Latino Blogger

What a staunch Republican defender of family values and morality looks like:

Republican Senator David Vitter (R-LA) was not only one of DC Madam’s best clients but it looks like he was also answering phone calls from Madam while House roll call votes were under way.

But even more bizarre is what was disclosed today regarding the games Vitter liked to play while frequenting hookers back home in New Orleans:

“When Republican Senator David Vitter rented prostitutes back home in New Orleans, there was “more than sex” – he liked the hookers to make him wear diapers.”

Which makes David “Family Values – Diaperman” Vitter’s campaign commercials even more disgusting.

See for yourselves.

And one would think the Trent Lott would at least make an effort to hide his racism after being kicked out of his Republican leadership position for praising Strom Thurmond and his racist policies.

Not really.

Now Lott is comparing Hispanics to his Mississippi goats.

“If the answer is ‘build a fence’ I’ve got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain’t no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, that you can keep those goats in that fence.

“Now people are at least as smart as goats. Maybe not as agile. Build a fence. We should have a virtual fence. Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple times they quit trying to jump it.”

Once a bigot, always a bigot.

And the GOP welcomed him back with open arms.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the “Stay the Course” Republican Senators who refused to debate the unpopular war in Iraq and voted to send thousands more young American men and women to die in a futile war.

MoveOn has a new ad that exposes these GOP Senators for what they are: a bunch of cowards.

The ad slams the Senators hard saying:

“They’re willing to send tens of thousands more troops to face danger in Iraq, but they don’t have the courage to face a vote.”

Don’t miss the video.

Senator John Warner’s resolution against military escalation in Iraq failed to go to debate and a vote after republican Senators decided to obstruct the measure.

Most republican Senators voted to filibuster the proposal and, therefore, voted to stay the course and support President Bush’s escalation in Iraq.

Only two GOP Senators up for reelection in 2008 voted for cloture and against the filibuster: Senators Susan Collins and Norm Coleman.

The following is the list of republican Senators up for reelection next year who voted to filibuster the measure — and hence voted to use the filibuster to in essence protect the President’s escalation policy:
Senator John Warner (R-VA)
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Senator Thad Cochran (R-MI)
Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM)
Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO)
Senator David Vitter (R-LA)
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Senator Larry Craig (R-IO)
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)

GOPers John McCain and Mel Martinez missed the vote.

And by the way, “Independent” democratic Senator Joe Lieberman also voted to support President Bush’s escalation in Iraq.

After months of campaigning and barely acknowledging the existence of a Hispanic constituency in Virginia, Jim Webb, democratic candidate for Senate has finally reached out to the Hispanic community four weeks before the November election.

In an email circulated today to registered supporters, the Webb campaign asks:

“Hola! fellow Webb for Senate volunteers…are you interested in Latino voter outreach?”

My answers would be “Are you?, “What took you so long?”, ” and “Why now when we are only four weeks before election day?”.

Webb is a former republican who served as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. He recently switched his allegiance to the Democratic Party and is now facing republican incumbent George Allen for a US Senate seat.
It seems like after turning democrat, Webb learned pretty quickly the widespread and mistaken belief of many in his new party that the Hispanic vote can pretty much be taken for granted. If Webb did not know how mistaken this belief is all he has to do is look a Bush’s Hispanic vote numbers in 2000 and 2004.

While other state leaders such as Mark Warner and Governor Tim Kaine are well known for having cultivated links with the Hispanic community of Virginia for a long time before becoming elected officials, Webb gives the impression that he is jumping on the Hispanic voter bandwagon at the very last minute. After all, this is shaping up to be a very tight race for the Senate and it is possible that this election will be decided by only a few votes. So it may also mean that the Webb campaign has finally realized that even a few Hispanic votes may count and make a difference in this election.

A few days ago Hispanic leaders from Northern VA endorsed Webb and announced the formation of “Adelante con Webb” (Come together with Webb), the Hispanics for Webb action committee.

However, Webb’s positions regarding some issues of interest to most Hispanics, particularly immigration, are not known.

His website lists general statements about education and healthcare, such as “It is vital that we take the crucial next steps to improve academic achievement in American schools” and “Jim believes that all Americans deserve access to some form of quality health care”.

These positions are philosophically nice but I would prefer to learn more about how he plans to deal with specific issues such as high Hispanic drop-out rates in high schools, funding of after-school programs and gang prevention efforts, and student loans for Hispanics to attend college, among many other issues that more directly affect Latinos.

On immigration, Webb seems to duck the more immediate issues of what to do about the 11 million undocumented workers (most of them Hispanics) currently living in our country, and the guest worker program, and prefers to focus on the much less controversial and long term issue of securing our borders saying that “Immediate action is needed to stem the flow of illegal border crossings”.

He continues saying “Once the border is secure we can develop a fair solution to other immigration issues”.

Unfortunately, he seems to ignore that while we wait for the border to be secured (a task that may take decades to attain), millions of Hispanics are being exploited, abused and discriminated, and live under constant fear of deportation.

The jury is still out on Webb, we will have to wait and see.

However, for many Hispanics in Virginia, so far it looks like voting against Allen, a self-declared bigot, may be a better reason to go out and vote in November than staying home, or voting for Webb.