Posted on 07/08/2008 2:30:09 PM PDT by Falcon28
Title says it all. AP...so can't post. John McCain...Hispandering 101.
McCain continues to shoot himself in the foot.
He is pandering. Look up the word "pander" in the dictionary. And you still haven't addressed the question: What does the statement "I represent AZ, where Spanish was spoken before English" have anything to do with the issues in the 2008 election. None! Unless you are pandering to illegal aliens and the illegal alien movement. Do youself a favor and do some homework. Please, enlighten yourself:
bump
Your argument however, reminds me so keenly of early 90s, when conservatives were screaming bloody heck that every Republican/Conservative who'd ever had any involvement with the CFR was a traitor.
McCain has gone to woo a population. Right, he should have stayed right on the conservative plantation where he'd NEVER "pander", eh? Sure, he could have opened his presentation right up with how he was going to drill ANWR, or halt the flow of illegal immigrants, or, or say he was once from Arizona, and he "could feel their pain".
For cryin' out loud, "I represent AZ, where Spanish was spoken before English" is a speech lede in a speech to Hispanic/Latino voters. Were you hoping he'd say: Yo Quiero Usted? Mi casa, su casa?
Did he promise to up their welfare; give unconditional amnesty to illegals? Promise a Marriachi Poet Nobel Loreate if elected? Those would would be examples of pandering.
LOL! So true. And sad too!
Arizona did not even exist until it became a territory and then a state, voted on by it's Anglo inhabitants, so therefore English was always the predominant language in Arizona.
Conversely, just as the fact that Russian was not spoken in Asia before the country of Russia was created.
To beg the question by saying that the area contained within the borders of present day Arizona once had European Spanish speakers sparsely populated within it, means nothing at all, and is sufficient proof - to me - that McCain is, in fact, pandering.
The statement is structurally false, and therefore, so are the premises that were built on it.
Thank you both for your posts. - Bill
More literally it was the boot heels of corrupt Spanish overlords that were kicked out of AZ, CA, NM and TX. The people mostly stayed right where they were and became free American citizens ... and their children after them ... and their children after them.
The vast majority of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America since then, legal or illegal, have no ancestors at all who ever lived north of the current border.
Ping a Ling.
McCain deeply believes in amnesty, which will destroy this country with a stroke of a pen. I don't see this as pandering, but rather, telling the truth, which is why I can't vote for someone whose policies will destroy this nation.
McCain became the presumptive nominee of the party with only 31% of the primary vote. He was the only top tier candidate of either party who could not win his/her home state with more than 50% of the vote. He won AZ with 48%. McCain gamed the system using the winner-take-all and open primaries to his advantage. Now we must live with the consequences of nominating a maverick as our standard bearer. McCain will depress GOP turnout, which will hurt other Reps down ballot. He is a disaster. Next stop La Raza.
And Apache before that ... but that’s not a very big voting bloc.
Also today, posted at FR, is John McCain saying he supports a man/woman marriage. Do you think he's pandering and to whom?
Let's look at his statement one more time: “I represent AZ, where Spanish was spoken before English,
Ok. He could have opened his speaking time to the Hispanic/Latino gathering with saying: I represent Arizona; and I understand (/have experience with dealing with) the problems of two languages; two cultures; two countries.
Would that have been pandering?
I did find it odd why McCain would make his statement about Spanish being spoken in AZ before English until I did some further investigation. Obviously, both languages were imposed by the European colonialists on the native population. What was the point of the remark other than to pander to the audience? And what made it even more incongruous was the fact that the overwhelming majority of his AZ constituency voted to make English the official language just two years ago. I wonder if McCain agreed with that vote. And now for the rest of the story.
John McCain, Multiculturalist: Immigration is just one problem.
"Take bilingual education. McCain has been an enthusiastic proponent of this divisive and discredited program for years. He was honorary co-host of the 1995 convention of the National Association for Bilingual Education; The New Republic reported that he wrote to convention participants that “[t]o reject a native language as a tool for teaching as well as enriching our national heritage makes learning all the more difficult and makes us a poorer nation.”
