Just blame Canada
By Nevada Democratic Party
Angle’s bizarre immigration statements further show how unfit she is for Senate
A special interest group called Latinos for Reform has produced one of the most outrageous political ads of the year by encouraging Nevada’s Hispanic voters to bypass the polls.
Produced for both radio and television in English and Spanish, the ad says Hispanics have been “taken for granted” by Democrats — whom they largely supported in 2008 — because Congress hasn’t passed comprehensive immigration reform. So the ad tells Hispanics to send a message to Washington — by not voting.
How, in a representative democracy, is not voting the remedy for a perceived insult? The power, after all, is in the vote, and Hispanics make up approximately 15 percent of Nevada’s voters. Exercising their vote would be a far greater way to send a message.
But this isn’t about sending a message. It’s about suppressing the Hispanic vote in Nevada.
The group behind the ad is tied to the Republican Party, and Sharron Angle, the party’s nominee for Senate, is in trouble with Hispanics because of her opposition to immigration reform measures.
So, instead of honestly dealing with the issue, Latinos for Reform followed Angle’s playbook and tried to place blame on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Never mind that the reason immigration reform is stalled in Congress is because Republicans have walked away from negotiations and blocked it.)
Univision, the Spanish-language network, pulled the ad after a firestorm erupted, and several national groups and politicians, including Nevada’s Republican candidate for governor, denounced the ad.
Angle, however, failed to follow suit. Instead, she attacked Reid. In a statement, Angle’s campaign claimed that Reid was playing “racial politics.” That is stunningly brazen considering Angle is the one who has been playing that game. Take, for example, her ads on immigration, which have been denounced as being wrong and even labeled as race-baiting.
One ad had a picture of three ominous-looking Mexican men with the words “illegal aliens” stamped across it. Not so ironically, the picture, which was used without proper permission, was taken in Mexico. Tibi Ellis, chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Hispanic Caucus and an Angle spokeswoman, last month “condemned” another Angle immigration ad, which featuring staged video of men sneaking along a fence at night and complained that “illegals sneaking across our border putting Americans’ safety and jobs at risk.”
What does Angle have to say about all of this? She has avoided commenting directly. However, in a meeting with Rancho High School’s Hispanic Student Union last week, Angle was asked this: “Why is it that in all of your commercials you have the image of Latinos? What do you see when you hear, and I quote, ‘illegal aliens?’ ”
“I think that you’re misinterpreting those commercials,” Angle said. “I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial.”
She then tried to explain it away as mistaken identity, saying that some of the Hispanic students in the room looked “a little more Asian to me.” As if that wasn’t stunning enough, she went on to suggest that the nation’s real border security issue was along its northern border.
Blame Canada?
She can’t be serious, can she?
Sadly, she is, and that just shows her blatant disregard for Nevada’s voters. The fact that she can’t take a strong stand against the suppression of votes is bad enough, but the fact that she continues to parse words and deny the undeniable — thinking that voters will fall for it — is just further proof of how far out of touch Sharron Angle is.