealing to.”
D’Amato, 75, compared Hispanics to the Italian immigrants of his grandparents’ generation who found a home in the GOP. He said today’s party leaders should make the same outreach efforts.
Now head of a major lobbying firm called Park Strategies, D’Amato, asked about policy friendly to Hispanics, gave credit to President Obama for making it easier for the children of illegal immigrants to remain in the country.
But he also said the president should be faulted for maintaining troops in places like Afghanistan when they could be guarding U.S. borders against illegal immigrants.
D’Amato said the party faces tough times unless it broadens its appeal, acknowledging that statewide victories are not as attainable as they were in his day, when Democrats enjoyed an enrollment advantage of only about 500,000 compared with three million today.
“Unless you have a well-funded campaign or a badly flawed Democrat, it’s awfully difficult,” he said. “Make no mistake about it, it’s a very difficult task.”
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Western New York’s Republican leaders weren’t exactly impressed with the big show Ron Paul supporters made on the convention floor Tuesday.
Upset that the convention adopted new presidential nominating rules that will make it more difficult for insurgents like Paul to make serious runs for the nomination, Paul delegates booed and chanted loudly. And Paul himself told Fox News that he might not vote for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
But Paul, a Texas congressman known for his libertarian views, has no delegates in New York and won little sympathy there.
“The party needs to come together and focus on the nominee,” said Erie County Republican Chairman Nicholas A. Langworthy. “This convention should be about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Anything else is a distraction.”
Michael J. Norris, the Niagara County Republican chairman, agreed.
“We’d ask all Republicans to come together so that we can elect Mitt Romney over the alternative,” he said.
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Some members of the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention got an unexpected ride part of the way to Fort Myers – way south of where they are staying in Clearwater Beach – on their way back from the welcome party in St. Petersburg on Sunday night.
The bus driver carrying the delegates and their spouses was supposed to head north from St. Petersburg to Clearwater, but instead he turned south. By the time he figured out he was going in the wrong direction, he had turned what should have been a half-hour ride into a 90-minute odyssey.
Someone from the back of the bus alerted the driver to his mistake, said Dorothy Morgan, wife of Orleans County Republican Chairman Ed Morgan.
“The bus driver said he wasn’t from around here and didn’t know the way,” Morgan said. “There was a police officer on board, and he didn’t know where he was going, either.”
The bus eventually arrived safely at the Hilton hotel in Clearwater Beach.
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Downstate delegates and alternates in particular seemed to enjoy a trip Tuesday afternoon to Legends Field, the springtime home of the New York Yankees.
Bucky Dent, the retired Yankee shortstop famous for a 1978 home run against the Boston Red Sox that propelled his team to the American League’s Eastern Division championship, greeted the New York Republicans.
The GOP visitors then enjoyed lunch – and many took a few cuts at home plate.“I was pretty happy,” said Anthony Pancella III, the chairman of the Republican Committee in the Town of Babylon, on Long Island. “My last swing was a double down the line.”

– News Washington Bureau Chief Jerry Zremski and News Political Reporter Robert J. McCarthy