Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the campaign trail in his native Nevada:
REID: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?"
How the Left stirs racial discord between Americans of Hispanic decent and other Americans is a topic I want to address in detail in the third part of my "Herding" series. But the assumptions in Senator Reid's short assertion need to be addressed right now.
Leaving aside the 2007 Republican establishment's push for amnesty for illegal aliens already living in the United States, most conservatives are for strict border enforcement first and decisions about illegal aliens already present afterward. In Harry Reid's statement lies the assumption that, Americans of Hispanic descent must naturally be in favor of allowing any and all Hispanics from Mexico (and other Spanish-speaking countries) into the USA without any controls at all--that, to Hispanic Americans, it's better to have more Spanish-speakers in the country, than it is to enforce the federal and state immigration laws.
A more important Reid assumption is this one: because conservatives want the borders of the country secure--because the Republican base does not want to give Hispanic Americans what he presumes they want-- Republicans and conservatives hate Hispanics.
Need he say more? No. The Coconut Treatment proceeds apace.
(Thanks to The Weekly Standard)
UPDATE: Sissy Willis notes that "A growing chorus of 'minority' Republicans are finding their voice." One, Cubachi, the American-born daughter of of Cuban exiles, has a few words for Senator Reid--well, more than a few:
My father [who had been political prisoner of Castro's Cuba] looked at the platform of the republican party that endorsed small government, lower taxes, and strong defense, while the democrat party embraced Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, murderers and tyrants, as some sort of folk heroes, and endorsed larger governments taking power away from the people.
...
Sweet justice for me, would be to see Marco Rubio enter the senate as you exist your way out to hand the keys to Sharron Angle.
Heh. I guess I'm so used to Democrats, Liberals and Leftists treating conservative non-whites, women, etc. like their intellectual runaways slaves, I don't even get mad at this stuff anymore. But it's nice to see Harry get a chewing. The only problem is this: I'm not sure that the senior Democrat senator from Nevada has enough marbles to comprehend what Cubachi or Marco Rubio or the good folks at African American Conservatives or LtC. Allen West are saying to him and his party.
Perhaps, in November, we will be able to explain in terms simple enough for even Senator Reid to understand.