In 1998 he said, “I have always supported bilingual education programs to help students learn English. Proposals to restrict the use of languages other than English are always divisive.” That was the year that California voters approved Proposition 227, “English for the Children,” which (sort of) abolished bilingual education there.
In 1999 McCain was given the “Legislative Friendship Award” from LULAC, the League of Latin American Citizens, at which point, in the words of the Human Events report, he “hailed the bilingual education that Californians banned with the successful ‘English for the Children’ initiative last year. Insulting the motives of California voters, McCain told the LULAC banquet, ‘We don’t need laws that cause any American to believe we scorn their contributions to our culture.’” (The Los Angeles Times report noted wryly that “McCain’s remarks were all but indistinguishable from those of the vice president.”)
"Despite the fact that he mentions the long-discredited “transition” rationale for bilingual education, McCain has embraced foreign-language maintenance as the real goal, buying into the “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us” justification for Hispanic group rights. This is what he means with his frequent references to the historical primacy of Spanish in Arizona.
McCain’s ideological multiculturalism is also apparent from his longstanding opposition to official status for the English language; as he boasted on Hardball in 2000, “I have fought against English-only ballot initiatives.” He started at least as far back as 1988, when he opposed Article 28, an official-English initiative approved by Arizona voters but thrown out by the courts.
So, I think LULAC understood exactly what McCain meant by his remark, but most Americans don't.
Right. Real interesting how that came about. All parties threw mud at the original Republican nominees, and McCain came out of the mud fight with a clean shirt. It wasn't surprising to me this would happen. I think Bush Admin winning years gave "conservatives/republicans" a false bravado that they could do and say whatever they wanted about the original Repub candidates, and somehow, voila! The whole nation would be singing a kumbaya a "genuine conservative" sashay-way.
In re La Raza. If California is any indication, for La Raza et al to gain all that much power they are going to have to take on the Black Racialist Lobby, and this is no easy feat, and not for lightweights. Sure, Latino's gained on the census and picked up more power and money, but gang warfare has gotten ever so worse in eau so beautiful California. Gang lands with Hispanic/Latina gangs and rival Black gangs. It may look like the Hispanic/Latina and Black Power Brokers in CA are doing a love-in, but the rot underneath, happening in the streets of California reveals another picture very, very clearly.
Were I McCain, I'd be wooing the Latina/Hispanics, too. It's pretty obvious that black voters are not about to depart from voting for the "first black President" no matter than he has nothing to offer, no skills, no actual knowledge of how a country and an economy works.
Sounds pretty dicey to me.
ping
The conservatives don't run the Rep party. Rove and Bush decided that they didn't need the conservatives any longer and tried to win voters by co-opting Dem issues like education and prescription drugs. Bush approved McCain-Feingold over the objectives of conservatives and most of the party. He could have vetoed the bill, but didn't. His nomination of Harriet Miers was another finger in the eye of conservatives. And the final straw was the WH support of amnesty in the flawed strategy of trying to win Hispanic voters. The overwhelming majority of Reps in Congress were against amnesty, both in 2006 [S 2611] and in 2007 [McCain-Kennedy.]
Were I McCain, I'd be wooing the Latina/Hispanics, too.
If I were McCain, I would be wooing Reps and blue collar Dems, whites and blacks, who have been hit the worst by illegal immigration, which has depressed wages and cost jobs. The current unemployment rate for blacks, according to the June BLS figures, is 9.2%. Hispanics vote 60-40 for the Dems and the new immigrants will vote for the Dems in even higher numbers. They will make the Reps the permanent minority party.
The Republicans’ Hispanic Delusion Amnesty is not just wrong in principle, it’s bad politics.
It's pretty obvious that black voters are not about to depart from voting for the "first black President" no matter than he has nothing to offer, no skills, no actual knowledge of how a country and an economy works. Sounds pretty dicey to me.
That's a given and so is the fact that Hispanics [except Cuban-Americans] are going to vote overwhelmingly for Obama.
The man is insufferable.
EVERY time he opens his mouth he reaffirms my decision to sit this one out. It’s amazing.
Boy, you really have us pegged. This is exactly how I feel. /s
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