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Mel Martinez Defends Gonzalez in Spanish on Senate Floor
St. Petersburg Times ^ | February 3, 2005 | WES ALLISON

Posted on 02/03/2005 9:25:35 AM PST by kjfpolitical

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To: fr_freak

Great post.

"If we are ever going to make any headway in this fight to save our country from decay, we must refuse to let discussion and debate be stifled by these kinds of techniques. We might as well start here."

Bears repeating.


221 posted on 02/03/2005 4:34:14 PM PST by JustAnotherSavage ("We are all sinners. But jerks revel in their sins." PJ O'Rourke)
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To: spodefly
If they were Conservative, the last thing they would do is go against tradition and custom.

Does it offend you when President Bush speaks spanish in a press conference?

222 posted on 02/03/2005 4:44:54 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: texastoo
Maybe the Republicans will get 45% of the hispanic vote next time.

We don't need it all my friend. Just a shift of 10% would be quite good considering hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in this country. I know that's gotta burn ya.

223 posted on 02/03/2005 4:46:50 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: ClintonBeGone

The hispanic vote was 65% for John Kerry. I know that has got to burn ya.


224 posted on 02/03/2005 4:50:16 PM PST by texastoo (a "has-been" Republican)
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To: ClintonBeGone

I am not going to play your game. You are a disgusting and vile person.


225 posted on 02/03/2005 4:50:48 PM PST by econ_grad
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To: texastoo
The hispanic vote was 65% for John Kerry. I know that has got to burn ya.

Not at all. Give me 20% of the black vote and we'll never see another democrat president. You display a stunning ignorance of politics and elections if you think it's important to win at least 50% of a particular ethinic demographic.

226 posted on 02/03/2005 5:15:11 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: econ_grad
I am not going to play your game. You are a disgusting and vile person.

You forgot to add 'and right'.

227 posted on 02/03/2005 5:15:53 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: fr_freak
"Martinez's support of Gonzalez is a wonderful thing. There is no need for him to do it in Spanish on the Senate floor."

Sure there is. The Rats didn't filibuster because Martinez gave them a taste of what would come! He could probably curse them out and they wouldn't know it!

228 posted on 02/03/2005 5:17:32 PM PST by BobS
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To: ClintonBeGone
Does it offend you when President Bush speaks spanish in a press conference?

It doesn't offend me. I see it for the pandering that it is, and therefore I find it disappointing, as I do any supplications to the lie of "multiculturalism".

229 posted on 02/03/2005 5:48:19 PM PST by spodefly (Yo, homey ... Is that my briefcase?)
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To: ClintonBeGone

No. I forgot to add pedantic and annoying.


230 posted on 02/03/2005 6:06:12 PM PST by econ_grad
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To: econ_grad
The Senator has shown no respect to over two-hundred years of tradition, unless I am wrong about that and there is nothing out of the ordinary in making a speech in a foreign language on the floor of the Congress.

Inserting three sentences in Spanish in an otherwise all-English speech is "making a speech in a foreign language?

Sacre bleu!

Methinks you protesteth too much.

231 posted on 02/03/2005 6:23:24 PM PST by Polybius
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To: Dominick
Most every Spanish speaking country has a dialect, Cuban, PR, Mexican, Argentine, they all have different takes on the language, and different slang.

Yeah, but you will have a greater communication problem when you have a guy from Brooklyn trying to communicate a with a Southerner. :-)

232 posted on 02/03/2005 6:34:04 PM PST by Polybius
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To: texastoo
The hispanic vote was 65% for John Kerry. I know that has got to burn ya.

Actually Tex, Bush's showing also improved dramatically among Hispanic Protestants, 63 percent of whom supported him in 2004 — a 31 percent gain over 2000. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=3&u=/ap/20050203/ap_on_re_us/religion_poll

233 posted on 02/03/2005 8:16:46 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: texastoo

Actually Tex, Bush's showing also improved dramatically among Hispanic Protestants, 63 percent of whom supported him in 2004 — a 31 percent gain over 2000. (sorry, forgot the space)


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=3&u=/ap/20050203/ap_on_re_us/religion_poll


234 posted on 02/03/2005 8:17:57 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: ClintonBeGone; texastoo
The hispanic vote was 65% for John Kerry. I know that has got to burn ya. ...........texastoo

Equating the Cuban American vote with the "Hispanic" vote is analogous with equating the Jesse Jackson vote with the "English as a first language in 1865" vote.

