GOP operative Manny Miranda, who resigned after hacking into the computers of Senate Democrats and downloading documents related to their strategies on judicial nominations, is calling on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to filibuster Sonia Sotomayor's nomination. As for how to deal with potential fallout from Latinos who might be offended by the nature of the GOP's opposition to Sotomayor, (that she's an "affirmative action hire" etc.) David Weigel reports that Miranda has a novel idea:
Hispanic polls, Hispanic surveys, indicate that Hispanics think just like everyone else. We're not like African-Americans. We think just like everybody else. When I was on the leader's staff, someone called me once and asked me: “What's Senator Frist’s Hispanic agenda?” I said, “low taxes, better education, more jobs … what are you talking about?” And that’s how Hispanics are. This is an opportunity to educate them on all of our issues and they will resonate in the way that they resonate with everyone else.
For some GOP strategists, the solution to every problem looks like a wedge. Incidentally, how is Miranda's statement qualitatively different from the misinterpretation of Sotomayor's comments that is currently popular on the right? What does it mean that Latinos are "not like African-Americans" because they "think like everyone else"? I'm interested to hear Miranda's explanation of the cognitive differences between black people and the rest of America.
I sense an opportunity for some great slogans here. "Don't think like a moreno, vote Republican!"
-- A. Serwer
