Nevada delegates are loyal bunch

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Aug. 14, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.

LOS ANGELES -- When Rosa Mendoza's parents left Mexico and began raising a family of five children in the United States, her father planted his family's new roots in El Paso, Texas -- and in the Democratic Party.

One generation later, Rosa, 35, is a Las Vegan and a state delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, which began today.

"The opportunities we have here to be active in politics are paralleled in no other place in the world," Mendoza said. "My dad gave full credit to the Democratic Party, and he always said we should vote Democratic because they are for us, for the people, for working people."

Mendoza is one of 29 Nevada delegates among the 5,500 gathered in Los Angeles this week, 36 percent of whom are minorities.

As she looked around the dining room of a beachfront Santa Monica restaurant Sunday afternoon, she was somewhat floored to be mingling with state delegates who included Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"We were at this banquet -- I'm used to Furr's (Cafeteria) -- and I sat near Harry Reid, with his milky white skin and blue eyes, someone who is well-known, and rich, I assume," Mendoza said later Sunday. "Here I am between jobs. I thought, 'This is interesting.' "

The issue of whether Democrats or Republicans most closely mirror America continues to be a hot topic of debate after the GOP laid claim to the "inclusive" title at their convention in Philadelphia earlier this month.

Most Democrats say the faces of their delegates, their long-standing positions on issues such as affirmative action and women's rights, as well as President Clinton's hiring record make their party the champion of minorities.

Mendoza and fellow delegates Estella Morales and Ellen Nakamura discussed it during their car ride from Las Vegas to Los Angeles Sunday morning.

"The Republicans are not as they portrayed themselves on TV or in their rhetoric," Morales said. She plans to snare Spanish-language media this week and encourage them to focus on the actions of the parties, not the carefully scripted Republican convention, which included a number of minority speakers and Latin music.

Nakamura, 36, of Henderson, said she appreciates the diversity of opinion Sen. Joe Lieberman brings to the Democratic ticket, even though some Republicans have chided him for disagreeing with Gore on several issues.

"Most of the time I vote for the candidate, not the party," said Nakamura, the delegation's lone member of Asian descent. "But more often than not, I choose the Democrats."

Still, at least a few minority Democrats say the Republican Party deserves kudos for a good-faith effort to reach out to a variety of traditionally Democratic voters, especially young Hispanics and blacks. Democrats should take heed, said David Love of Reno, who is black.

"The Democrats are starting to take minorities for granted, not reaching out to them," Love said. "They assume they will be Democrats anyway, which may be true in certain cases."

Love adds that Republicans in Philadelphia "put on a good show." He's not convinced the GOP is a new bastion of diversity. Love's grandfather was active in Democratic politics in New Jersey, so his ties to the party are deep.

"He always said, 'Democratic theories run in our blood,' " Love said. "I'll always be a Democrat."

The 62-year-old, serving as one of four alternate Nevada delegates here, has been a delegate only once before -- as a Seton Hall University student in 1960, the last year Democrats met for their convention in Los Angeles.

"John F. Kennedy believed he could change the world," said Love, an avid Clinton supporter. "And I believed him." Forty years have changed a lot in the now-graying Love. The candidates have changed, too, he said. He's less charged about Gore.

"Gore still has to grow on me," Love said. "I really think he's still in Bill Clinton's shadow."

Love joined most of the Nevada delegates on Sunday night at trendy nightclub and restaurant, La Boca, on Wilshire Boulevard, hosted by the Democratic National Committee, and the Conga Room, a venture operated in part by actor Jimmy Smits, who showed up to greet some of the guests.

Mendoza said her politics have varied over the years from far left to far right -- she admits she voted once for Ronald Reagan -- but she has come back to the party her father taught her to revere. Mendoza said her 15-year-old daughter, Bianca, like Mendoza at 15, has no interest in politics -- yet.

"I'd like her to be political," Mendoza said. "Mostly, I want her to be benevolent, to live a meaningful life. If she becomes a Republican, nobody's perfect."