Senator Martinez is from the Cuban American community that gave George W. Bush 78% of its vote in 2000.

Not even Texas can claim that degree of Republican loyalty.

If it were not for the Cuban American community's tradition of overwhelming support for the Republican Party, Al Gore would have carried Florida's Electoral votes in 2000 and Al Gore would have been President of the United States on 11 September 2000.

Think about the implications of that.

Show me any other group ethnic group that can deliver a 78% vote for a Republican candidate.

*************************

Cuban American Vote Was Underestimated

Even before the world's attention turned to ballot recounts, hanging chads and courtroom dramas, Florida's 2000 presidential election campaign fell victim to a series of miscalls.

Five major television news networks relied on exit poll data from the Voter News Service, a respectable national polling organization used by news agencies for years, and mistakenly declared Al Gore the winner of the Sunshine State by early evening on Election Night.

Now, several political analysts have concluded that VNS underestimated Florida's Cuban Americans, who overwhelmingly voted Republican in response to the outcome of the Elián González case.

Sergio Bendixen, president of Hispanic Trends, our sister polling and consulting firm, said CNN relied on VNS figures and estimated that Cuban Americans make up 2 percent of Florida's Hispanic turnout. But other experts said Cubans actually make up a larger chunk of Florida's electorate.

"VNS got it wrong," Florida International University political scientist Darío Moreno said. "Cubans make up 8 percent of the Florida vote."

"Just by underestimating the Cuban American vote, the VNS poll was off by about 6 points," said Bendixen, who did analysis for CNN on Election Night.

"The minute we saw the Florida numbers we knew they were wrong." Bendixen points out that 2 percent of 6 million—the total number of voters in Florida—is only 120,000. "Yet there are easily 300,000 Cuban voters in Miami-Dade alone."

As a result of the miscalculation, VNS also reported that Bush won 49 percent of Florida's Hispanic vote to Gore's 48 percent, Moreno said.

Moreno's own analysis found that Bush won 61 percent of the state's Hispanic vote to Gore's 39 percent.

Both he and Bendixen agreed that the former Texas governor got about 78 percent of Florida's Cuban American vote.

Cubans make up the third largest Hispanic group in the United States, behind Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. But, unlike most other Hispanics, a majority of Cubans has traditionally voted Republican—due largely to the GOP's strong stance against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Some Cubans broke the tradition in 1996 when 40 percent re-elected President Clinton. VNS spokeswoman Lee C. Shapiro said the polling group stands by its estimates, although their margin of error may have been higher than usual.

"We're pretty comfortable with the estimate, even though it was probably on the low side because of the way the population is clustered," she said, adding that it was the first time VNS separated Cuban Americans from the state's overall Hispanic population, estimated at 11 percent.

235 posted on 02/03/2005 9:10:35 PM PST by Polybius
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To: ClintonBeGone

I think you are talking about Cameron County, Tx. Yes, Bush did capture that county. The Bishop of the Catholic Church ran half page ads regarding abortion in the Brownsville, Harlington, and McAllen newspapers approximately 2 to 3 weeks prior to the election. Cameron County went for Bush and Hildalgo County, the next county over went for Kerry. IIRC, no other republican was elected in either of these counties as abortion was not the issue. All the other Democrats were elected. These people are not republicans. They voted on "one issue" abortion.


236 posted on 02/03/2005 9:19:00 PM PST by texastoo (a "has-been" Republican)
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To: Polybius

I have to agree with you. It is the Cuban vote that is republican not the Mexican vote.


237 posted on 02/03/2005 9:27:59 PM PST by texastoo (a "has-been" Republican)
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To: econ_grad

If I am not mistaken, the United States of America has no official language.


238 posted on 02/03/2005 9:38:18 PM PST by xrp (Executing assigned posting duties flawlessly -- ZERO mistakes)
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To: texastoo

If you read the article, I believe it was a national poll, not specific to Texas.


239 posted on 02/03/2005 9:55:35 PM PST by ClintonBeGone (In politics, sometimes it's OK for even a Wolverine to root for a Buckeye win.)
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To: fr_freak

There is no requirement that I know of that senators speak in English on the senate floor. They have a right to speak in any language they want, and for some, I would prefer that the language they speak was something other than English, each and every time they speak. The first amendment is precious. Defend it.


240 posted on 02/03/2005 10:01:43 PM PST by Torie
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