“Well, here is a conservative Latino who could make the case for conservatism to young people and minorities.”
Why is race a deciding factor? Does this mean that Caucasians vote for Caucasians,Latinos vote for Latinos, etc... If that is the case then I guess the largest voting block, Caucasians, should vote for a candidate of their race.
One should vote based on qualifications and principles rather than the color of ones skin.
Bingo. The whole reason we ended with RINO Senator Martinez is that the freepers who claimed to have "done their homework" on him, hadn't done so. They formed their opinion of whether Martinez was a "solid conservative" based on his campaign website and literature (Martinez, of course, told conservatives what they wanted to hear), and didn't bother to check the guy's career history (which clearly showed the guy had liberal tendencies and was a suck up to the political establishment).
Of course the old saying is "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". You'd think Florida freepers would have learned their lesson from five years ago and scrutinized future Senate candidates more thoroughly, but sadly that does not appear to be the case. Of all the Florida freepers who backed Martinez in 2004, I've only seen one who is going to vet this year's crop of Senate candidates more carefully before endorsing anyone. The rest of them stampeded aboard the Marco Rubio express the moment he announced, simply because he's not Charlie Crist.
I'm not saying Rubio will turn out to be a clone of Martinez, but it's pretty clear alot of Florida freepers are like Charlie Brown when Lucy whips out of the football. Always verify first.
>> Why is race a deciding factor? Does this mean that Caucasians vote for Caucasians,Latinos vote for Latinos, etc... If that is the case then I guess the largest voting block, Caucasians, should vote for a candidate of their race. One should vote based on qualifications and principles rather than the color of ones skin. <<
Bingo. And again, I would add the whole reason we ended with Amnesty Mel Martinez was the whole "we need a Latino Republican to win in FL" mindset on FR (which is cute, since the caucasian George W. Bush won over far more voters in FL) I ruled out supporting Crist when he endorsed Obama's porkulus package, but with "rock solid conservative" (or so freepers claimed) Mel Martinez scoring a 60% conservative average with the American Conservative Union last year and being named one of the "top 10 RINOs" in the Senate, I don't see how Crist could be any worse.
You have RINOs like Mark Kirk in Illinois who are far more liberal (Kirk even supports partial birth abortion), so I don't why freepers aren't sounding the alarms about them instead. Bottom line is if Rubio has the best track record on the issues and the most impressive credentials for U.S. Senator, he will earn my support. Voting for him because simply because he's "not Crist" is a non-starter.
If FL freepers are so concerned about Crist's liberal tendencies, they shouldn't have cast their lot with the GOP establishment choice five years ago. Now the rest of the nation is paying for their mistake.