Conservatives Blast Harry Reid for Remark about Hispanic Voters

[pampango]

Source: CBS News

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday made an appeal to Latino voters that conservatives are saying smacks of racial insensitivity. At a Nevada campaign event with Latino supporters, Reid blasted Republicans for blocking comprehensive immigration reform, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

"I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK," Reid said. "Do I need to say more?"

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said Reid's comments were condescending. "Hispanic voters don't have a 'herd mentality,'" he said. "They have shown that their vote cannot be taken for granted by any party and that they will support candidates who will defend the principles they believe in -- the sanctity of the family, the dignity of the human person, hard work and entrepreneurship, among others."

In April, Reid promised Hispanic activists that he would deliver comprehensive immigration reform this year, the Review-Journal points out, and said there would be "no excuses" for failure. The push for immigration reform has lost steam in Washington, however, as Republicans who once took a moderate stance on the issue -- such as Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain -- have pulled back on their support. Now, Republicans are pushing even further to the right on the issue, calling for a reconsideration of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship for anyone born in the United States, even if their parents are in the country illegally.

Reid's Republican opponent, Tea Party-backed Sharron Angle, has said she agrees that "Congress needs to become involved" in addressing questions about the 14th Amendment, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Angle also opposes the DREAM Act, a measure Reid is pushing that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented students who came to the United States as minors and meet other certain criteria. Angle said "amnesty" is "generally cloaked within those proposals," the Sun reports.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20013321-503544.html

[qb]

1. Republicans concerned about racial insensitivity?

:rofl:

[Xipe Totec]

2. Nice try. Won't work

Anybody who would vote Republican these days is a moron. Hispanic or otherwise.

[tridim]

3. Hey Alfonso Aguilar, hispanic voters are not stupid either.

[BeyondGeography]

4. They're only re-focusing attention on their own failings by making a big deal of that quote

:dunce:

[sinkingfeeling]

5. LOL! The Teapublicans are worried about 'racial insensitivity'?

[TlalocW]

6. Alfonso, let me tell you a story...

I'm a white guy who has a degree in Spanish and am very interested in Hispanic/Latin culture. In 2000 I went to my last U.S. Hispanic Leadership Conference in Chicago, Illinois, even though I was no longer any kind of college student as a friend who had just become the Hispanic Student adviser at an out-of-state university (University of Texas at El Paso) invited me to share his hotel room. He introduced me to the students that he was chaperoning on the trip. Interesting thing about UTEP - there's an agreement between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico (the city just over the border), to charge Mexican nationals about the same amount as American students, and it's very easy for Mexican students to go back and forth across the border. 90% of the students my friend had brought with him were Mexican nationals, and they told me this story...

Recall this was 2000, an election year. The GOP convention in an (unsuccessful) effort to show how much they loved non-whites were dedicating a section of time each night of the convention for various minority groups to highlight their love of candidate George W. Bush. People from the Bush campaign went to my friend's students, knowing they were Mexican nationals, and asked them if they would like to take part in a "non-partisan political event," to learn more about American politics. They said yes since their travel and board would be paid for. They were bussed from El Paso to Philadelphia for the GOP "non-partisan" Convention, and were confusedly hurried on stage for "Hispanic" night while W's Hispanic nephew, George P. talked about W's Hispanic support. They appreciated the humor in being used as they got a free trip out of it, but it raises an interesting point: Why couldn't W's campaign actually find young Hispanics that supported him? Probably because it was more cost-effective to fool some non-citizens than to comb the country for 20 young Hispanics to go up on stage.

The previous night had been "Black support night," and a Black gospel group had been featured. When reporters asked the director why they supported George W. Bush, he said he didn't. He just didn't want to pass up the opportunity for his choir to be on national television.

Democrats do their best not to take Hispanic and Black democrats and independents for granted. Sometimes they fail, but considering the vast majority of them still vote for us, Alfonso, and we also aren't working hard to get White republicans to vote for us, do you think what you say really matters?

TlalocW

[SoapBox]

7. Hey Alfonso...So who is greasing your pockets with money?

What idiot (well, there is the Idiot Steele and the Idiot Gay Log Cabin RushTurdLican'ts) would
tolerate the crap dished out to anyone not white, by the GOBPers, RushTurdLican'ts and the TeaHaterBaggers?

It's bizarre...and it can only be that anyone other than white that supports The Party of Hate,
is getting greased by money and power.

[karynnj]

8. Ha Ha - It's not racial insensitivity - it is insenstivity to Republicans

Which is ok with me. One of my three daughters spoke of a time when we had banned so many insulting words, when they were really angry with each other they sometimes called the offending one a "Republican". I don't remember this and think she is using some poetic license, but it's not far off.

[ladywnch]

9. WOW, what a stinging racial attack!

how monumentally insensitive!!!!!

what a vulgarian! string him up!!!!




what a load of crap!!!! Alfonso Aguilar's day job is teaching a class in 'how to creat a tempest in a teacup'. mind you, he's not very good at it, but you know what they say, those that can't do teach.


and please no flame about the teaching remark, I hold teachers in very high regard......school boards on the other hand....

[pampango]

10. Related story: "Sen. Harry Reid doubles down on Hispanic comment"

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40948.html

Harry Reid’s campaign is not shying away from the Senate majority leader’s questioning of why “anyone with Hispanic heritage could be a Republican,” instead using it to attack GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle's relationships with the Hispanic community.

Angle's campaign seized on the comment, telling POLITICO in an e-mail that “Harry Reid cannot give any good reasons why people should vote for him, so now he is turning to race and ethnicity.”

But in a statement Wednesday morning, the Reid campaign doubled down on the line. “Sen. Reid’s contention was simply that he doesn't understand how anyone, Hispanic or otherwise, would vote for Republican candidates because they oppose saving teachers’ jobs, oppose job-creating tax incentives for small businesses, oppose investments in job-creating clean energy projects, and oppose the help for struggling, unemployed Nevadans to put food on the table and stay in their homes,” read the statement.

Reid’s campaign also pointed reporters to research from the campaign on Angle’s “extreme and dangerous agenda for Hispanic Nevadans,” including a report from Las Vegas’s KLAS on complaints from Hispanic media outlets that they have been “shut out” from covering Angle’s campaign.

“Despite the efforts of Republicans like Sharron Angle to change the U.S. Constitution and block comprehensive immigration reform, Sen. Reid will continue to wake up and fight every day for the interests of Hispanic Nevadans.”

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. "Alfonso Aguilar" oh not that douchebag. Stephanie Miller had him stuttering. Who other

than himself and his family are members of this "group"?

[Arkana]

12. Ahahaha. Weaksauce.

Reid's absolutely right, of course. It's like Jews for Hitler.

[izquierdista]

13. Let the eagle soar....

I think we found the one Ashcroft was singing about. I think this one is headed for a ......bzzzzt! power line. Oops, that must have hurt!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. I don't know how ANYONE could be a Republican

[robcon]

15. It WAS a stupid remark...

lumping all 'Hispanics' as if they are one people.