GOP Grilling of Sotomayor: No Hit with Hispanic Voters

[babylonsister]

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1910842,00.html

GOP Grilling of Sotomayor: No Hit with Hispanic Voters
By Jay Newton-Small / Washington Thursday, Jul. 16, 2009

snip//

For a Republican Party that has already lost much of its standing with the country's Hispanic population, the entire Sotomayor nomination has spelled trouble. Ever since President Barack Obama announced his choice to replace David Souter on the nation's highest court, the GOP has had to tread lightly in appealing to its conservative base by fighting the nomination of the first Hispanic American to the bench. It hasn't helped matters that one of their major lines of attack against Sotomayor seems borne out of ethnic stereotypes — the contention that she is a temperamental person unable to resist her own passions and biases in deciding cases. Latinos are the fastest-growing demographic in America and often the deciding bloc in swing states like Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. After the Republicans' anti-immigration-reform stance alienated Hispanic voters, they became a key ingredient in Obama's victory, with the Democrat winning two-thirds of their votes nationwide. And now, with Latin-American groups across the country paying close attention to the hearings, seemingly innocent, offhand quips like Coburn's aren't helping the GOP's case.

"It was insensitive," says Representative Charlie Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat who chairs the Hispanic Caucus Civil Rights Task Force. "It probably demonstrates where the Republican Party is today. They just don't get it. This is a serious issue for many members of the Latino community. Growing up, you're very conscious of the mispronunciation of words. Sometimes it was also a subject of humor, but I think Dr. Coburn doesn't understand the stereotyping he was engaging in." (Read "Just What Is a 'Wise Latina,' Anyway?")

Lillian Rodriguez, president of the Hispanic Federation, an organization that builds Latino institutions in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, says she understood that the remark was meant in jest, "but you've got to be very careful in those kinds of characterizations. It sends a message that that's the way you see us: in a time capsule of a 1950s sitcom. We've progressed a long way since then."

Coburn's poor attempt at humor was all the more notable because the committee's seven Republicans have thus far kept their questioning relatively respectful, something that hasn't gone unnoticed by Democrats. "During the course of this nomination, there have been some unfortunate comments, including outrageous charges of racism made about you on radio and television," Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the panel's chairman, told Sotomayor on July 14. "One person referred to you as being the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan. Another leader in the other party referred to you as — as being a bigot. And to the credit of the Republican Senators, they have not repeated those charges." Leahy was referring to jibes made by former Republican Representative Tom Tancredo and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich soon after Obama named Sotomayor. Gingrich later apologized for his comments.

[KamaAina]

1. I'm shocked, I tell you.

Shocked! :sarcasm:

[noiretextatique]

2. i am sure latinos were not amused by coburn's antics

or sessions' or graham's or any of the other dumbass republiracists.

[DebbieCDC]

3. I found Coburn's comment offensive

and I'm not Latina

[Hepburn]

4. One of my gal pals is Puerto Rican....

...and, yeah, she is offended by the WASP bigoted bullshit from the old white men.

[Chemisse]

5. I finally found the I Love Lucy reference

in that article.

"You'll have lots of 'splainin' to do," Coburn interrupted, invoking a phrase familiar to fans of the 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy, on which Lucy's long-suffering husband Ricky Ricardo (Cuban-American Desi Arnaz in real life) would often utter the refrain in exasperation at his zany wife's antics. Sotomayor paused awkwardly before nervously agreeing with a chuckle, "I'd be in a lot of trouble then."


Un-freaking believable.

[starroute]

6. Puerto Ricans have their own history of suffering from discrimination

This isn't a point I've seen being raised -- but although Mexicans and other Central Americans have been the primary targets of anti-Latino prejudice in recent years, Puerto Ricans were the main target back when Sotomayor was a little girl.

I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 50's -- and I can testify that a lot more prejudice was expressed against Puerto Ricans than against blacks.

All the good West Side liberals had decided that supporting civil rights for blacks was a core liberal cause -- and besides, the black folks were up in Harlem and not impinging on them. But the Puerto Ricans were right there, living in the slightly run-down buildings down the street, the men sitting out front playing dominoes, the women in their garish ruffled dresses, the non-English speaking kids in the public schools, the bodegas taking over the storefronts, the gang warfare...

They were exotic and they were foreign and they scared the shit out of a lot of otherwise decent middle-class Jewish liberals. And I head a lot of complaints and a lot of outright hatred and a lot of why-don't-they-go-back-where-they-came-from as I was growing up.

And from the other side, you've got to know that Sotomayor was on the receiving end of those same complaints and that same hatred. Frankly, I think it's amazing that she can be as calm and as non-judgmental with those sack-of-shit senators as she is. If it were me, I don't think I'd be able to sit there and take it. But then, I suppose that's why she has a judicial temperament and I don't.

[RandySF]

7. Kyl is toast in AZ

and I wonder if McCain could be collateral damage well.

[autorank]

8. k*4 The Repubs in Congress will finish what Rush and Gnewt started

This is what's called political suicide. There is no missing the message - fools likes Gingrich and Limbaugh did the
heavy lifting and then these Congressional types try to restrain their true nature and fail. IN the mean time,
Sotomayor is scoring points on a regular basis. The Cardozo comment, her favorite judge, was just brilliant.

A the rule for general elections, presidential, turned out to be this -- the Democrats need around 66% of the Latino
vote to win the presidential election. Supposedly, they didn't get that in 2004 (which was later proved false).
But in 2008, it was there big time. Well, imagine a more potent voting block in 2012, maybe 11-12% of the total going
80-20% for the Democrat. Finito, adios Republican bigots. That would spill down to the state level.

The mileage that Republicans would get on the stronger voting block, trying to scare whites with that unity, wouldn't
work because everybody has seen this trash.

This just shows, there's nobody at the top of the Republican Party thinking these things out. They're toast.